Media and Independence. "Ark" article

PI gave the lower text in 1993 at the large convention of the Krakow magazine "Ark", which shortly changed the title and part of the editorial board to "Arcan" and inactive exists today. possibly you'll be curious or even inspired. The reunion was great, they were "all", in any case, everyone on this side, so to speak, a delicious and rich dinner (and a roasted chicken, and a cutlet on each plate plus 2 salads and a homemade dessert cake) served the Sisters of Seraphine. In the 20th anniversary of Arcanów" I was besides in Kraków (and I happen to be there not often, not even erstwhile a year, although the city is beautiful, a bit confused only).

The text is simply a bit outdated, or even old fashioned, has been a bit shortened. I am showing a very visible trend. possibly I hurt Krzysztof Czabański a small bit in it :)), the head of the liquidation commission of the communist company RSW "Press-Book-Move", then almost monopolist on the press and publishing market. All due to the fact that they didn't tell me adequate at the time, and from my position, the small mouse wasn't everything I saw.

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Media and independency

In a fewer words, let us remind you of the press situation in PRL. Its essential feature was the central control, the complete submission of censorship, which did not so much prohibit the printing of anything as all the information and thoughts it kept in “the bondage” to release it according to the needs of the organization and the image of the planet it created.

After 1989, an SEC was established[1]To break the Communist press. This was a hard task and, in my opinion, the committee did not fulfil it in a manner that was in line with social expectations. As a consequence of the committee's operation, among others, many titles were given to post-communist editorial teams, without establishing a fresh editor-in-chief, and tolerate sales of magazines by cooperatives (mostly editor-in-chief) for pricelessness. The remainder were already in the hands of the left-wing opposition.

When the “New World” was created, he did not receive even the smallest local, organisational or financial assistance from the RSW Press Elimination Commission. No aid was received from Jerzy Mikke, “Poland Today” who managed to print respective numbers of the magazine. The question of the Commission’s assistance to Wierzbicki’s “Gazeta Polska” would rise laughter even in this room. The invisible hand of the marketplace has already drawn any of these writings into confusion and most likely drown many others that will inactive appear...

The invisible hand besides finances various writings; thanks to it we have dozens of local newspapers fighting post-communism. We besides have "Tina", "Girl", "Bravo" and a flood of unbelievably primitive, sold at dumped prices in the Western press, peculiarly in Germany, which distributes its colorful mush here to enter the advertised marketplace and thus to the marketplace for the sale of its own goods. due to the fact that it's not about selling a "Tina" that you won't make money on, it's about making the West Steel business and keeping jobs for a Western European worker. The Polish press is so dominated by the left, post-communists, or by Western business.

This is what the Elimination Commission, its actions and omissions have put together. So much for admission.

What builds independence?

Let us begin by asking: what builds independence, what service the interior freedom of man and thus preserves external sovereignty?

First, it is simply a sense of identity. The sense of identity is simply a fundamental condition of life and function, and already at the level of the cell. The sense of identity and identity in the human species is created through culture, past and tradition - it will be cognition of the past, ritualized ways of good action, effective behaviour, while respecting the principles adopted jointly. The tradition includes faith. It reduces the will of individuals by inserting rules into the value system. The sense of identity: I am myself, I am important, I have ancestors, I have roots, history, customs, I have rules, I believe in something above me, I deserve the respect of others. I'm free by nature, or at least I want to be free.

The press, like national literature, should perpetuate it, and in no way undermine it. In the meantime, our press undermines the respect of Poles towards themselves, rejects tradition, invalidates us. He demands Europeanism, he says xenophobia - he despises, alternatively of pointing to mistakes.

Secondly, independence, freedom is besides built by a good maritime context It is provided by the ability to separate right from incorrect and to bind its actions to the ethical system, to educate conscience. It is favored by the function models of heroes and admirable and respectable behaviors of the society. Right for a given culture, right for a given nation. In the European culture in which we are in the circle, it will be 300 Spartans from Termopil, Alexander Macedonian, Christ, Wilhelm Tell, Tristan and Isold, nevertheless shocking it sounds; these are the patterns of heroes who knew how to love, gain and sacrifice for others. In Polish culture, it will be Zawisza Black, Kościuszko, Staś Tarkowski, father of Kolbe, priest of Popieluszko, who was Wałęsa - i.e. patriotic, truthful, unbreakable people. Of course, I don't aspire to exhausting examples.

