# Transcript: The impact of the war in Ukraine on the security of the Czech Republic

## Description

Who is Otakar Foltýn



Otakar Foltýn is a military officer and an expert on hybrid conflicts, counterinsurgency, and the international legal aspects of military operations. He has been deployed in operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. He is a co-author of several books on security topics.

## Transcript

**[00:00:00]** www.hradeckesluzby.cz

**[00:00:30]** www.hradeckesluzby.cz

**[00:00:36]** Good morning. Good morning to everyone,

**[00:00:39]** who came here to the Magenta Experience Center.

**[00:00:44]** Good morning to everyone watching us live,

**[00:00:47]** from libraries, schools, and companies.

**[00:00:51]** We appreciate your support.

**[00:00:55]** I'll try a few things at the start.

**[00:00:59]** First, the usual thing.

**[00:01:03]** Please take your mobile phone,

**[00:01:06]** because the breakfast we've been streaming for 11 years is interactive.

**[00:01:12]** Please enter www.slajdu.com on your phone,

**[00:01:18]** and the hashtag is Brain.

**[00:01:20]** And those of you watching live on redbutton.edu,

**[00:01:24]** can already ask questions under the stream.

**[00:01:29]** The first question I have for you to test the connection is,

**[00:01:34]** whether this is your first time having breakfast with us or if you've been before.

**[00:01:38]** I see many familiar faces here, but don't just watch—vote,

**[00:01:42]** and you at home, vote with us too.

**[00:01:45]** I see it's already running somehow,

**[00:01:49]** so we'll leave it open for a moment so you can try it out,

**[00:01:54]** and prepare any questions you might have,

**[00:01:57]** because I expect there will be many today.

**[00:02:01]** I want to thank T-Mobile once again,

**[00:02:04]** and Magenta Experience Center for hosting us.

**[00:02:07]** During the broadcast, this magical QR code will appear,

**[00:02:12]** which will take you to something we call a shortcut,

**[00:02:15]** which is the Red Button network newsletter.

**[00:02:18]** So if you want to get news not only about Brain and Breakfast,

**[00:02:22]** but also about what we do in our network, you definitely can.

**[00:02:26]** And to keep it short today, because I think the topic is serious and there are more qualified people here,

