The totalitarian systems warn of something far more serious than Western rationalism is willing to admit. They are, most of all, a convex mirror of t… - Václav Havel

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The totalitarian systems warn of something far more serious than Western rationalism is willing to admit. They are, most of all, a convex mirror of the inevitable consequences of rationalism, a grotesquely magnified image of its own deep tendencies, an extreme offshoot of its own development, and an ominous product of its own expansion. They are a deeply informative reflection of its own crisis. Totalitarian regimes are not merely dangerous neighbors and even less some kind of an avant-garde of world progress. Alas, just the opposite: they are the avant-garde of a global crisis of this civilization, first European, then Euro-American, and ultimately global. They are one of the possible futurological studies of the Western world.

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About Václav Havel

Václav Havel (5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech writer and dramatist famous for his work in the Theatre of the Absurd, who became a politician and served as the last President of Czechoslovakia, and the first President of the Czech Republic.

Biography information from Wikiquote

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Alternative Names: Vaclav Havel
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Additional quotes by Václav Havel

The Communist state knew, better than the Czech-Californian philosopher, where the greatest danger to it lay; in the realm of the intellect and the spirit. That the state was less and less successful at doing so is another matter, which merely confirms how right it was to be afraid; for, despite all the bribes and prizes and titles thrown their way, the artists were among the first to rebel.

Hope is the deep orientation of the human soul that can be held at the darkest times.

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