Unprecedented in past and recalling the times of the "great tribulation" described in Revelation, a situation where fundamental rights specified as freedom of expression, breathing, burning in the oven, deciding on the injections we take or about the menu have been restricted, caused the subject of freedom and its failure to the central point of debate under the anti-system.
In general, however, it is dominated by outrage and a description of further lost positions, while a comparatively tiny reflection on why this freedom is not so easy lost in history. Why so many of our compatriots in the first major storm gave up their own thinking, allowing almost all man's disposition to control them in the soul to turn into an executive police officer, whether it's in the reciting formulas of Pavlov's dog or even in Pavlica Morozovawho informs on the loved ones to “protect themselves and others”.
Categories of freedom
In philosophical reflections on freedom the division into freedom “from” and “to”. The erstwhile means the physical or ontological freedom of choice and the anticipation of any usage thereof. The second assumes that only its proper, in harmony with human vocation, exploitation means actual freedom. As a consequence of this second passage, ethics and work enter into discussion of freedom. This is what the Catholic Church teaches, and to any degree it corresponds to the Marxian saying that freedom is simply a conscious necessity. French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas He argued that freedom can only be realized through love (goodness) and work, which resembles the known maxim: "arms at work, thoughts at God." Otherwise, it is easy to become a slave to selfishness. A popular scientist is of akin opinion Jordan Peterson. In turn Joseph Tischner and Erich Fromm They pointed out that, as the Polish philosopher wrote, people frequently reject the "unfortunate gift of freedom," due to the fact that they do not want to be liable for themselves for being "subjected to 8 spirits of evil," and erstwhile they do, they blame freedom. In submission to the will of the chief or the opinion of the collective, they search to easy justify and calm their conscience, in another circumstances "a bowl of rice" and the meaning of life.
Obedient implementation of nonsense procedures, or uncritical "trusting experts" are just the most apparent examples of submission to this tendency we have been dealing with recently. Getting distant from freedom is primarily an escape from responsibility. In Polish literature, Witkacy articulately put the following words into the mouth of 1 of the prophetic protagonists, but besides of the ominous drama “Shewka”: “O, erstwhile will he forget himself in the perfect device of the community? O, erstwhile at last he suffers through his own personality, eternally into nothingness, like the ass of a transcendental outstretched and unleashed, he will cease—only drugs, her Bohu, will be left.”
The systematic regulation of freedom was observed by the full tribe of prominent intellectuals as early as the 19th and 20th centuries, regardless of what the strategy was the background of their deliberations. This was the feeling expressed by the watcher of democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville Writing: “When I effort to imagine this fresh kind of despotism that threatens the world, I see an unbridled crowd of identical and equal people constantly wandering around in search of small, common emotions that satisfy the needs of their spirit... Above all, there is simply a powerful and protective power in the highlands, which wants to satisfy human needs and defender the destiny of citizens... It does not break the will, but weakens it. He seldom forces us to act. It does not tyrannize – it restrains, restricts, weakens, extinguishes, fools and yet turns all nation into a flock of industrious animals whose regulation is the government.”
And observing the planet in another hemisphere and from a completely different position Joseph Mackiewicz The Russian put the words in the mouth of the Bolsheviks: “Bolsheviks, what they say about them, is foolish. But I saw through them. They want you, they want you. So you wouldn't be here, and for that place, you know, you'd have this kind of thing together for a cake. What they're shouting there is, "Grab'd up," it's just the encouragement on 1 side, and the scares on the another side. In fact, they're trying to rob the incorrect kind of stuff that someone's done, just what all man is born with. They want to take it. Oh. And that's why they should be destroyed. Not: “In the name of the Father and of the Son, and in the name of saving himself.” In turn, the modern Italian left-wing intellectual Giorgio Agamben wrote about the Nazi era of biopower, symbolized by the 1935 Act on "protecting the hereditary wellness of the German people", and consequently stated: "With the birth of the biopower, all people is doubled in the form of a population, all democratic people is besides demographic." Importantly, Agamben as 1 of the fewer intellectuals opposed the treatment of humans as cattle under the pretext of a alleged pandemic.