**[00:02:30]** I'd like to welcome Colonel Otakar Foltýn among us.

**[00:02:34]** Come join us.

**[00:02:38]** Thank you very much for making time for us.

**[00:02:40]** Here, I pass the baton.

**[00:02:44]** You all know why this topic matters,

**[00:02:47]** you know what it relates to,

**[00:02:51]** and you know what today's about.

**[00:02:56]** You know the Colonel, so I hand over the baton,

**[00:03:00]** and I look forward to your lecture. Thanks.

**[00:03:03]** Good day.

**[00:03:05]** This lecture won't be very cheerful,

**[00:03:08]** because we will primarily talk about security.

**[00:03:12]** The Czech Republic, like the vast majority of European countries,

**[00:03:16]** unfortunately valued security.

**[00:03:21]** Europe's problem is that in the 30 years after the Cold War ended,

**[00:03:26]** we were taking what is called the peace dividend,

**[00:03:30]** and unfortunately, at least mentally, it disrupted

**[00:03:35]** one of the basic attributes of the ability to deter an aggressor.

**[00:03:40]** And that is the will to deter them.

**[00:03:43]** And that will always rests on the awareness

**[00:03:46]** that something bad could happen.

**[00:03:49]** Then, when we were riding on that pink cloud,

**[00:03:53]** believing that bad times were over,

**[00:03:56]** that history of violence and violent competition was over,

**[00:04:00]** and that everyone would somehow be fine,

**[00:04:03]** at least by the second year,

**[00:04:06]** but for the smarter ones, at least by 2014, it was clear

**[00:04:10]** that this unfortunately hasn't changed in human mentality.

**[00:04:14]** The first part of the lecture will explain

**[00:04:18]** what happens to people in the context of

**[00:04:22]** why we are sometimes violent.

**[00:04:25]** It will be a bit theoretical, but I will try to always include

**[00:04:29]** some concrete examples,

**[00:04:32]** but the very fact

**[00:04:36]** that with a huge number of civilian friends

**[00:04:40]** and honestly many military ones,

**[00:04:43]** I am very often asked during various preparations and lectures,

**[00:04:47]** why people actually fight, why we do it,

**[00:04:50]** because the vast majority of people think it's irrational,

**[00:04:53]** that it makes no sense, so a simple answer to

**[00:04:56]** why it is not completely irrational,

**[00:04:59]** even if it may be nonsensical,

**[00:05:02]** is that if fighting did not have

**[00:05:05]** some evolutionary, even negative, purpose,

**[00:05:08]** it would have long ago disappeared just like all other evolutionarily unsuccessful things.

**[00:05:14]** At the end, we will get to what we should do.

**[00:05:17]** After all, the second half of the lecture will be about

**[00:05:20]** what you can do individually.

**[00:05:23]** That means how to handle the situation in the context, let's say,

**[00:05:26]** a Central European country that doesn't have Russian tanks on its borders,

**[00:05:30]** but just the fact that you're listening to this lecture,

**[00:05:33]** means that at least you are somewhat interested

**[00:05:36]** in what to actually do about it. So let's get to it.

**[00:05:43]** The answer to what to do about it is somewhat

**[00:05:46]** already in the title of this lecture.

**[00:05:49]** I will primarily talk about the concept

**[00:05:52]** always for the everyday, because the basis of what

**[00:05:55]** we will discuss is that we have a solution,

**[00:05:58]** we know what to do, but we still lack the will.

**[00:06:07]** This comes from a lecture, or rather

**[00:06:10]** a fairly old concept, about 6 or 7 years ago,

**[00:06:14]** when we tried to point out that

**[00:06:17]** society is undergoing some radicalization

**[00:06:20]** and even our society is somehow starting to slide

**[00:06:23]** down the slippery slope of badness. After all,

**[00:06:26]** you've probably experienced this firsthand on social media.

**[00:06:29]** In the presentation, which will be available,

**[00:06:32]** there are several links you can check out,

**[00:06:35]** and I really recommend

**[00:06:38]** watching Philip Zimbardo on TEDx.

**[00:06:41]** It's 20 minutes of pure, rich information,

**[00:06:44]** which I promise after 25 minutes

**[00:06:47]** will really explain how it works,

**[00:06:50]** and there are many practical examples,

**[00:06:53]** which we won't have time for today.

**[00:06:56]** I say without exaggeration that this will be

**[00:06:59]** probably one of the most important 20 minutes of your life.

**[00:07:02]** And I really am not exaggerating.

**[00:07:05]** The one thing I would like you to take away,

**[00:07:08]** if you forget everything else from this lecture,

**[00:07:11]** is something very simple,

**[00:07:14]** but in reality, it's something

**[00:07:17]** most people have to figure out on their own.

**[00:07:20]** And honestly, most people never figure it out for most of their lives,

**[00:07:23]** or rather, they don't admit it.

**[00:07:26]** Each of you, or rather the vast majority of you,

**[00:07:32]** if you were in the wrong moment

**[00:07:38]** in the wrong place with the wrong leaders,

**[00:07:42]** they would probably do it with conviction,

**[00:07:45]** that they are on the right side.

**[00:07:48]** I'm not exaggerating. In a moment, we'll show several concrete examples,

**[00:07:51]** why this is the case,

**[00:07:54]** but the basic education is,

**[00:07:57]** that human nature contains both good and evil,

**[00:08:00]** both of which exist,

**[00:08:03]** and except for a very small portion

**[00:08:06]** of psychopathic and sociopathic individuals,

**[00:08:09]** who are basically the reds,

**[00:08:12]** the vast majority of murderers,

**[00:08:15]** Gestapo officers, communist guards,

**[00:08:18]** and all those people you can retrospectively identify in history

**[00:08:21]** as negative,

**[00:08:24]** the overwhelming majority of them were originally people

**[00:08:27]** just like those sitting in this room.

**[00:08:30]** Only when you realize,

**[00:08:33]** that you can be both,

**[00:08:36]** do you create the possibility to vaccinate yourself

**[00:08:39]** against becoming the bad one.

**[00:08:42]** It doesn't necessarily have to end with you

**[00:08:45]** being a concentration camp guard, which probably won't happen,

**[00:08:48]** but it can quite easily end with

**[00:08:51]** you voting for radical parties out of anger, frustration, or dissatisfaction,

**[00:08:54]** who will do the rest for you.

**[00:09:00]** So everyone imagines they are on the right side,

**[00:09:03]** and only sociopaths

**[00:09:06]** completely without scruples admit to themselves

**[00:09:09]** and others that they don't care about good or evil,

**[00:09:12]** that their own benefit decides for them.

**[00:09:15]** Everyone else can be manipulated

**[00:09:18]** and can become the bad ones.

**[00:09:21]** So how to get out of this?

**[00:09:24]** Realize that this vaccination

**[00:09:27]** happens before the real situation arises,

**[00:09:30]** when the bread is breaking. Remember a situation,

**[00:09:33]** when you were in the environment

**[00:09:36]** of a so-called inactive bystander,

**[00:09:39]** meaning some ordinary situation,

**[00:09:42]** For example, some aggressor at the bus stop gets drunk

**[00:09:45]** and starts picking on someone weaker,

**[00:09:48]** who is waiting for the bus.

**[00:09:51]** Notice who takes any action, who moves.

**[00:09:54]** There is some logic to it, we will explain why people remain inactive,

**[00:09:57]** but the bad news is that this is normal.

**[00:10:00]** The good news is that you can unlearn being inactive and learn to be an everyday hero.

**[00:10:06]** If we can vaccinate society against becoming bad

**[00:10:13]** and explain the right processes and how to behave in normal life,

**[00:10:18]** this is the only effective way to prevent what happened in its pure form in Russia,

**[00:10:26]** and what somewhat happened in Hungary or Slovakia.

**[00:10:31]** A quote from Professor Raděl, a Holocaust survivor,

**[00:10:41]** which applies to concentration camps but also to any other environment,

**[00:10:46]** he states three basic rules.

**[00:10:48]** You shall not steal, you shall not harm, and you shall help if you can.

**[00:10:52]** In other words, not everyone can join the army, not everyone can volunteer on the Ukrainian front.

**[00:11:00]** Not everyone has the physical and mental capacity to fight,

**[00:11:04]** but everyone can do something positive to maybe prevent the fight.

**[00:11:16]** So let's see if this moves you.

**[00:11:22]** I'll skip some parts because it would be too much to read,

**[00:11:25]** but I often use this slide from 1936.

**[00:11:32]** It shows the launch of a warship in secular Germany,

**[00:11:38]** and everyone present was giving the Nazi salute except the man in the circle who did not raise his arm.

**[00:11:44]** People like stories, so let's finish this one.

**[00:11:49]** That man was a member of the NSDAP.

**[00:11:53]** He fell in love with a Jewish woman and married her.

**[00:11:56]** By 1936 it was clear it was harming him.

**[00:12:00]** But he simply liked them.

**[00:12:02]** He understood that in 1934 it might not have been clear,

**[00:12:06]** but by 1936 it was obvious the state had gone completely wrong,

**[00:12:10]** and that the friends and workers he worked with in the shipyards

**[00:12:16]** were now on the wrong side.

**[00:12:18]** But he did not raise his arm. Do you know what risk he faced for not raising it?

**[00:12:21]** In 1936, nothing. No, in 1936 absolutely nothing.

**[00:12:25]** Nothing happened to him either.

**[00:12:27]** Two years later he was drafted into the Wehrmacht.

**[00:12:30]** Four years later his wife was sent to a concentration camp,

**[00:12:34]** and two years after that she was murdered.

**[00:12:40]** The important thing is that in 1936, no one faced consequences

**[00:12:46]** for not raising their arm, and everyone around him knew that.

**[00:12:50]** He was not in danger of death, and nothing happened to him either.

**[00:12:53]** He simply went home, and no police investigated him.

**[00:12:56]** Basically, no one cared that he didn’t raise his hand.

**[00:13:00]** The problem was that all the others knew,

**[00:13:03]** that nothing would happen to them whether they raised their hand or not.

**[00:13:06]** And that was the reason why some of them, a few years later,

**[00:13:11]** guarded the concentration camps, and a few years after that,

**[00:13:15]** herded naked people into gas chambers.

**[00:13:21]** Because every story should have an ending, unfortunately this one has a sad ending.

**[00:13:24]** I already said that his wife was murdered during the Holocaust,

**[00:13:27]** and this everyday hero fell as a Wehrmacht soldier in Yugoslavia.

**[00:13:35]** The first rule you need to remember,

**[00:13:38]** to avoid sliding down the slippery slope of evil,

**[00:13:41]** comes from the Bible, because if any of you

**[00:13:47]** realize that the Ten Commandments don’t end with the tenth commandment,

**[00:13:50]** and the commandments continue.

**[00:13:53]** And one of the other commandments, which I claim is far more important,

**[00:13:56]** than 'You shall not take the name of God in vain,' is

**[00:13:59]** 'Do not join the majority in doing wrong.'

**[00:14:02]** In other words, don’t do this.

**[00:14:05]** It’s one of the most important rules

**[00:14:08]** you can learn in life, and one of the most ignored,

**[00:14:12]** usually unconsciously, rules you will experience in life.

**[00:14:16]** And basically, very likely,

**[00:14:19]** with a probability bordering on certainty,

**[00:14:22]** each of you has found yourself in this situation and made decisions

**[00:14:25]** that were wrong, simply because you were cowardly,

**[00:14:28]** comfortable, or just didn’t notice,

**[00:14:31]** because no one told you.

**[00:14:36]** To bring some good news, now we will make

**[00:14:39]** a Třimrman-style sidestep and look at

**[00:14:42]** where we are actually doing quite well.

**[00:14:45]** Contrary to common beliefs,

**[00:14:48]** which come from watching TV,

**[00:14:51]** seeing what’s happening in Syria, in Israel,

**[00:14:54]** and in Ukraine, despite all of this,

**[00:14:57]** and despite the horrors you see in daily news,

**[00:15:00]** it’s good to realize that you live

**[00:15:03]** in the least violent period in human history.

**[00:15:06]** Never proportionally to the population size

**[00:15:09]** There has never been less violence than now.

**[00:15:12]** The bad news is, can it change?

**[00:15:15]** The good news is, it's unlikely,

**[00:15:18]** because future totalitarianism

**[00:15:21]** will have a much more cyber form

**[00:15:24]** than the physical concentration camps,

**[00:15:27]** which doesn't necessarily mean it's better or worse.

**[00:15:30]** Why do you have the Eiffel Tower

**[00:15:33]** and a native on the picture?

**[00:15:36]** That story was often used

**[00:15:39]** by Professor Sokol,

**[00:15:42]** so I'll borrow it a lot.

**[00:15:45]** In the 1930s, the French Foreign Legion

**[00:15:48]** defeated a tribe of native Algerians,

**[00:15:51]** and instead of killing their chief,

**[00:15:54]** they took him to Paris, showed him Moulin Rouge,

**[00:15:57]** Champs-Élysées, the Eiffel Tower,

**[00:16:00]** and also factories, barracks, plants,

**[00:16:03]** bridges over the Seine, and so on.

**[00:16:06]** The point was to show him

**[00:16:09]** that while you sit around a burning pile of camel dung at night,

**[00:16:12]** France is so powerful

**[00:16:15]** that it can afford such a high culture.

**[00:16:18]** The goal was to impress him enough to collaborate

**[00:16:21]** with the government and stop raiding at dawn.

**[00:16:24]** Which, by the way, was very foolish,

**[00:16:27]** because that would have divided me throughout history

**[00:16:30]** and it works quite well.

**[00:16:33]** And what do you think he said after they showed him Paris

**[00:16:36]** and all those wonders of civilization?

**[00:16:39]** They asked what really amazed him,

**[00:16:42]** expecting him to list all the cultural signs of superiority

**[00:16:45]** of the free, democratic, capitalist society,

**[00:16:48]** which were obvious and indisputable.

**[00:16:51]** But instead, he said something very surprising.

**[00:16:54]** Well, that's all nice, but the only thing that really surprises me

**[00:16:57]** is that practically all men

**[00:17:00]** walk the streets unarmed.

**[00:17:03]** In other words, for him the biggest cultural shock

**[00:17:06]** was the fact that you don't need a weapon.

**[00:17:09]** to function in a normal, surprised life.

**[00:17:12]** Which perfectly shows the difference

**[00:17:15]** between primitive forms of state reporting

**[00:17:18]** and developed states that have taken the monopoly on violence

**[00:17:21]** and don't need that violence in everyday practice.

**[00:17:24]** An ideal test you can do,

**[00:17:27]** even tonight,

**[00:17:30]** after dark when you go home,

**[00:17:33]** look at the people ahead of you and try to catch up to them.

**[00:17:36]** Speed up a bit and catch up to the people in front.

**[00:17:39]** Count how many people look back.

**[00:17:42]** If someone looks back,

**[00:17:45]** it's either a former soldier from Afghanistan

**[00:17:48]** or maybe a police officer,

**[00:17:51]** but the vast majority, including young unarmed women,

**[00:17:54]** won't look back. Why? Because they are not afraid.

