Influenced by American pragmatic liberalism,[3] he campaigned in favor of free expression and strongly opposed the rise of both fascism and communism in Europe.
He would maintain an especially close relationship with his brother Josef, a highly successful painter, living and working with him throughout his adult life.
[24] Exempted from military service due to the spinal problems that would haunt him his whole life, Čapek observed World War I from Prague.
His political views were strongly affected by the war, and as a budding journalist he began to write on topics like nationalism, totalitarianism and consumerism.
T. G. Masaryk was a regular guest at Čapek's "Friday Men" garden parties for leading Czech intellectuals.
With his brother Josef, he worked as an editor for the Czech paper Národní listy (The National Newspaper) from October 1917 to April 1921.
[13][34] In 1938, it became clear that the Western allies, namely France and the United Kingdom, would fail to fulfil the pre-war treaty agreements, and they refused to defend Czechoslovakia against Nazi Germany.
Although offered the chance to go to exile in England, Čapek refused to leave his country – even though the Nazi Gestapo had named him "public enemy number two".
Several months later, just after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia, Nazi agents came to the Čapek family house in Prague to arrest him.
[citation needed] Čapek also expressed fear of social disasters, dictatorship, violence, human stupidity, the unlimited power of corporations, and greed.
Čapek, along with contemporaries like Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923), spawned part of the early 20th-century revival in written Czech thanks to their decision to use the vernacular.
[44] In 2009 (70 years after his death), a book was published containing extensive correspondence by Karel Čapek, in which the writer discusses pacifism and his conscientious objection to military service with lawyer Jindřich Groag from Brno.
[45] Arthur Miller wrote in 1990: I read Karel Čapek for the first time when I was a college student long ago in the Thirties.
There was no writer like him ... prophetic assurance mixed with surrealistic humour and hard-edged social satire: a unique combination...he is a joy to read.
[46] Karel Čapek introduced and made popular the frequently used international word robot, which first appeared in his play R.U.R.
While it is frequently thought that he was the originator of the word, he wrote a short letter in reference to an article in the Oxford English Dictionary etymology in which he named his brother, painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual inventor.
[47][48] In an article in the Czech journal Lidové noviny in 1933, he also explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures laboři (from Latin labor, work).
The word robota means literally "corvée", "serf labor", and figuratively "drudgery" or "hard work" in Czech.
It also means "work", "labor" in colloquial Slovak, archaic Czech, and many other Slavic languages (e.g., Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian, Polish, Macedonian, Ukrainian, etc.).