ABSTRACT
In Czechoslovakia, the conditions of life are in some respects very peculiar. Sometimes we encourage each other so effectively that it seems, even to us, that we live in the best of all possible worlds. This is because our misery is artificial. It is not caused by famine or war, but by a deliberate regression, an artificial reduction of the vital functions, an entirely new and unprecedented form of retrogression that expends unheard of amounts of energy in compelling people to be passive.