**[00:17:57]** They simply aren't afraid that someone will kill them tonight,

**[00:18:00]** rape or destroy them. Not that it couldn't happen,

**[00:18:03]** but the probability of such an act is so low,

**[00:18:06]** that people just don't look back and automatically assume

**[00:18:09]** that the pedestrian approaching from behind is someone

**[00:18:12]** who is not dangerous.

**[00:18:15]** It's a completely incomprehensible situation; he just didn't understand it.

**[00:18:18]** He couldn't imagine that people aren't afraid.

**[00:18:24]** The graph isn't there for you to read the individual data,

**[00:18:27]** it's there just to show you

**[00:18:30]** how,

**[00:18:33]** you probably can't see it,

**[00:18:36]** so I have to describe it to you, violence has evolved.

**[00:18:39]** In all those upper, long rows,

**[00:18:44]** you have the number of victims of violence,

**[00:18:47]** caused by war

**[00:18:50]** or organized violence as such.

**[00:18:53]** And the bold small rows below

**[00:18:56]** are rows of victims of violence

**[00:18:59]** for example in the 19th and 20th centuries,

**[00:19:02]** including the First and Second World Wars.

**[00:19:05]** In other words, single-digit percentages

**[00:19:08]** in industrial warfare

**[00:19:11]** are completely negligible compared to

**[00:19:14]** with 15%, in extreme cases up to 60%

**[00:19:17]** victims of unorganized, crude,

**[00:19:20]** brutal violence in societies,

**[00:19:23]** where violence is not monopolized.

**[00:19:26]** If you project this yourself

**[00:19:29]** onto individual criminal violence,

**[00:19:32]** here is an example from Europe

**[00:19:35]** from the 13th to the end of the 19th century

**[00:19:39]** and you see that all these graphs

**[00:19:42]** actually fall geometrically.

**[00:19:45]** If you want to find

**[00:19:48]** where the Czech Republic is,

**[00:19:51]** it would be somewhere at the level of the blue curve,

**[00:19:54]** that is Germany and Switzerland,

**[00:19:57]** and during the reign of Charles IV,

**[00:20:00]** that beautiful industry.

**[00:20:00]** the fairy-tale era you know from Night on Karlštejn and similar,

**[00:20:04]** which was neither beautiful nor fairy-tale and certainly not without violence,

**[00:20:07]** apart from war violence, the criminal violence you see on the slide

**[00:20:11]** caused basically 40 times more victims of violence than today.

**[00:20:16]** It was probably even more.

**[00:20:20]** So, what are the motives of aggression? And now we get to the question

**[00:20:24]** why are we actually aggressive and what is it good for?

**[00:20:28]** The basic reasons are basically three.

**[00:20:31]** Here you have causes from various theorists, academics,

**[00:20:37]** but they are basically very simple.

**[00:20:38]** The first one is the one you would guess immediately, with absolute certainty,

**[00:20:42]** and that is material interest.

**[00:20:43]** You simply want to gain something, you need territory, resources,

**[00:20:49]** economic yield or oil and money.

**[00:20:52]** Most people automatically understand that this is the main reason for war.

**[00:20:55]** No, the other reasons are just as important

**[00:20:58]** and are usually even more frequent causes of war

**[00:21:00]** than the material interest itself.

**[00:21:02]** The second reason is fear and the third is glory.

**[00:21:08]** Although these reasons may cause you cognitive dissonance,

**[00:21:14]** making you think that you want to use violence because you want something,

**[00:21:18]** and some fear or glory are irrelevant beside that.

**[00:21:20]** We will explain why that is not the case.

**[00:21:26]** Imagine you live in a time or environment,

**[00:21:29]** in which that Algerian rebel lived, meaning, there is no state there

**[00:21:33]** and various tribes coexist side by side

**[00:21:36]** functioning based on clan society.

**[00:21:40]** If we stay on that slide from your left perspective,

**[00:21:46]** let's imagine some aggressor and it's important to realize

**[00:21:48]** that in this environment anyone who is an aggressor today

**[00:21:51]** can be a defender next year and vice versa, meaning,

**[00:21:54]** it's not something you have to

**[00:21:58]** morally judge the aggressor, bad defender is good,

**[00:22:01]** not all of them will be aggressors over time,

**[00:22:04]** but at this moment some tribe has no harvest, their children are dying of hunger

**[00:22:09]** and they become aggressors because the neighboring tribe doesn't want to share,

**[00:22:13]** because they think they have little themselves

**[00:22:15]** and at this moment they become victims of aggression

**[00:22:18]** of the Algerian tribe or quite calmly

**[00:22:21]** a European or anyone else who needs to gain

**[00:22:24]** resources to survive the winter.

**[00:22:27]** At the moment the aggressor tribe attacks, it is logically a predator,

**[00:22:32]** meaning it wants to gain something,

**[00:22:34]** in this case the primary reason is material

**[00:22:37]** and the victim will seek revenge, defend themselves, or retaliate.

**[00:22:43]** If we sum it up in a very simple situation

**[00:22:46]** and always, to bring it to an individual level,

**[00:22:48]** let's imagine, excuse the crude example,

**[00:22:54]** but here primarily the girl in blue will be the partner

**[00:22:58]** of the man in the black shirt.

**[00:22:59]** But I decide that I like her too and I want her.

**[00:23:06]** The man in the black shirt has a simple option,

**[00:23:08]** to leave and go home, which will undoubtedly not please the girl in blue,

**[00:23:13]** but it will please me,

**[00:23:15]** or he says, I will defend myself.

**[00:23:18]** The result will be that we simply fight.

**[00:23:21]** You automatically assume the aggressor is a hundred-kilogram soldier,

**[00:23:24]** who probably has some training and you will likely lose.

**[00:23:27]** Which also won't please the girl in blue.

**[00:23:30]** The way you can intimidate me, and here we get to intimidation,

**[00:23:35]** is very simple, namely that you show me

**[00:23:38]** I will fight under any circumstances, I won't give it to you for free

**[00:23:41]** and even if you win, you'll leave with a broken face

**[00:23:44]** and it will probably be hard to explain that to your wife in the evening.

**[00:23:46]** And you will rely on the fact that the wives will be more afraid than you, that's true.

**[00:23:52]** That courage you will show,

**[00:23:55]** I will defend myself under any circumstances,

**[00:23:57]** and your victory will hurt you,

**[00:23:59]** it will mean that

**[00:24:01]** maybe you are not stronger, but you are determined enough,

**[00:24:04]** that your determination will act as a deterrent.

**[00:24:07]** If we take this to the international level,

**[00:24:09]** look at tiny Estonia,

**[00:24:11]** which obviously

**[00:24:13]** has an indisputably smaller army than the Russian Federation.

**[00:24:16]** And if at this moment the Russian Federation decided

**[00:24:19]** to occupy

**[00:24:20]** Estonia or seize the Blue Girl,

**[00:24:24]** the only way the seemingly weaker defender would deter the aggressor

**[00:24:28]** would be that

**[00:24:29]** you, like Estonia, say

**[00:24:31]** I will defend myself, and even if I get hit, your victory will hurt.

**[00:24:35]** In other words,

**[00:24:37]** even a seemingly weaker player

**[00:24:39]** can deter a stronger aggressor,

**[00:24:42]** if they have the will.

**[00:24:45]** The very fact that

**[00:24:49]** you have that will,

**[00:24:50]** in the environment we see in the picture, means

**[00:24:53]** you say, look, I'm afraid,

**[00:24:55]** that the rough green brain might go for it,

**[00:24:59]** and you solve the situation simply by attacking first

**[00:25:01]** and hitting me from behind with an ashtray when I'm not looking.

**[00:25:05]** Which is

**[00:25:06]** the second reason for war, meaning your completely justified fear that I might be aggressive,

**[00:25:11]** and you solve the situation before it happens,

**[00:25:14]** because you find the right moment to do it.

**[00:25:17]** Estonia obviously can't do that,

**[00:25:19]** because first, it respects international law, and second, it is far too weak

**[00:25:22]** to ever hit Russia with an ashtray.

**[00:25:26]** However,

**[00:25:28]** the defender's determination to defend and be a hero under any circumstances,

**[00:25:33]** even if I lose, leads to increasing your prestige.

**[00:25:37]** And in every situation

**[00:25:39]** will the paper-weak defender show,

**[00:25:42]** I won't back down, I will always fight, I will do it.

**[00:25:45]** If we take the example of Estonia, Estonia openly has a doctrine,

**[00:25:50]** that in case of a Russian attack, its tiny army fights a delaying battle,

**[00:25:54]** retreats to the allies, and the entire reserve forces remain on the territory,

**[00:25:58]** let themselves be crossed by the enemy and engage in guerrilla warfare.

**[00:26:01]** They will simply annoy the Russians like partisans.

**[00:26:04]** And the Russians remember that the Estonians held out like forest brothers for 15 years.

**[00:26:07]** In the end, the Russians won, but that victory was hollow.

**[00:26:11]** And now NATO will join you.

**[00:26:13]** In other words, we have just explained,

**[00:26:16]** that the aggressor's desire to seize something

**[00:26:19]** is restrained by the defender's determination

**[00:26:24]** to be proactively brave even when they have no chance.

**[00:26:31]** And in the past, it was in a situation that was advantageous for him,

**[00:26:33]** so he himself became the aggressor, which now really does not threaten.

**[00:26:37]** But you do all this in a way to maintain your maximum prestige,

**[00:26:42]** which depends on always fighting, never giving up.

**[00:26:46]** In other words, to gain something, to attack out of fear,

**[00:26:50]** or to have such high prestige that the attacker understands

**[00:26:54]** that an attack would be costly for him,

**[00:26:55]** are all reasons for war.

**[00:26:57]** And now we haven't even addressed whether the war is legitimate,

**[00:26:59]** whether my or your violence is right or wrong, that doesn't matter.

**[00:27:03]** But mechanically, it works this way.

**[00:27:06]** In the international environment, we call this the security paradox,

**[00:27:10]** which means that sometimes even a state that does not want to fight attacks.

**[00:27:14]** For example, you can imagine the Czech daily war in 1967,

**[00:27:17]** when Israel preemptively attacked the Arab states,

**[00:27:22]** which had one, maybe two days before they would attack themselves.

**[00:27:26]** Israel feared this would happen,

**[00:27:31]** and it later turned out they were right,

**[00:27:33]** that the attack would indeed have happened very soon,

**[00:27:34]** so they attacked first and won because of it.

**[00:27:37]** Although they did not want to fight themselves.

**[00:27:41]** So you have a perfect example of fighting out of fear, not because they wanted to gain something.

**[00:27:42]** What about the others now?

**[00:27:44]** Let's imagine your deterrence wouldn't work

**[00:27:53]** and we will actually fight.

**[00:27:54]** We'll start throwing chairs at each other now,

**[00:27:57]** and at that moment, all of you step in,

**[00:27:59]** because you might not even know why you should have us as enemies.

**[00:28:02]** But it will bother you,

**[00:28:04]** that we're throwing chairs at each other and someone among you could get hurt.

**[00:28:08]** The relationship between the two of us, if we were states, would be war.

**[00:28:12]** The relationship between the two of us and all the others,

**[00:28:14]** who say, hey guys, go settle this outside,

**[00:28:17]** would be law.

**[00:28:18]** Everyone else says, the rule is, go outside.

**[00:28:22]** The moment we go outside,

**[00:28:24]** the rule is fulfilled

**[00:28:26]** and you have shown that together you have the power to impose a rule on us two,

**[00:28:30]** which we otherwise would not respect.

**[00:28:32]** In other words, we created a very simple, yet still a law.

**[00:28:36]** When we move to the state level,

**[00:28:39]** there is a monopoly on violence,

**[00:28:41]** and we all know, not just the two of us, but all of you know,

**[00:28:44]** that we must not fight,

**[00:28:46]** so we won't fight,

**[00:28:48]** because the police would come and forbid it to all of us,

**[00:28:51]** because the police are at that moment the only ones

**[00:28:53]** who can legally use violence,

**[00:28:55]** because the state holds the monopoly on violence.

**[00:28:57]** And because it holds it effectively,

**[00:28:59]** the test with the pedestrians that you'll do tonight,

**[00:29:02]** will work, and that's why those pedestrians won't look back

**[00:29:05]** when you approach them,

**[00:29:06]** because they believe the monopoly on violence works.

**[00:29:09]** Unfortunately, this does not apply in states

**[00:29:13]** where the rule of law does not function,

**[00:29:16]** where there is no police, in other words, where the monopoly on violence is not held.

**[00:29:20]** On the contrary, it applies perfectly in totalitarian states,

**[00:29:23]** where even ordinary police walk around with less armament

**[00:29:27]** and less violent appearance than in regular democratic states,

**[00:29:33]** because if among us there are those who remember, for example,

**[00:29:37]** the national security forces, you know they walked around in work uniforms

**[00:29:40]** and carried a small pistol at their side,

**[00:29:42]** because just like in Nazi Germany,

**[00:29:45]** The real violence was in the prisons, not on the streets.

**[00:29:50]** In other words, the moment a mafia group,

**[00:29:54]** whether Nazis, communists, or something similar,

**[00:29:56]** takes power, the visible violence...

**[00:30:00]** disappears from the streets and moves into the torture chambers.

**[00:30:03]** This is just a side note for those who have a problem with

**[00:30:06]** the fact that in Russia it seems like there is order.

**[00:30:09]** Well, there is order there because

**[00:30:12]** the mafia holds the power.

**[00:30:15]** So, is violence

**[00:30:18]** a human nature? Yes, it is.

**[00:30:21]** However, throughout history we have tried

**[00:30:24]** to somehow limit the negative consequences of violence,

**[00:30:27]** and we have been successful.

**[00:30:39]** From this slide, it would be enough if you remember

**[00:30:42]** that people give up part of their rights,

**[00:30:45]** for example,

**[00:30:48]** the person attacked by me would give up

**[00:30:51]** part of their right to defend themselves in favor of the state,

**[00:30:54]** because they rely on the police to come and resolve it,

**[00:30:57]** and in most cases, they are right.

**[00:31:00]** The state leaves people the right to self-defense,

**[00:31:03]** but does not leave them the right to revenge.

**[00:31:06]** That means you can defend yourself if the police don't arrive in time,

**[00:31:09]** but you must not take revenge.

**[00:31:12]** At first glance, this seems obvious,

**[00:31:15]** but in reality, it is human nature.

**[00:31:18]** It means the very fact that you give up your right,

**[00:31:21]** and let the state carry out that revenge by

**[00:31:24]** holding a trial and punishing the criminal,

**[00:31:27]** thus taking revenge on your behalf.

**[00:31:30]** This trust, when it happens,

**[00:31:33]** means your state functions.

**[00:31:36]** If you come to the conclusion that the state won't do it for you,

**[00:31:39]** as is common in Afghanistan,

**[00:31:42]** you will rely on some city council,

**[00:31:45]** or on yourself, or on your clan.

**[00:31:48]** Or on tribal states, which by the way also have their own type of legal system,

**[00:31:51]** though very primitive.