The good moral condition yet provides clarity, order of chaos. It's white, and it's black, like Christ's yes-yes, no-no. This does not contradict the knowing of the complexity of the world, of human fates, of the knowing of the futility of any efforts - whatever is made of reality, nevertheless the fates of 1 individual may be, nevertheless we can realize and forgive the most terrible crimes, betrayals and evils - crime is evil, betrayal and wickedness remains betrayal and wickedness. It requires the passage of its usual path: name, recognition, examination of conscience, confession of regret and repentance, repentance, reparation, forgiveness, forgetfulness. Anyone who denies the existence of this road, who wants to shorten it or ignore any of its stages, who places himself outside the ellipse of European culture, besides acts against the social moral condition.

Thirdly: cognition AND GOOD designation OF REALITY - it is besides an component of building freedom. The fact frees, said Christ. There is no independency of the spirit without truth, without a fair cognition of events and deeds, and this information is the task of the press.

Fourth: SOCIAL LOCATION. Her building, her caring. It helps prevent the atomization of social life, alienation of people and social anomaly with all its pathological consequences. In addition to specified matters, which stay a small off-limits here, specified as caring for the family, about democratic ways of functioning public life, about creating rights based on morality, I wanted to draw attention to what serves to build and keep social ties:

1. trust in leaders at each level of the social group; believing that their objectives, means of action and intentions are consistent with those of the group;

2. trust in the media - that the press, radio, tv tell the fact that their aim is to increase cognition of the present world, that they profess a akin hierarchy of values, that the same is crucial to them as to us;

3. trust in your own traditions, your own local ways of living, celebrating, despairing, manifesting feelings and views.

The second component of building social ties in the context of the press means, for example, expecting the press to celebrate what the public celebrates. For example, it will be written about the Green Christmases or about God's Body - not treating them as "days of worship and spectacle", but as an expression of socially recognized sacrum - not about St. Patrick, Valentine's Day or another Protestant or Buddhist celebrations and will not advance them as social behaviour patterns. That on the day of the anniversary of the Nazi attack on Poland tv will show something that commemorates the heroic defence of Poles, not the movie about the martyrdom of German soldiers (as it was 3 years ago).

Of course, the attitude to the press, e.g. in Poland, is closely connected with the attitude of Poles to learning. A Pole can learn, learn about fresh things, look, arrange an flat as in the West, catch civilization novelties, but he hates being taught, even by those whom he respects, and if they teach him, they lose that respect very quickly. A national flaw, as they say. But trust in the media is besides about avoiding instruction.

The function of the Press

Now that we have established what is serving freedom and, therefore, the building of independence, let us see what our press is like and what it offers to society in this regard. The tasks of the press can be divided into 4 roles: information, education, design, entertainment. As you can see from this division, all of these types mention straight to our question: what serves to build independence? due to the fact that it is the press that helps or hinders in building a sense of identity and separateness, in establishing a good moral condition, the ability to separate right from incorrect and shaping conscience. The press promotes behaviour patterns, amusement patterns and hero patterns, and depending on the preferences of tv and radio editors it will be Rambo or Aleksander Macedonian, Jaruzelski or Fieldorf.

The press helps get out of the news chaos, or it dips even more into it, minimizes the large 1 to keep it down. The press can clearly justice and call evil a good good, or leave an assessment to the reader, but it can besides question everything certain: evil - but it had reasons and necessity; good - but it had flaws and weaknesses. Most importantly, the press can compose the truth, the full fact and only the truth, and it can compose almost the full truth, the enlarged truth, reduced by any passage, supplemented by untruth, can obscure certain aspects of events, parts of statements.

Finally, the press can service to build social ties by helping people to clarify their views and look for those who think the same way, and it can undermine the opinion of any by promoting others, in the interests of their own interests. He can compose about a good, correct and loving family, or he can constantly sniff around the pathology of parents who abuse children, or - late especially willingly - corrupting their children sexually, or selling them to the West.

Under the slogan of tracking down evil, trust in household ties and the normality of their loved ones is destroyed. The press can besides accompany people on their holidays, inform them, celebrate anniversaries, remind them of forgotten rites and traditions, especially since after 45 years of communism so much has already disappeared in memory of even people who believe and know history, and may pretend that Poland is simply a multinational country without history, where the equally legitimate - in the sense of request for it - are nationwide celebrations of festivals of another religions and nations, and that they can publically be anything more than exotic customs. ·

Television could match the outstanding works of pre-war and post-war directors, besides creating abroad, or possibly - what it is doing late - to fame the past of Peerel, reminding us of Stalinist producers. Or sit next to each another in 1 program of erstwhile March students and those who beat them - to keep the expected balance of right.

Finally, the press can strengthen Polishness by showing that it does not undermine the rights of any another nation to be or to be equally respectable, and it can arouse anger by complaining about flaws, ignorance and deficiency of civilization of Poles, disgust even the most precious word for them: patriotism, and thus challenge the blood sacrifice of many generations fighting for the independency of Poles.

