Despite the Western fetish for pouring scorn the concepts of authoritarianism, dictatorship, and totalitarianism, this concept aptly describes the system within which we live today.

For Havel, the very act of dissent is inextricable from the desire for truth. The dissident lives in a society where information is falsified, censored, and distorted pursuant to the whims and objectives of the communist system. This omni-obfuscation affects all domains of human life, ranging from economic information and religion to cultural expressions of national identity.