**[00:31:56]** You can very often encounter that,

**[00:31:59]** that we still have a somewhat culturally rooted idea in our minds

**[00:32:02]** of the noble savage,

**[00:32:05]** which Jean-Jacques Rousseau basically

**[00:32:08]** somewhat inseminated

**[00:32:12]** into our cultural consciousness.

**[00:32:15]** And within that idea,

**[00:32:18]** if we transfer it to pop culture,

**[00:32:21]** the beautiful, good, kind, and moral Winnetou

**[00:32:24]** was on the right side

**[00:32:27]** and basically fought for good.

**[00:32:30]** In reality, very likely the model for Winnetou

**[00:32:33]** was the Apache chief Geronimo,

**[00:32:36]** who was a foul murderer.

**[00:32:39]** One of his many murders was impaling an eight-year-old girl,

**[00:32:42]** and similar acts, which you really don't want.

**[00:32:45]** But we see that Winnetou,

**[00:32:48]** who naturally brings a positive story,

**[00:32:51]** but it's a fairy tale. The life of the noble savage

**[00:32:54]** like most primitive tribes,

**[00:32:57]** was solitary, miserable, repulsive, animalistic, and short.

**[00:33:00]** So how does it work?

**[00:33:03]** And now we get to the second part of the lecture,

**[00:33:06]** where we say what impact it has on us in today's society.

**[00:33:09]** Steven Pinker in his excellent book

**[00:33:12]** The Better Angels of Our Nature beautifully shows

**[00:33:15]** the trends of the decline in violence.

**[00:33:18]** You have them on the slide, from your perspective on the left.

**[00:33:21]** The first pacification and civilization process

**[00:33:26]** is basically how the state took the monopoly on violence.

**[00:33:30]** I'm not yet talking about whether the state is democratic,

**[00:33:33]** humane, right, honest, or otherwise, we're talking about the fact

**[00:33:36]** that it took the monopoly on violence, holds it,

**[00:33:39]** and forbids violence to everyone else.

**[00:33:42]** At that moment, violence dramatically dropped

**[00:33:45]** and it's the curve from, say, Charles IV to today,

**[00:33:48]** where the level of violence simply plummets brutally.

**[00:33:51]** Today almost to nearly zero.

**[00:33:54]** Along with that, internal demons still operate.

**[00:33:59]** For the vast majority of our history, we were hunter-gatherers

**[00:34:03]** and since the cognitive revolution tens of thousands of years ago

**[00:34:07]** So we function more or less the same as always, and our brains are set

**[00:34:11]** for a group of 60 to 80 people who know each other

**[00:34:15]** and live in an environment that is permanently violent.

**[00:34:19]** This violence is not warlike in the sense of massive conflicts

**[00:34:23]** like the Second World War; this violence is all-encompassing.

**[00:34:27]** Basically, you could perfectly imagine it

**[00:34:31]** on the corpse of Ötzi, the famous Iceman from the Alps,

**[00:34:35]** whom you have undoubtedly seen somewhere in the media.

**[00:34:39]** We don't know if he was a chief, a farmer, or a shaman,

**[00:34:43]** but what we do know is that he was a very good warrior.

**[00:34:47]** Before he died a violent death,

**[00:34:51]** specifically from several arrow wounds,

**[00:34:55]** he injured or killed six other men, whose blood was found on him.

**[00:34:59]** In other words, both his appearance and what he carried with him.

**[00:35:03]** We don't know his occupation, but he definitely fought very well.

**[00:35:07]** Because he lived in an environment of permanent violence.

**[00:35:11]** This environment shapes our brains, and this is how we view

**[00:35:15]** the world around us, even within modern institutions that arose

**[00:35:19]** in the context of those six positive trends. Because we still have

**[00:35:23]** those inner demons: predation, dominance, revenge, sadism, and ideology.

**[00:35:27]** These are things you at least intuitively know. You know they exist,

**[00:35:31]** but it's very hard to admit they are also inside you.

**[00:35:35]** And of course, they are. At the same time, we have those four better angels,

**[00:35:39]** which are empathy, self-control, a sense of morality, and reason.

**[00:35:43]** The problem is that not only by reading Orwell, but also by observing

**[00:35:47]** today's situation in Russia, you can clearly realize

**[00:35:51]** that clever propaganda can easily present those inner demons

**[00:35:55]** as the four better angels. That means you will one hundred percent

**[00:35:59]** think you are doing the right thing and are empathetic toward

**[00:36:03]** your own nation, but you will calmly kill someone,

**[00:36:07]** because someone told you that positive love for your own nation

**[00:36:11]** justifies killing members of another nation.

**[00:36:15]** Thank God, there also exist those five

**[00:36:19]** historical forces, which from your perspective are on the right.

**[00:36:23]** By Leviathan, we mean the existing state that has taken the monopoly on violence,

**[00:36:27]** which is the pacification process on the other side, but it is also trade,

**[00:36:31]** feminization, cosmopolitanism, and the rise of reason. This is not

**[00:36:35]** mere wordplay, which you probably don't expect from a soldier,

**[00:36:39]** but in reality, it is the acceptance that,

**[00:36:43]** for example, women are simply less violent by nature.

**[00:36:47]** If you have more of them in politics, that politics is fundamentally less violent,

**[00:36:51]** over 90% of murders are committed by men, and it's not because they are

**[00:36:55]** morally better or worse than women, but precisely because

**[00:36:59]** they handle those pent-up demons differently or fail to handle them differently.

**[00:37:03]** Exactly the same trade, which in many cases outperforms

**[00:37:07]** long-term strategies, is very similar to war. At first glance,

**[00:37:11]** this may sound paradoxical, but The Art of War by Sun Tzu is read far more often

**[00:37:15]** by you, managers, than it is by soldiers.

**[00:37:19]** But businesspeople actually understand very well

**[00:37:23]** that the rules in The Art of War are applicable to complex societies

**[00:37:27]** and complex competition, and fundamentally there isn't that much difference

**[00:37:31]** between competition involving armed violence or competition in business.

**[00:37:35]** But at the moment you set rules within the civilizational process

**[00:37:39]** that you respect and realize that business

**[00:37:43]** can operate with the same rules as war, with a bit of peace at stake,

**[00:37:47]** it works for you and can be win-win for everyone,

**[00:37:51]** although unfairly, win-win is never 50-50, someone earns more, someone less,

**[00:37:55]** which is, after all, the principle of business. But if you realize it is win-win for all,

**[00:37:59]** you become less violent. The problem is

**[00:38:03]** when you apply this to international relations. International relations

**[00:38:07]** are by principle something that operates in a semi-anarchic environment.

**[00:38:11]** There is no world government and no one holds a monopoly on violence at the global level.

**[00:38:15]** The United Nations is a very good facilitator,

**[00:38:19]** which is something business people should understand, but it is definitely not a government

**[00:38:23]** that could say, this will happen and this will not happen.

**[00:38:27]** It is a space where you can agree, and from this perspective it works very well.

**[00:38:31]** It is not a good idea to oppose the UN. But if you understand

**[00:38:35]** why the UN is a good facilitator that allows you to reach agreements,

**[00:38:39]** we assume you accept the rules and realize

**[00:38:43]** that accepting the rules can be win-win for everyone.

**[00:38:47]** Unfortunately, but here we get to Russia,

**[00:38:51]** the Russian geopolitical school understands international relations

**[00:38:55]** as a zero-sum game. That means if someone wins,

**[00:38:59]** it means that I, Russia, have lost.

**[00:39:03]** They cannot imagine that an agreement could be better than opportunism.

**[00:39:07]** And because they believe the benefits are zero-sum,

**[00:39:11]** they are aggressive, because agreeing means

**[00:39:15]** giving up parts of your interests. It is an outdated concept,

**[00:39:19]** proven to be ineffective in the long term, but it works in Russia.

**[00:39:23]** If your purpose is not to increase the standard of living

**[00:39:27]** your population and human happiness in general, but in reality

**[00:39:31]** you are a mafia structure that has taken over Russia and wants to keep power.

**[00:39:35]** That's why people often ask what Russia wants in Ukraine

**[00:39:39]** and the answer is that it doesn't matter what Russia wants in Ukraine.

**[00:39:43]** What matters is that Putin wants to keep power and will do anything for it,

**[00:39:47]** whether it relates to Ukraine or not. I digressed a bit with those five historical forces,

**[00:39:51]** but I think you intuitively understand their purpose.

**[00:39:55]** If we go back to how

**[00:40:00]** individually

**[00:40:04]** we can address this at our own level and get to what you can specifically do,

**[00:40:08]** first realize what is happening in our society and why you feel radicalization in it.

**[00:40:13]** Besides the fact that in the 21st century

**[00:40:17]** the new information environment and social networks algorithmically

**[00:40:23]** target ads to keep your attention and have found out

**[00:40:26]** that biochemically in your brain, attention is best held by keeping you

**[00:40:30]** either scared, angry, or shocked.

**[00:40:34]** This further radicalizes you and strengthens the processes you see on that slide, please enlarge it,

**[00:40:40]** which you see on the left side from your perspective.

**[00:40:45]** We'll skip the right side, as they basically elaborate on the reasons on the left.

**[00:40:51]** The way you get radicalized in a specific situation, which at first may not be clear,

**[00:40:58]** what is right and what is wrong, is the thoughtless taking of the first step.

**[00:41:03]** It really annoys me to fill out paperwork for subsidies on my few hectares

**[00:41:09]** of land, which I farm as a private farmer. Honestly,

**[00:41:13]** it would annoy any of us, state bureaucracy annoys everyone,

**[00:41:17]** and the farmer is just angry because he cultivates his land and really doesn't want to do paperwork,

**[00:41:21]** otherwise he would do some other job. The thoughtless taking of the first step,

**[00:41:25]** getting into a tractor and driving this oversized off-road vehicle to Prague,

**[00:41:30]** only to find out that his demonstration was actually exploited by business opportunists

**[00:41:37]** and radicalization opportunists who want to build their PR on this mess.

**[00:41:43]** But only some of them take that thoughtless first step.

**[00:41:47]** By the way, that happened. Some of them simply realized they were in the wrong place,

**[00:41:51]** in the wrong company and just left. But others who took that thoughtless step,

**[00:41:56]** once there, if they found themselves in a CROWD somewhere on Malostranské Square,

**[00:42:01]** in that CROWD, diffusion of personal responsibility begins,

**[00:42:06]** and then you can dehumanize others because you say

**[00:42:11]** that Ukrainians, migrants, or even Germans,

**[00:42:16]** or French, it doesn't matter, are not people, or maybe they are people,

**[00:42:21]** but not the same kind of people as me. Once that diffusion of personal responsibility

**[00:42:27]** turns into a radical party gaining your political votes this way,

**[00:42:34]** then you are just a small step away from blindly following some authority

**[00:42:39]** and then they just uncritically adapt to the new social form,

**[00:42:43]** which says people with a big eight, a yellow star, or a Ukrainian flag,

**[00:42:49]** I can be, I can insult, I can be, and I can kill.

**[00:42:53]** These are processes that today you would say are phantasmagoric,

**[00:42:57]** this can't happen here. Well, just 15 years ago we would

**[00:43:04]** very likely not be able to imagine a constitutional official

**[00:43:07]** who says that a problem is solved by killing journalists or with a Kalashnikov.

**[00:43:11]** And you all know these are quotes from an actual constitutional official of the Czech Republic.

**[00:43:15]** And yet 15 years ago we couldn't imagine

**[00:43:20]** something like that being said in the public space.

**[00:43:23]** Passive tolerance of bad things through inactivity and indifference

**[00:43:27]** is actually what starts this process and what will also end it.

**[00:43:37]** So, what problem can the seventh most peaceful country in the world have,

**[00:43:41]** that is, the Czech Republic? Undoubtedly, from the public space you have noticed

**[00:43:45]** that the Czech Republic is said to be the seventh safest in the world.

**[00:43:50]** This is a classic example of when you can't read data, you say nonsense.

**[00:43:54]** The Czech Republic is definitely not the seventh safest country.

**[00:43:58]** It is a very safe country, as we have already shown today,

**[00:44:01]** but not the seventh safest, it is the seventh most peaceful.

**[00:44:04]** When the index, which various politicians often use for different purposes,

**[00:44:08]** is not purely about safety, but about peacefulness.

**[00:44:12]** Safety is only one of the parameters.

**[00:44:14]** But the size of the army is exactly the same parameter.

**[00:44:16]** So the Czech Republic, which is quite safe,

**[00:44:19]** but definitely not safer than Norway or Denmark,

**[00:44:24]** has a very small army, proportionally much smaller

**[00:44:28]** than the United States or France or Poland,

**[00:44:31]** but it ranks ahead of countries that in fact,

**[00:44:34]** at the level of individual safety, are even better off.

**[00:44:37]** So the peacefulness index includes other factors as well, and it means

**[00:44:40]** that we are doing very well in terms of peace.

**[00:44:43]** The Czech Republic will not attack anyone and will not assault anyone,

**[00:44:46]** but in terms of safety, we are significantly above average.

**[00:44:49]** Nevertheless, we do have some problems,

**[00:44:52]** and it is definitely not a problem with safety.

**[00:44:55]** Politics is shifting into the form of political business,

**[00:44:59]** and the principle of competition of ideas has changed

**[00:45:02]** into the principle of political marketing competition.

**[00:45:05]** Not that it was all absent in the past, basically

**[00:45:08]** marketing also played a role, but in reality

**[00:45:11]** Marketing is supposed to be just a way to compete with ideas,

**[00:45:14]** but ideas today are almost empty.

**[00:45:17]** Left and right basically no longer determine

**[00:45:20]** voting preferences and such, which you probably all feel,

**[00:45:23]** that the political world is changing for you, and the moment you have data,

**[00:45:27]** and now you do, you have perfect data from various sources,

**[00:45:30]** but actually over long time series you have huge amounts of data,

**[00:45:33]** which allows you to sell goods, but unfortunately

**[00:45:36]** also to buy political votes.

**[00:45:40]** Internal conflict can therefore grow,

**[00:45:43]** because the change happened with the new information environment

**[00:45:46]** and especially social networks, which we have already talked about,

**[00:45:49]** but because a large part of life is moving into cyberspace,

**[00:45:52]** radicalization is moving there too.