Manipulation

The intent of manipulation - whether indifferent, formulated or not - is to disarm the cognitive powers of the reader, the viewer, the listener, to make a state of emotional vulnerability in it to adopt a new, false image of the world, or to prepare it for sick thinking. In the end, it serves its own intent as a manipulator. It's mostly about power.

I would like to make an imperfect but crucial division here due to the object being attacked by manipulation. Well, manipulation attacks either reality itself, trying to distort it in transmission or truly change it, or the cognitive authorities and moral forces of the audience.

The first is always about lying in different forms. It will be creating events based on false messages, inventing events, assigning statements to individual and asking others what they think of them. Writing about alleged statements politics abroad, about the planned coup, about the abuse of power or powers. Cheating on diplomatic plans to thwart or importantly influence crucial talks. The eventual accomplishment in this respect is the practice of ,,,press fact" invented by prof. Geremek, which, unlike the adjectiveless facts, actually did not happen, but the effects have no insignificant effect. All these lies seriously, and sometimes permanently, distort not only minds, but affect reality itself.

It will besides be a "cloaking" of events and people: there is nothing to say about Macierewicz, for example, without the case of folders, just as Kuronia and Modzelewski erstwhile had to be mentioned. These will proceed to be simple lies plus corrections, frequently further correcting the seditioners (they were victimized by Senator Stępień, most likely for centuries stuck by the "Gazeta Wyborcza" as a "informer" to the case of the mocking president drunk from the Bank. Who noted the correction and apology? due to the fact that individual else reported it!). Lies will be repeated many times, e.g. that decommunization is to apply to all parties. misunderstandings repeated despite multiple explanations. The slanders that are incorrect in themselves inactive block criticism and discussion on an crucial subject. For example, it is hard to have a serious discussion at the minute about the function of the Church in Poland, as the debate puts it immediately in the order of authentic attacking The church of evil will. Finally, there will be a method of extracting certain events, while ignoring others in specified a way as to build a pre-set image of reality and then bully it. This group would include an highly dangerous promotion of the notion that Poles en masse They're anti-semites, or darkrooms and xenophobes, by blowing up hooligan assaults on judaic monuments or unilaterally passing disputes around HiV carriers.

When manipulation besides attacks the cognitive authorities of the reader-viewer, 1 of the more common methods is the accusation of accepting conspiracy explanation of history. It is about the belief that past is ruled by secret forces, that events are provoked and controlled by certain groups - Jews, Masons, mafias and various brotherhoods. In intellectual spheres, this explanation is powerfully rejected, as, among others, besides easy explaining the world, just as Marxism, which, noticing crucial fresh aspects, e.g. the historicity of events and social situations, has overfocused on the inexorable laws of historical development, is rejected. However, the allegation of conspiracy explanation of past has been utilized for any time by any publicists as a tool to overpower intellectual adversaries.

Conspiracies and agreements exist. This could be told by all those assassinated rulers. However, it is adequate to mention someone's secret conversations to get the opinion of an uneducated individual at best. The charge of paranoia is another, possibly even more dangerous way of disarming the mind. The conspiracy explanation touches intellectuals, paranoia touches everyone.

Conspiracy explanation leaves religion in the wellness of our mind, which only errs and can withdraw. Paranoia even undermines our intellectual powers. Both of these accusations make people feel like they don't know the facts. And it is forbidden by alleged authorities, those whose reasoning is to be exemplaryly correct.

A 3rd kind of manipulation occurs erstwhile the subject of the attack is the moral forces of the recipient. Here 1 can calculate specified ways of falsifying reality by disrupting its reception, as attributing any views to unjustly, indecentness, “aggressiveness” [...] This frequently involves social ostracism and, in any case, paper ostracism towards authors [...].

The last way to attack moral forces – this hidden questioning of ethical axioms [...] favours chaos, storms clarity, belief in patterns, assurance in oneself [...].

From manipulation protects experience, tradition, knowledge, family, powerfully interior values. It protects moral memory, protects "primitive", does not analyse "complexities of human fate", simple assessments. [...]

What are the consequences?

As a consequence of the above-mentioned interactions, we get a society confused, tired, rejecting politics [...], composed of people whose intellectual authorities, alternatively of focusing on solving current tasks, are active in regular (TV) desperate attempts to deal with manipulations. Unfortunately, the effort is doomed to failure due to the fact that we are dealing with professionals. [...].

I think the sovietization has hit the journalistic environment deeper than we thought.

(Ark, Volume 46: (4)1993)