Comment by inglor_cz

"Totalitarian societies don't produce great creative work."

You contradict yourself a bit - Havel did produce his work while living in a totalitarian country.

I would say that government-supported art is rarely creative even in democratic countries, and the more totalitarian the government, the less creative official art.

But as long as the goverment gives the society some space to breathe and squeeze creative instincts through, some of the artists will attempt to circumvent the official taboos and create outstanding work, even if it is suppressed later when the times get tougher.

Czechoslovakia in the 1960s to 1980s produced a lot of great creative work, even though a lot of it was banned either immediately or after the Soviet invasion of 1968.

The same countries (CZ and SK) as democracies are remarkably less creative. Once there is no monster to fight against, artists become bored or too self-absorbed to be understandable to the common folks.