**[00:45:55]** Radicalization that Nazi Germany,

**[00:45:58]** or largely Putin's Russia basically triggered

**[00:46:01]** with a talent for evil, so in the case of Nazi Germany

**[00:46:04]** it was an intuitive talent for evil on the Nazis' side.

**[00:46:07]** In Russia's case, it's quite a clever use

**[00:46:10]** of information technology to predict

**[00:46:13]** what the population wants to hear.

**[00:46:16]** And in China's case, there's nothing to discuss,

**[00:46:19]** because it is a totalitarian country that collects data about its citizens

**[00:46:22]** so perfectly that it knows its citizens better than they know themselves.

**[00:46:25]** If your economic situation worsens,

**[00:46:28]** or it is enough that your perception

**[00:46:31]** of quality of life decreases,

**[00:46:34]** at that moment everyone

**[00:46:37]** radicalization merchants of hate

**[00:46:40]** brutally quickly jump on the trend we already talked about.

**[00:46:43]** Naturally, anger,

**[00:46:46]** dissatisfaction, or simple human misery,

**[00:46:49]** because not all so-called dissidents

**[00:46:52]** are scoundrels by nature,

**[00:46:55]** but very often they are people who fell into debt traps,

**[00:46:58]** often not even through their own fault. If your husband gets you into debt

**[00:47:01]** and you as a wife have nothing to do with it, you are still affected by it

**[00:47:04]** and you can radicalize precisely because you are angry that no one protected you,

**[00:47:07]** and partly you will be right.

**[00:47:10]** So we are immune to a certain worse

**[00:47:13]** me.

**[00:47:16]** We can only be immune to a certain extent if we understand

**[00:47:19]** that in fundamental values,

**[00:47:22]** which are

**[00:47:25]** justice, dignity, democracy,

**[00:47:28]** and above all freedom,

**[00:47:31]** the situation is black and white.

**[00:47:34]** The worst nonsense you can hear in the public space is

**[00:47:37]** that everything is influenced by perspective,

**[00:47:40]** everything is relative, nothing is true.

**[00:47:43]** These are the three basic unitary narratives of Russian information operations.

**[00:47:46]** Of course, this applies

**[00:47:49]** in the case of pension reform,

**[00:47:52]** tax reform, and naturally in many

**[00:47:55]** philosophical questions, but in no case

**[00:47:58]** is the situation gray when it comes to fundamental values.

**[00:48:01]** Fundamental values, again freedom, democracy,

**[00:48:04]** dignity, justice—these values are black and white.

**[00:48:07]** In fact, it is in a way

**[00:48:10]** a fairly simple guide on how to navigate

**[00:48:13]** the huge information jungle,

**[00:48:16]** when we live in an environment with such a vast amount of information,

**[00:48:19]** that in the vast majority of situations we need to evaluate,

**[00:48:22]** we lack expertise, we are not immunologists,

**[00:48:25]** most of you are not security experts,

**[00:48:28]** most of us don't understand football,

**[00:48:31]** okay, here I slipped a bit, everyone understands football,

**[00:48:34]** but basically in a complex world

**[00:48:37]** you navigate based on trust in experts,

**[00:48:40]** not based on your own expertise, because you simply don't have it.

**[00:48:43]** The last people who were able to

**[00:48:46]** grasp most of human knowledge,

**[00:48:49]** like Newton, lived at the turn of the

**[00:48:52]** 17th and 18th centuries.

**[00:48:55]** Since then, even the greatest geniuses of the world

**[00:48:58]** are unable to grasp most of the basics of human knowledge,

**[00:49:01]** because there is simply too much. And the way you navigate

**[00:49:04]** in a complex world is trust. That means,

**[00:49:07]** you believe that your state, at least in the basics,

**[00:49:10]** is good, that the fundamental values of that state are good

**[00:49:13]** and you trust basic institutions.

**[00:49:16]** That's why trust is the primary target of information

**[00:49:19]** operations by self-interested powers if

**[00:49:22]** you want to weaken a state like the Czech Republic, Poland,

**[00:49:25]** Germany, or Hungary. You attack it by making people

**[00:49:28]** not believe what is happening around them.

**[00:49:31]** And the way you can defend against this

**[00:49:34]** is actually very simple.

**[00:49:37]** You look at the world through the lens of basic values.

**[00:49:40]** If something around me contradicts

**[00:49:43]** freedom, democracy, dignity, and justice,

**[00:49:46]** very likely that information is a lie.

**[00:49:49]** Or as it's now called, disinformation, but I would almost ban the word disinformation,

**[00:49:52]** we just call it a lie designed to

**[00:49:55]** change the population's perception.

**[00:50:00]** If it contradicts basic values, it's probably wrong

**[00:50:03]** and I am very suspicious of it.

**[00:50:06]** If I let myself be told that everything is black and white,

**[00:50:09]** everything is a point of view and everything can be different,

**[00:50:13]** then of course I might conclude

**[00:50:16]** that nothing really makes sense and I become passive

**[00:50:19]** and start leaning towards voting for some radicalizer.

**[00:50:23]** You have every right to think the Earth is flat,

**[00:50:27]** just be careful when you approach the edge,

**[00:50:30]** that was supposed to be a joke,

**[00:50:33]** but you have the right to your opinion, not your facts.

**[00:50:36]** So if someone is such an idiot to think the Earth is flat,

**[00:50:39]** let them think so, but they really don't have the right

**[00:50:42]** and shouldn't be the ones setting navigation systems,

**[00:50:46]** because then we would all fall off the edge

**[00:50:49]** and it definitely wouldn't be the edge of a flat Earth.

**[00:50:53]** Maybe you know the Stanford experiment,

**[00:50:57]** the Zimbardo experiment,

**[00:51:00]** where students were randomly divided into guards and prisoners,

**[00:51:03]** and the guards started to torture the prisoners very quickly.

**[00:51:06]** This is how it works. As a soldier, I tell you,

**[00:51:09]** that for example, the Czechoslovak People's Army

**[00:51:13]** repeated the Zimbardo experiment four times a year,

**[00:51:16]** every time a new class started in Bratislava.

**[00:51:21]** But it works in any other situation too,

**[00:51:24]** when you suddenly find yourself somewhere else

**[00:51:27]** outside of your comfortable cultural environment.

**[00:51:31]** So we already said and are returning to

**[00:51:34]** what was at the beginning. The opposite of evil is heroism,

**[00:51:38]** but you have to cultivate that heroism beforehand,

**[00:51:42]** before a situation arises where you need it.

**[00:51:46]** Because then it can happen that you become a hero

**[00:51:49]** on the wrong side.

**[00:51:55]** The snow you see are real people

**[00:51:59]** from the 101st Security Battalion.

**[00:52:03]** The numbers above it

**[00:52:07]** show a truly horrifying fact,

**[00:52:10]** but for example, let's say who those men were.

**[00:52:13]** They were Central Bohemian members

**[00:52:17]** of the German intelligentsia or workers,

**[00:52:21]** mostly living in small German towns.

**[00:52:25]** They were no longer of military age, they were men in their sixties and fifties,

**[00:52:29]** unsuitable for frontline service,

**[00:52:32]** so frontline battalions were formed from them.

**[00:52:35]** Who would you say was the average person in these battalions?

**[00:52:39]** They were, of course, policemen, helpers, rescuers,

**[00:52:43]** there were many teachers, dentists, craftsmen,

**[00:52:47]** rural farmers, and I mentioned teachers.

**[00:52:51]** So, let's say lower, middle, and middle class.

**[00:52:55]** There were several such battalions, but this history

**[00:52:59]** was examined down to the last man,

**[00:53:02]** and five hundred people served in that battalion.

**[00:53:05]** The professions I mentioned,

**[00:53:08]** each of them on average murdered 40 civilians,

**[00:53:11]** that battalion demonstrably murdered 38,000 people.

**[00:53:14]** Those are the numbers you see above.

**[00:53:17]** They were people like us.

**[00:53:20]** If you took a psychologist

**[00:53:24]** and had him create a psychological profile of the men before going to war,

**[00:53:28]** and then did the same psychological profiles

**[00:53:31]** of an average Russian unit currently occupying part of Ukraine,

**[00:53:34]** you would find that their motives, behavior, and understanding of the situation

**[00:53:39]** would be very similar.

**[00:53:43]** That is why I have long maintained in the public space,

**[00:53:49]** that today's Russia is the third Reich in color.

**[00:53:52]** How much time do we have left?

**[00:53:55]** Alright.

**[00:53:58]** So, what are the processes that govern our cognitive sphere

**[00:54:01]** in the context of what we've discussed?

**[00:54:04]** First, the dehumanization of enemies.

**[00:54:07]** For the French, they were 'frog-eaters'; for the French, the Germans were bosses,

**[00:54:11]** or Huns.

**[00:54:14]** For Russian soldiers, today's Ukrainians are 'chocholové' (a derogatory term).

**[00:54:18]** And it's no secret that very often we,

**[00:54:21]** for example, called insurgents 'pačuanci', 'pyžamáci', 'bearded ones', and so on.

**[00:54:25]** You need that dehumanization in order to fight.

**[00:54:28]** Even a freedom fighter must create the idea within themselves

**[00:54:31]** that Heidrich is an animal who must be eliminated, and they are right.

**[00:54:35]** The problem is when an SS man in a camp

**[00:54:39]** turns that positive motivation into complete negation

**[00:54:46]** and believes that Jews are the ones who must be eliminated.

**[00:54:51]** In other words, you flip the values that were clear to everyone until that moment,

**[00:54:54]** and the pilot who shot down de Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince,

**[00:54:58]** was a fan of his books.

**[00:55:06]** And when he found out he was the one who shot him down,

**[00:55:09]** he had guilt over it for the rest of his life.

**[00:55:11]** But he shot him down because he was convinced

**[00:55:13]** he was shooting down that 'frog-eater' in the French plane, and he did.

**[00:55:15]** The next process is the deindividualization of oneself.

**[00:55:20]** If you have a crazy voter of some radical commercial party

**[00:55:26]** trading in hatred, it can very easily happen

**[00:55:33]** that he really loses it and goes to cut down trees on the tracks

**[00:55:37]** where his fellow countrymen ride, whom he claims to protect.

**[00:55:42]** By cutting down the trees to kill the leftist train,

**[00:55:46]** which is a completely crazy idea, and of course I am using

**[00:55:49]** a completely fictional example that never happened here.

**[00:55:52]** Or did it? You probably remember a few years back.

**[00:55:55]** I don't know which political party it was,

**[00:55:58]** of which he was a very uncritical supporter.

**[00:56:01]** Blind obedience to authority means that if you were to hold

**[00:56:04]** completely free elections in Russia right now, it is very likely

**[00:56:08]** that Vladimir Putin would win them. Why?

**[00:56:12]** Because there have been no truly free elections in Russia for 25 years,

**[00:56:19]** The media are controlled by the state, and the state is effectively run by the mafia.

**[00:56:23]** Most people don't have information about what is right and wrong.

**[00:56:26]** Their perception of what is right and wrong has completely flipped.

**[00:56:30]** Therefore, if you looked at

**[00:56:34]** how the communists won in Czechoslovakia in 1946,

**[00:56:39]** or the Nazis in Germany in 1932,

**[00:56:42]** you would find it was very, very similar,

**[00:56:46]** although of course we can talk about a completely different ideology,

**[00:56:49]** but the power mechanism is very similar.

**[00:56:51]** Then you uncritically conform to those social norms.

**[00:56:54]** In 1938, no German expected

**[00:56:58]** that gas chambers would exist and that pregnant women

**[00:57:02]** and elderly people would be driven into a crowd where they would be sprayed with insecticide.

**[00:57:06]** No one even thought of that.

**[00:57:08]** But they had no problem when the SA beat Jews in the streets.

**[00:57:12]** The diffusion of personal responsibility then means

**[00:57:15]** you just give up. You say, look, if others are doing it, so will I.

**[00:57:18]** Because evolutionarily, and this is true, it's better to be right with the majority,

**[00:57:22]** to be aligned with the majority, than to be right alone.

**[00:57:24]** Simply put, saying, look, there are reindeer on that hill

**[00:57:27]** and it would be better if we go to that hill, is great,

**[00:57:30]** if others listen to you. But if others think

**[00:57:32]** it's better to stand on this hill where there are no reindeer,

**[00:57:35]** you might be hungry, but if you went to the other mountain alone,

**[00:57:39]** you would die. For the vast majority of history,

**[00:57:42]** it was necessary to live in a community because alone you would be dead.

**[00:57:44]** So being aligned with the majority is evolutionarily better for you long-term,

**[00:57:50]** than being right alone. This is one of the basic rules of totalitarians,

**[00:57:53]** who know that this is how people function.

**[00:57:55]** And passive tolerance through wrongdoing and inactivity,

**[00:57:59]** we already said, the worst places in hell are reserved for those

**[00:58:02]** who did nothing.

**[00:58:06]** One last thing before we get to how to get out of this,

**[00:58:08]** reference frames. Reference frames are something

**[00:58:13]** to which you relate your thinking and the way you view

**[00:58:17]** basic values. Researchers

**[00:58:23]** Welser and Neitzel published based on studying thousands of secret wiretaps

**[00:58:29]** of German prisoners during the Second World War, which showed

**[00:58:32]** that the vast majority of them either suspected or mostly knew

**[00:58:37]** that Nazi Germany was committing massive war crimes

**[00:58:41]** and either they didn't care, or they even participated.

**[00:58:46]** You have exchanged things like basic orientation, cultural ties,

**[00:58:49]** lack of expectations, and so on. I won't read it out and we often don't explain it.

**[00:58:53]** However, if you wanted to be a marketing PR specialist for a party,

**[00:58:58]** that wants to radicalize the population to exploit this way of thinking

**[00:59:02]** for some political gain, these are all things

**[00:59:06]** that you basically turn into a narrative in PR communication of

**[00:59:12]** what you want to sell literally as an idea. And usually, in this way,

**[00:59:17]** you can of course give it a negative or positive sign.

**[00:59:21]** And if you give it a negative sign and exploit anger and frustration,

**[00:59:25]** then of course people will radicalize.

**[00:59:31]** So now, what is the positive sign and how to get out of it,

**[00:59:35]** we said, the better side of humanity is heroism,

**[00:59:39]** there are three basic rules that you can all apply in your life.

**[00:59:43]** First, don't be afraid to be different. That means, we said,

**[00:59:47]** that we are wired so that being right alone is harder for you

**[00:59:57]** where your survival no longer directly depends on what others do,

**[01:00:00]** then you really can be different by telling the truth, look, the emperor has no clothes.

**[01:00:06]** Look, this party is not about defending referendums, it's normal business Nazism.

**[01:00:14]** We say it publicly, we say it in the network, no. Because we've somehow gotten used to it being just like that.

