Jan Šinágl angažovaný občan, nezávislý publicista

I enclose a text by Jiří Krupička from Hana Lamkova's book SEARCHING FOR HOME - about a troubled century (pp. 258-275).

I quote: "In fact, almost in parallel with the increase in material standards, rich countries are experiencing an increase in mental illness, deviance and drug abuse. If the vision of a prosperous, socially just world for all people, with maximum leisure time for everyone, is realized, then only then will the question leap out in full force: What will people do in this paradise, what will they fill their free time with?No serious attempt has yet been made to answer this very fundamental question. The human mind needs nourishment and activity just as much as the body. The rich societies of today's world provide an appalling amount of bad, spoiled, or downright poisoned food, especially in their entertainment industry. The more the mind becomes idle, the more attractive, under the pressure of emptiness, bad and corrupt mental food becomes to people with an excess of leisure." - "How is it possible that such a rotten society rules the world? So ask many Muslims, scholars and ordinary people. But in their search for an answer to this question, they regularly forget a point whose omission colours their judgement in an entirely one-sided way. They do not ask, or dare not ask: how would our society fare if we criticized it as mercilessly as the West criticizes itself? If we began to pick out the worst features of our life and our culture and draw honest conclusions?"End quotes.

Unmanaged affluence, without respect for the laws of nature, always leads to tragedies, to a return to the beginning and to sanity. It will either be returned to the people, or mercilessly reminded by nature and her immutable laws. We are still just stating the wrong, unable to understand the real causes and prevent them in time. No wonder people are increasingly fond of animals - they know when they have had enough. Tomas Bata showed us a meaningful way. Shall we follow it, or shall we end up in the jungle as eternally unteachable creatures? We must each start with ourselves. JŠ