**[01:00:20]** You act by at least acting, you do something, you don't raise your hand when new war planes are launched

**[01:00:29]** and everyone around is saluting, so you don't raise your hand.

**[01:00:33]** So you act sociocentrically, not egocentrically, but above all you act, you do something.

**[01:00:38]** You doubt because you know that even you are not immune to getting angry.

**[01:00:42]** By the way, the psychological process running in you when you are really angry that

**[01:00:48]** someone radicalizes society and your satisfaction that morally you are on the right side,

**[01:00:55]** is caused by different biochemical processes than those experienced by people

**[01:00:59]** who shout in the square that Jews should be hanged.

**[01:01:04]** Your body gives you similar substances, so doubt about whether

**[01:01:08]** we are really on the right side is very important.

**[01:01:11]** And then it is important to create alliances, because a lone hero is a dead hero.

**[01:01:15]** It is precisely the community of those heroes, even if it is a very small part of society,

**[01:01:20]** but it must be a critical mass, that can change the direction

**[01:01:24]** in which society has gone toward the negative sign.

**[01:01:31]** Where is the guide? I highly recommend the works of Timothy Snyder,

**[01:01:34]** they are available in Czech, so it's not that hard.

**[01:01:37]** And now let's illuminate those unit rules and make it harder in the remaining 12 minutes.

**[01:01:44]** Don't slouch in advance and don't approach it expecting something to go wrong.

**[01:01:49]** Accept that someone has chosen something and so we just have to endure it for the next four years,

**[01:01:57]** that we have become an Orbán-style managed democracy,

**[01:02:03]** meaning the question is whether it is even a democracy at all,

**[01:02:06]** which means that maybe in four years the elections will be less free,

**[01:02:10]** and in another eight years, there might not be elections at all.

**[01:02:13]** So don't bow down in advance, and if someone behaves like an authoritarian,

**[01:02:18]** step out of line and say that this is the case.

**[01:02:23]** What I claim is the biggest problem in most European countries,

**[01:02:27]** including the Czech Republic, is the passivity of elites.

**[01:02:30]** First, the word 'elite' has a negative connotation in the Czech context.

**[01:02:34]** We simply attach a negative sentiment to it because elite is not popular here.

**[01:02:39]** Mediocrity is what is embraced here.

**[01:02:40]** But for God's sake, Professor Holý and his invention in medicine,

**[01:02:44]** or Professor Pavko and his brilliant surgical method, and so on,

**[01:02:48]** these are members of the elite.

**[01:02:49]** And similarly, you have elites in security, sociology, and any other field.

**[01:02:54]** Without elites, we're back to banging mammoths on the head.

**[01:02:58]** So elite is a positive word, but those elites must be active.

**[01:03:02]** If most Czech academics, for example, just enjoy their own environment,

**[01:03:07]** their safe environment, their expertise, and are not socially responsible,

**[01:03:11]** then of course we can't expect someone else to replace them,

**[01:03:15]** someone who simply works from 6 to 6 and drives a tractor in the fields,

**[01:03:21]** because, for God's sake, he has a job that doesn't allow him to say to the newspapers,

**[01:03:25]** 'For God's sake, this is wrong.'

**[01:03:27]** That doesn't mean the first is better than the second,

**[01:03:30]** it means the first has the opportunity to speak publicly and have some influence.

**[01:03:34]** In our environment, elites are outrageously inactive.

**[01:03:38]** Defend institutions.

**[01:03:40]** Institutions, especially courts and media,

**[01:03:44]** are the ones that highlight what needs to be seen if the state is free,

**[01:03:49]** which we still are.

**[01:03:51]** An institution is something impersonal.

**[01:03:55]** Here, we often view an institution through who currently controls it,

**[01:03:58]** but in a democratic state governed by the rule of law,

**[01:04:02]** such an institution is impersonal.

**[01:04:08]** The person currently holding a position is only serving the state,

**[01:04:12]** not ruling or owning the institution.

**[01:04:15]** So you don't have to support whoever is currently in charge,

**[01:04:19]** but you should support the institution's independence,

**[01:04:23]** and that whoever sits there will be replaced,

**[01:04:25]** which, by the way, is the fundamental difference

**[01:04:28]** between us and, for example, Russia.

**[01:04:30]** Do you know how long Vladimir Putin has been in power in Russia?

**[01:04:34]** 24 years.

**[01:04:39]** Work honestly and be a good example.

**[01:04:42]** It's very hard to moralize when you yourself steal or beat your dog.

**[01:04:50]** Watch the politicians' language carefully and be alert the moment

**[01:04:54]** they start saying, for your security, I must do this.

**[01:05:00]** But there is a huge difference when it is said by someone

**[01:05:04]** who has expertise and has long proven

**[01:05:06]** to hold positive values.

**[01:05:08]** When Chief of the General Staff Karel Řehka,

**[01:05:10]** who throughout his career has shown

**[01:05:13]** he is a person of high moral credit

**[01:05:15]** and, by the way, understands the functioning of the rule of law,

**[01:05:18]** which is rare among soldiers,

**[01:05:20]** and says, the current army is not enough for us,

**[01:05:23]** because we are simply too few and have no reserves,

**[01:05:26]** the reaction of Czechs should not be panic about mobilization, because at this moment there is none.

**[01:05:30]** And to avoid having to mobilize, we need a system

**[01:05:34]** that allows it, so we will operate within deterrence.

**[01:05:37]** We need to know that our army will be effective,

**[01:05:40]** if needed, and then maybe you won't bear the consequences.

**[01:05:43]** But when Chief of the General Staff Řehka said,

**[01:05:45]** in case of a state of armed conflict, mobilization is needed,

**[01:05:48]** he stated a fact.

**[01:05:51]** A hydrometeorologist will tell you the same.

**[01:05:56]** And you don't attack them for threatening or scaring you.

**[01:05:59]** You accept their expertise; it rains, water levels rise a lot.

**[01:06:02]** And that hydrometeorologist then has the expertise to tell you

**[01:06:06]** what could flood.

**[01:06:09]** If you don't listen, you will suffer damage.

**[01:06:12]** But when the Chief of the General Staff said,

**[01:06:15]** a state of armed conflict means mobilization,

**[01:06:18]** because such a situation concerns the whole state,

**[01:06:21]** it caused alarm and uproar here.

**[01:06:25]** When just three days later, the same was said by

**[01:06:28]** the Swedish Minister of Defense and Chief of the General Staff,

**[01:06:31]** then, in Sweden, they came to the army.

**[01:06:40]** So the Czechs got scared and started blaming their own Chief of General Staff.

**[01:06:43]** And the Swedes pulled themselves together and went to sign up.

**[01:06:46]** Stay calm, even when something unimaginable is happening.

**[01:06:49]** A typical terrorist attack is something

**[01:06:52]** that is actually a huge tragedy for the specific victim,

**[01:06:55]** but since 2000, in Europe, as a result of terrorism,

**[01:06:58]** a thousand people have died.

**[01:07:01]** Statistically, the probability that a terrorist will kill you

**[01:07:04]** is the highest.

**[01:07:07]** Some things that happen,

**[01:07:10]** happen to a thousand people.

**[01:07:13]** Statistically, the probability that a terrorist will kill you

**[01:07:16]** in Europe at this moment is roughly comparable

**[01:07:19]** to the probability that you will kill yourself by falling out of bed.

**[01:07:22]** Yet today, everyone goes to bed,

**[01:07:25]** and you won’t look back when walking through Prague at night anywhere.

**[01:07:28]** In other words, abusing

**[01:07:31]** statistically insignificant acts of violence

**[01:07:34]** against fundamental security measures is wrong.

**[01:07:37]** And very often it is done by those

**[01:07:41]** who do not want to bring solutions to real problems,

**[01:07:44]** like floods or the war threat from Russia.

**[01:07:47]** That means they scare you with something that is statistically

**[01:07:50]** very unlikely, usually because

**[01:07:53]** they don’t know how, don’t want to, or have no interest

**[01:07:56]** in solving real threats.

**[01:07:59]** If, as a result of the tragedy

**[01:08:02]** at the Faculty of Philosophy in December,

**[01:08:05]** we install security frames everywhere,

**[01:08:08]** the probability of a similar tragedy will not decrease much.

**[01:08:11]** But if the solution to a statistically insignificant case

**[01:08:14]** of a crazy shooter hides the real security threat,

**[01:08:17]** which right now is the aggression of Putin’s Russia,

**[01:08:20]** then we will be dealing with something

**[01:08:23]** that is actually insignificant

**[01:08:26]** compared to what could happen.

**[01:08:29]** Seventeen dead due to a crazy shooter

**[01:08:32]** at the Faculty of Philosophy is nothing compared

**[01:08:35]** to what could happen.

**[01:08:41]** Don’t repeat clichés and read Orwell’s powerless authorities,

**[01:08:44]** but it's important to point out,

**[01:08:47]** that what Orwell wrote,

**[01:08:50]** please, it was not a manual, it was a warning.

**[01:08:53]** Step out of the ranks, we've already said that,

**[01:08:56]** so no need to repeat it.

**[01:09:06]** Truth exists, and I already said

**[01:09:09]** in basic terms,

**[01:09:12]** basic values are black and white.

**[01:09:15]** Basic values do not tolerate relativism

**[01:09:18]** and certainly do not tolerate different perspectives.

**[01:09:21]** Freedom is freedom, truth is truth, and truth exists.

**[01:09:24]** Be curious and try to understand it,

**[01:09:27]** and to understand it,

**[01:09:30]** don't try to master every field,

**[01:09:33]** those who explain it, or Zimbardo,

**[01:09:36]** who explained it brilliantly.

**[01:09:39]** Don't sow doubt at home, and on February 24th get off your butt

**[01:09:42]** and go to the side of the Town Square,

**[01:09:45]** because it's important that not only ordinary people

**[01:09:48]** without public influence are seen there,

**[01:09:51]** but also people like you who do have public influence.

**[01:09:54]** Talk to those around you, maintain eye contact,

**[01:09:57]** and be polite, because most people around you

**[01:10:00]** against radicalization, but your surroundings might not be. Realize that those who have fallen into the optics

**[01:10:05]** of conspiracies and think the world is controlled by Mossad, KGB, CIA, or UFOs, very often

**[01:10:13]** are just unhappy people scared by the terrifying fact that no one controls the world.

**[01:10:20]** And very often, rather than admit that no one controls the world,

**[01:10:25]** they prefer to believe it's controlled by the CIA or Mossad. But these people are unhappy and confused, so they need

**[01:10:29]** to be talked to. Of course, they can also be angry, frustrated,

**[01:10:33]** or radicalized by networks or by merchants of hatred.

**[01:10:39]** Accept responsibility for the lawful world. Beware of one-party rule and beware of party leaders,

**[01:10:43]** who think they are so good that they don't need to be replaced.

**[01:10:50]** Help out, choose a charity and contribute.

**[01:10:55]** I believe today either electronically or later entrepreneur Barta will be present,

**[01:11:00]** who sent us 50 million for Nemesis drones a few days ago.

**[01:11:08]** This is a fundamental change in passive learning and a typical example of what

**[01:11:15]** we should do, measure what we can. I gave a similar lecture

**[01:11:23]** at the Faculty of Philosophy a few months ago and at the end of that lecture

**[01:11:34]** An old older lady, maybe a few years older than me, stood up,

**[01:11:39]** and said what should I do. I'm a retiree, I have no lucrative job,

**[01:11:47]** no media influence, no social networks, but I see,

**[01:11:51]** that people around are radicalizing, that something is going wrong,

**[01:11:54]** that the world is slipping somewhere and I want to do something.

**[01:11:57]** So you know what I do? I walk around the housing estate and plant flowers,

**[01:12:01]** because I think that if there are flowers, people will be somehow more content

**[01:12:05]** and less radicalized. So I told them,

**[01:12:09]** great, do exactly what you said, because this lady,

**[01:12:13]** who is a hero of everyday life and unfortunately I don't know her name,

**[01:12:17]** is actually doing the same as Mr. Bárta did.

**[01:12:20]** He did it within what he can do, she did it within what she can do.

**[01:12:24]** But both are incredible examples of how it should work.

**[01:12:29]** So help out.

**[01:12:32]** Get your own life in order,

**[01:12:36]** because the moment you find the strength to be on the right side,

**[01:12:41]** many scoundrels will start digging into your personal life,

**[01:12:45]** and none of us is an angel. We've all made mistakes,

**[01:12:48]** we've all slipped up sometimes. So don't slip too much,

**[01:12:51]** because if you are socially active, someone will hit you hard with it,

**[01:12:55]** and even if you were Mother Teresa, they will still make something up about you.

**[01:12:59]** So it's better if it's a complete lie than if it has some real basis.

**[01:13:04]** Have you heard from friends abroad, no one is an island, not even a country.

**[01:13:09]** Watch out for armed men, watch out for clowns who dress in military uniforms

**[01:13:14]** and then stand in front of anyone's stage with some ridiculous flag.

**[01:13:19]** The army doesn't belong in political activities, neither does the police,

**[01:13:24]** and uniforms don't belong there. Except for the riot police,

**[01:13:27]** who do their job. But if you saw the ridiculous idiots,

**[01:13:31]** who a few days ago at the farmers' protest,

**[01:13:36]** were exploited for completely different purposes, they put on military uniforms

**[01:13:40]** and stood there like funny, stupid jerks, but they were in military uniforms.

**[01:13:45]** Watch out for these, because the first SA members were exactly the same.

**[01:13:49]** They were ridiculous and others laughed at them. They were just a nuisance.

**[01:13:55]** These are guys from the Slovak home guard,

**[01:14:01]** and today those who supported them are in the Slovak government.

**[01:14:06]** This is a disgrace for us, for soldiers, but the guy,

**[01:14:11]** whom you see in the picture, killed or seriously wounded

**[01:14:15]** several hundred American soldiers on Omaha Beach.

**[01:14:18]** His nickname is the Beast of Omaha. He was then a 19-year-old boy,

**[01:14:22]** a machine gunner who fired 12,000 rounds.

**[01:14:26]** And if you've seen Saving Private Ryan,

**[01:14:30]** that's the cool sword that literally executed

**[01:14:33]** dozens of Americans as they were getting off the boats.

**[01:14:36]** He fought for the first and last time in his life and then never

**[01:14:40]** shot at anyone again, but probably for his whole life,

**[01:14:44]** because he was a decent guy, he had to carry with him all his life

**[01:14:46]** the thought: I fought on the wrong side.

**[01:14:51]** We've already talked about monopolists and the last thing,

**[01:14:54]** we've also partially discussed this,

**[01:14:56]** be brave and be patriotic non-Nazis.

**[01:15:04]** The far-right scene has kind of hijacked the Czech flag from us,

**[01:15:08]** and if you see it today in some online discussion

**[01:15:11]** from someone who has the Czech flag in their profile,

**[01:15:14]** you automatically see them as someone

**[01:15:16]** who is a kind of semi-Nazi, which is a typical example

**[01:15:19]** of a very positive symbol of the Czech flag being hijacked by someone

**[01:15:22]** who is the exact opposite of what the flag symbolizes.

**[01:15:25]** If someone hijacks our flag, they must not hijack our values.

**[01:15:31]** Right now, there's no need to die, our Ukrainians are dying for freedom,

**[01:15:37]** but within the limits of possibility, it's necessary to do

**[01:15:41]** what entrepreneur Barta did or what Mrs. Krása Zikitky did.

**[01:15:45]** And when I said this at the end of the lecture,

**[01:15:48]** the young man who was moderating the lecture,

**[01:15:54]** was moved and at the very end of the lecture said,

**[01:15:59]** what to take away from the lecture, because everyone was stunned.

**[01:16:02]** The lecture was a bit harsher than today's.

**[01:16:04]** And he asked, what was your experience from Afghanistan,

**[01:16:09]** or from Afghanistan, from Ukraine.

**[01:16:11]** And in Ukraine, you see many things

**[01:16:15]** that move you and that are terrible.

**[01:16:17]** But I was deeply moved by the case of one Ukrainian woman,

**[01:16:22]** an older lady who had trouble walking.

**[01:16:25]** And when we stopped with those Ukrainian soldiers

**[01:16:27]** a bit from the front near her house,

**[01:16:29]** and in that village the houses stood along the road

**[01:16:31]** and sometimes a house disappeared,

**[01:16:33]** because a shell simply hit and the house vanished.

**[01:16:35]** And she lived in one of those houses,

**[01:16:37]** which could vanish at any moment,

**[01:16:39]** and she came out with the soldiers

**[01:16:41]** and so she brought them eggs in a paper bag.

**[01:16:43]** If you know the scene from the poets,

**[01:16:45]** where the grandmother brings eggs to Štěpánek Žafránek,

**[01:16:47]** carrying the eggs in that bag,

**[01:16:49]** this was exactly the same scene.

**[01:16:53]** And she brought them the eggs.

**[01:16:55]** The soldiers later told me,

**[01:16:57]** hey, we have food, we have canned goods,

**[01:16:59]** but the grandmother gives us what she desperately needs.

**[01:17:01]** She actually doesn't have food, we bring it to her.

**[01:17:03]** But she brought them the eggs because

**[01:17:05]** it was the only act of resistance against the Russian occupation

**[01:17:09]** that she could do.

**[01:17:11]** She simply had nothing, walked poorly, couldn't fight,

**[01:17:13]** couldn't do anything.

**[01:17:15]** Some grandmothers give apples,

**[01:17:17]** this grandmother brought eggs.

**[01:17:19]** Very likely she would later bring bread,

**[01:17:21]** because she had nothing else left.

**[01:17:23]** Unfortunately, you can't really care about those people on the front line.

**[01:17:25]** So we took it because we know

**[01:17:27]** that this is their way of fighting.

**[01:17:29]** They put the eggs in their helmets, then cooked them,

**[01:17:31]** but they said it was sillier to take them,

**[01:17:33]** but even sillier not to take them,

**[01:17:35]** because this is her fight for freedom.

**[01:17:39]** And the moderator at the very end,

**[01:17:41]** this is a lecture, I still use it today,

**[01:17:43]** said in response to what the lady who plants flowers said,

**[01:17:47]** be active and plant flowers,

**[01:17:51]** or you'll have to hand out eggs.

**[01:17:55]** Thank you for your attention.

**[01:17:57]** Applause

**[01:17:59]** So I hope, thank you very much for the lecture.

**[01:18:17]** I kind of suspected

**[01:18:23]** that it wouldn't be easy to follow up on,

**[01:18:25]** so I won't attempt any big actions

**[01:18:27]** and will try to jump straight to the questions,

**[01:18:29]** of which there are a lot.

**[01:18:37]** Good day.

**[01:18:39]** Why do you think

**[01:18:41]** the Slovak public perceives the war in Ukraine

**[01:18:43]** differently than the Czech public?

**[01:18:47]** How long should the answers be?

**[01:18:51]** Alright.

**[01:18:55]** For the same reason

**[01:18:57]** that the most cultured

**[01:18:59]** and objectively most educated

**[01:19:01]** German nation in the 1930s

**[01:19:03]** could perceive freedom completely differently

**[01:19:05]** than, for example, the Czechs did during the interwar period.

**[01:19:09]** For exactly the same reason,

**[01:19:11]** why it makes no sense

**[01:19:13]** to hang flags of the Bucha massacre

**[01:19:19]** on the pages of Moscow restaurants instead of comments,

**[01:19:21]** because the Russians actually like it.

**[01:19:25]** Slovak society hasn't slipped as much as the Russian one,

**[01:19:29]** but the mechanism is simply the same.

**[01:19:31]** If you look at what

**[01:19:33]** we discussed today,

**[01:19:35]** I'll leave it at your disposal,

**[01:19:37]** so go through it.

**[01:19:39]** These mechanisms are mechanisms,

**[01:19:41]** because they are mechanical to some extent.

**[01:19:43]** If you let passivity allow

**[01:19:47]** the bad in us to prevail,

**[01:19:49]** then that society simply becomes mostly bad.

**[01:19:53]** And the majority of those people

**[01:19:55]** don't have to hold negative values.

**[01:19:57]** It's enough if it arises from stupidity.

**[01:20:00]** Frustration or misfortune throws support behind a negative idea represented by some radical party.

**[01:20:07]** This happened to the Hungarians, this happened to the Slovaks, and in an extreme form,

**[01:20:14]** which is unfortunately utterly disgusting, it happened to the Russians.

**[01:20:18]** I might stay on Slovakia for a moment, because personally I never

**[01:20:28]** imagined that the backlash could be this fast and that we would actually see it in real time.

**[01:20:34]** What is possible to happen? Or what could happen this quickly?

**[01:20:42]** What do you think?

**[01:20:47]** It can be very fast. What shot up on the secular side

**[01:20:54]** in Germany in the 1930s wasn't the talent for evil,

**[01:21:01]** who were always for the system. They lost the previous two elections quite decisively.

**[01:21:07]** But the economic crisis and high frustration combined with the frustration from losing the first world war

**[01:21:14]** led those people to quickly lose hope and, most importantly, lose direction.

**[01:21:22]** And that is really not a matter of an educated German nation

**[01:21:28]** or a Russian peasant 50 kilometers outside Moscow.

**[01:21:34]** I used a different analogy, so I'll say it here again.

**[01:21:37]** The difference between the German Nazis of the 1930s and the Russian Putinists and nationalists of the 21st century

**[01:21:45]** is only that the Russian guys still pee in the yard to this day.

**[01:21:49]** But the basic descent into evil is simply always the same.

**[01:21:54]** And if you realize that there will always be people among us,

**[01:21:59]** who are willing and ready to live through misery, anger, rage, or sadness again,

**[01:22:08]** then you won't realize that it's not over once and for all.

**[01:22:12]** What happened in the 1930s in Europe, and by the way it was not far away,

**[01:22:16]** and it happened in Germany, as well as in many other countries, not just Italy,

**[01:22:19]** but look at the Second Republic in Czechoslovakia.

**[01:22:22]** I always wondered where on earth in the Second Republic,

**[01:22:28]** that is between the occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938 and the occupation of the Protectorate in 1939,

**[01:22:34]** where did that huge number of Czech Nazis come from during those few months,

**[01:22:38]** those scoundrels, little Czech snobs, who sent Čapek those disgusting letters,

**[01:22:42]** which are like the equivalent of what the same scum send to Ondra Vedchý today.

**[01:22:46]** Where on earth did they come from in the Second Republic, when just half a year earlier

**[01:22:50]** the nation had stood as one man in the barracks and was not prepared to defend its sovereignty?

**[01:22:55]** Where did those people come from? The answer is, they were always there.

**[01:22:59]** Just as they are always among us. We are neither better nor worse

**[01:23:03]** than Slovaks or Russians. We were just lucky

**[01:23:07]** that the process of frustration and radicalization did not go as far here

**[01:23:11]** as in Slovakia or, God forbid, in Russia. But if it had,

**[01:23:15]** then the same scum you hear today

**[01:23:19]** speaking passionately about Czech sovereignty,

**[01:23:23]** Czechness, Pan-Slavism, and brotherhood with the Russians,

**[01:23:27]** are the same scum who in 1939

**[01:23:35]** They are still here. And what is even worse?

**[01:23:39]** It could quite easily happen that some of us will be among them.

**[01:23:45]** When you say that free elections in Russia actually were won by Vladimir Putin for you,

**[01:23:49]** what is the path for Russia or a similarly set-up country to democracy?

**[01:23:58]** Excellent question, and as soon as I correctly answer that question,

**[01:24:03]** please nominate me for the Nobel Peace Prize,

**[01:24:07]** because probably no one can answer that at this moment,

**[01:24:11]** because of course many people think about it.

**[01:24:15]** Russia is a country not only of Putin and Lavrov,

**[01:24:19]** but also of Pushkin and Solzhenitsyn.

**[01:24:23]** Wait, but they were quite Nazis too.

**[01:24:27]** If you look at what Solzhenitsyn said and wrote at the end of his life,

**[01:24:31]** he wrote about the Gulag Archipelago,

**[01:24:35]** and it's brilliant, but he was also convinced

**[01:24:39]** of the superiority of the Russian nation.

**[01:24:43]** So the country has a much bigger problem than just the invasion itself,

**[01:24:47]** it also has a problem that at the moment,

**[01:24:51]** when you base your self-respect on the belief

**[01:24:57]** that you belong to a superior nation,

**[01:25:01]** your personal qualities go completely down the drain,

**[01:25:05]** because it doesn't matter whether you are a good or bad person.

**[01:25:09]** If you are Russian, you largely derive your self-respect from the belief

**[01:25:13]** that it doesn't matter if you succeed in your personal life,

**[01:25:17]** it doesn't matter if you are a good person, but you are better than others,

**[01:25:21]** because you are Russian, which is obviously complete nonsense.

**[01:25:25]** This often happens with Czech nationalists too,

**[01:25:28]** who today are more ridiculous than dangerous,

**[01:25:30]** but the Nazis in the 1920s were like that too,

**[01:25:33]** so if you wave the Czech flag because you believe

**[01:25:38]** you are a good Czech and it's great to be Czech,

**[01:25:41]** because you are better than others and because you are Czech,

**[01:25:44]** then it's not about being Czech. It's about your inferiority complex

**[01:25:47]** and your inability to succeed in anything positive.

**[01:25:50]** It's not negative to be Czech, it's negative to think

**[01:25:57]** And unfortunately, most Russians are convinced

**[01:26:01]** that it's better to be Russian because Russians are better than others.

**[01:26:06]** This is the root of their tragedy.

**[01:26:08]** But to answer the question, what to do about it?

**[01:26:11]** Russia cannot be occupied.

**[01:26:14]** Nationalism and this kind of belief,

**[01:26:16]** that you are better than others, could be eradicated in Japan

**[01:26:24]** after World War II because it was occupied.

**[01:26:27]** It was possible to eradicate it in Germany because it was occupied.

**[01:26:30]** But Russia cannot be occupied.

**[01:26:32]** It's simply not possible militarily; no power in the world exists

**[01:26:35]** that could occupy Russia.

**[01:26:37]** It's impossible, just like you can't occupy the interior of Australia or Canada.

**[01:26:41]** And because Russia cannot be occupied, it cannot be, in a short time,

**[01:26:45]** like Nazi Germany or imperial Japan,

**[01:26:49]** forced to stop being nationalists,

**[01:26:55]** you can't explain to them through some imposed state message,

**[01:27:00]** that positive values are better than negative ones.

**[01:27:03]** This will simply take a very long time.

**[01:27:06]** And there is no easy solution.

**[01:27:08]** And if the question continues, what will happen,

**[01:27:11]** when Russia loses, because it will lose, it must.

**[01:27:16]** I don't know.

**[01:27:18]** The process in Russia in the 90s seemed hopeful to us,

**[01:27:23]** because they had Yabloko and Yavlinsky, and it made sense,

**[01:27:26]** it seemed they would become a normal democratic party,

**[01:27:29]** but it was accompanied by the collapse of Russian military power.

**[01:27:34]** The Soviet army, then the Russian army, effectively collapsed in the 90s,

**[01:27:38]** and only nuclear weapons, missiles, and some air force remained functional.

**[01:27:42]** But their power dropped enormously, and by the way, it remains very low to this day.

**[01:27:46]** And for them, the need to be a threat to others, to make others afraid,

**[01:27:53]** and here we are back to the reasons for wars, when we talked about gaining fear and prestige,

**[01:27:57]** this need to be feared was more important to them,

**[01:28:01]** than accepting the Western way of life at the cost of adopting Western values.

**[01:28:06]** They simply didn't do it, and today they suffer for it. Unfortunately, those who don't deserve it suffer.

**[01:28:12]** How to inoculate society with everyday heroism on a mass scale?

**[01:28:20]** Thank you, Lukáš, for the question.

**[01:28:24]** What we are doing now, what each of you can do.

**[01:28:28]** I now have the opportunity to speak to many people, so I do it in the way I can.

**[01:28:33]** You have it, each of you has a somewhat comparable opportunity,

**[01:28:37]** or you are successful entrepreneurs. Anyway, just from the way,

**[01:28:42]** you nonverbally react, your body language from the people sitting here,

**[01:28:47]** you are mostly members of the elite.

**[01:28:50]** That means you have considerable power that far exceeds your professional

**[01:28:55]** or business success.

**[01:28:58]** But you could just as well be a tractor driver in the countryside.

**[01:29:04]** I have a friend, a farmer and owner of a tiny company,

**[01:29:10]** who is known for being able to harvest more wood in a day

**[01:29:16]** than all his other employees combined in a day.

**[01:29:20]** But this person, who shows throughout his life

**[01:29:25]** that he is honest and hardworking, has a similar influence in his community,

**[01:29:30]** as you have in much larger communities.

**[01:29:33]** So again, I would return to that, plant those flowers among what you can.

**[01:29:37]** If you can water the flowers, then do it.

**[01:29:40]** If you can come to a demonstration and be that one pin on the square,

**[01:29:44]** well, it does have an impact.

**[01:29:46]** Don't get discouraged if the results don't come immediately,

**[01:29:49]** and don't think you'll win an internet debate,

**[01:29:53]** because that's always easy, since you can write comments in the bathroom,

**[01:29:58]** which is the ideal place to...

**[01:30:00]** dive into any internet discussion,

**[01:30:02]** but you won't win there.

**[01:30:04]** You win in the real

**[01:30:06]** physically existing world, where you will

**[01:30:08]** face and influence other people.

**[01:30:10]** The internet environment, where

**[01:30:12]** our lives are brought, does

**[01:30:14]** the exact opposite. So

**[01:30:16]** do whatever you can, but do it

**[01:30:18]** in the real world.

**[01:30:20]** I would like to end

**[01:30:22]** this discussion here today.

**[01:30:24]** So thank you very much

**[01:30:26]** for being

**[01:30:28]** here with us.

**[01:30:30]** A big round of applause.

**[01:30:42]** For those of you watching us,

**[01:30:44]** or who came, we will be

**[01:30:46]** very happy if

**[01:30:48]** you share this breakfast in any way.

**[01:30:52]** Of course,

**[01:30:54]** there were

**[01:30:56]** a lot of ideas today.

**[01:30:58]** You probably won't leave

**[01:31:00]** as easily as from other breakfasts.

**[01:31:02]** And all the more reason

**[01:31:04]** to sit down

**[01:31:06]** with a group of people around you, whether in your

**[01:31:08]** company, at school, or wherever you are,

**[01:31:10]** and discuss it.

**[01:31:12]** Talk about what surprised you,

**[01:31:14]** what you could do together, what each of you

**[01:31:16]** could do.

**[01:31:18]** So definitely

**[01:31:20]** the discussion is great.

**[01:31:22]** Thank you very much for the feedback you

**[01:31:24]** give. Five stars

**[01:31:26]** were liked with some

**[01:31:28]** politeness.

**[01:31:30]** One star: I aged,

**[01:31:32]** I aged. Waste of time.

**[01:31:34]** Well, the problem is

**[01:31:36]** that on this topic we all age

**[01:31:38]** quite quickly.

**[01:31:40]** I

**[01:31:42]** will actually get a bit

**[01:31:44]** to which reflexes

**[01:31:46]** in a roundabout way.

**[01:31:48]** We talked here with

**[01:31:50]** Ataker about how

**[01:31:52]** to what extent it can be like income,

**[01:31:54]** when it is recorded, when it is shared, and so on.

**[01:31:58]** Behind closed doors,

**[01:32:00]** something happens that we call

**[01:32:02]** Brain and Breakfast digestive. It's a follow-up

**[01:32:04]** discussion, always about 14 days after the breakfast.

**[01:32:06]** There will definitely be

**[01:32:08]** Martin Poliaček, whom you might know

**[01:32:10]** from the breakfast in

**[01:32:12]** December, about how

**[01:32:14]** to talk with people with different opinions.

**[01:32:16]** There will be very interesting people, whom

**[01:32:18]** I am gradually inviting, so

**[01:32:20]** if on 6.3.

**[01:32:22]** you want to

**[01:32:24]** explore the topic even deeper,

**[01:32:26]** want to ask something,

**[01:32:28]** something that is unclear to you, or something that just bothers you in your head,

**[01:32:30]** then definitely come to us at 3 o'clock,

**[01:32:32]** we will be very glad.

**[01:32:34]** 6.3. at 3 PM.

**[01:32:36]** Well, and

**[01:32:40]** It has been mentioned here several times, if you

**[01:32:42]** would like to

**[01:32:44]** help in any way,

**[01:32:46]** here is a small guide.

**[01:32:48]** Zabarta kicked off the action

**[01:32:50]** that was mentioned, drones for

**[01:32:52]** Nemezis, so you can contribute

**[01:32:54]** to

**[01:32:56]** drones.

**[01:32:58]** On Saturday the 24th,

**[01:33:00]** there is a demonstration

**[01:33:02]** in support of Ukraine,

**[01:33:04]** organized by many companies,

**[01:33:06]** so feel free to join

**[01:33:08]** there as well.

**[01:33:10]** Concert for Ukraine

**[01:33:12]** and also Gifts for Putin

**[01:33:14]** is another option, where again

**[01:33:16]** Czech entrepreneur Dalibor Dedek

**[01:33:18]** basically launched

**[01:33:20]** another movement that definitely

**[01:33:22]** deserves mention.

**[01:33:24]** So I appeal to people, especially from the business world,

**[01:33:26]** who

**[01:33:28]** according to Edelman’s

**[01:33:30]** research have great influence on

**[01:33:32]** what will or will not happen here,

**[01:33:34]** to take action.

**[01:33:36]** And thanks a lot for this.

**[01:33:38]** Book of the month, another

**[01:33:40]** Red Button project, a kind of tradition.

**[01:33:42]** Follow us

**[01:33:44]** and the things we do within

**[01:33:46]** Red Button EDU.

**[01:33:48]** And the next Brain&Breakfast

**[01:33:50]** we will continue with these topics,

**[01:33:52]** Dan Prokop will come.

**[01:33:54]** We had

**[01:33:56]** a breakfast with Dan about

**[01:33:58]** a few months ago,

**[01:34:00]** I don't know if it's been two years since we

**[01:34:02]** introduced his book Blind Spots.

**[01:34:04]** Since then, Dan

**[01:34:06]** has gathered a lot more

**[01:34:08]** data and is starting

**[01:34:10]** to write a book

**[01:34:12]** and the core solution to these Blind Spots

**[01:34:14]** was recently in the nerve,

**[01:34:16]** giving some recommendations to the government, so

**[01:34:18]** on these topics

**[01:34:20]** we will continue the discussion on March 21st

**[01:34:22]** from 8:30 AM.

**[01:34:24]** Definitely

**[01:34:26]** an interesting topic, at least for me.

**[01:34:28]** So thank you very much for making time,

**[01:34:30]** I thank you again for sharing,

**[01:34:32]** and thanks to everyone who joined us, whether you

**[01:34:34]** watched us on Digestiv on March 6th or on March 21st.

**[01:34:36]** I look forward to the usual breakfast.

**[01:34:38]** Take care, thanks.

**[01:34:40]** Goodbye and hi.

**[01:34:42]** Goodbye.

**[01:34:44]** Subtitles created by JohnyX.