So it turns out that both defined totalitarianism and democracy have long been limiting freedom. The behaviour of various governments around the planet during the "pandemic" confirms that the tendency to restrain freedom is not determined by the political system. The hypothesis seems more accurate. Ortega y Gasseta indicating that we are dealing with the emergence of a fresh kind of man, whom he called "massive" regardless of the kind of strategy in which he lives. He is different from his predecessors primarily due to the fact that he wants to be right, but he is incapable to discuss. In specified a situation, the widely understood force determines the right, and the full community or even civilization loses its ability to rationally decide what is “freedom to”. An anthropologist drew akin conclusions from the reflection of modern Western societies Arnold Gehlen writing about the debates of modern homo sapiens as the struggles of tigers circling around each another disputing moral formulas. The increasing aggression and how he titled his loud book “hypertrophy of morality” attributed, among others, to the modern way of life.
Neil Postman, an American philosopher analyzing the impact of technological change on the human psyche, described the debates that were held in the mid-19th century by U.S. presidential candidates: “The first of the 7 celebrated debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas was held on 21 August 1858 in Ottawa, Illinois. Douglas, according to the agreement between them, spoke first for an hour, Lincoln's consequence lasted an hr and a half, while Douglas reacted for half an hr to Lincoln's consequence (...) On October 16, 1854, in Pretoria, Illinois Douglas gave a three-hour speech to which Lincoln was to respond under the agreement. erstwhile his turn came, Lincoln pointed out that it was 5 o'clock in the afternoon and that he would most likely request as much time as Douglas and that the second inactive had the right to a replica. So he proposed that the listeners go home, have dinner and return rested for the next 4 hours of conversation."
Not only then politicians, but besides small-town blacksmiths, shopkeepers or farmers had something that the contemporary student and sometimes the prof. did not have. They could focus on their arguments, their thoughts, and decide what they would usage their freedom for. This besides points to the strong link between political freedom and fact and freedom of discussion as a condition for pursuing it. Today, both professional singing and mass specialists and free listeners call out with 1 voice: shorter, faster, harder. But can all deeper and more complicated content be conveyed in this way?
The Platoan parable of the God of Teutha and King Tamuza shows us the fact about the fact that with fresh method skills our head changes, and thus ourselves. Again, there is simply a connection with Marx, this time with the claim that feudalism was created by the invention of the stirrups, and capitalism by the steam machine. Friends of many children say that they are divided into those raised before and after smartphones appear.
Progress and freedom
At a time erstwhile changes in technology took on specified size and pace that serious talk about getting out of any control, reflection on their impact on freedom is all the more justified. method advancement in addition to making us comfortable and free from many burdensome activities makes us a nomen omen automatically dependent on the full technological strategy and consequently on those who fund and manage it. They frequently have cognition and skills that the average Kowalski will never master or really know of. The patching of shoes or making them out of a sip, horse-backing, bicycle repair, or even a car, was until late within the scope of an average traffic participant, just as repairing basic household appliances could have been done by a friend plumber or electrician.
Today, the manufacture and repair of these items are increasingly out of scope not only of the average man, but even of the engineer, and repairing is deliberately prevented, alternatively of repairing, it is essential to acquisition a fresh device or a costly replacement of the part produced by an global corporation, whose office and even more hard to determine. This besides applies to food production, gardening, treatment, writing, home building and all more or little basic life activities. The symbol of this trend is the work of paying with a card, or even a watch or a telephone in the name of saving the Titanic effort that many seem to be counting banknotes and coins. In this way, in a minute of satisfaction with having and handling an effective gadget we give banks and the government cognition of our most private behaviors, tastes, tendencies. We're risking that if individual upstairs doesn't like us, they're gonna cut off the anticipation of buying and getting anything.
Aristotle claimed that happiness belongs to the same - sufficient, but if, alternatively of happiness, freedom was put into it, it would besides make sense. The enslavement of the increasing dependence on technology was the basic motif of the celebrated manifesto by Teodor Kaczyński. He predicted in it half a century ago the upcoming interference of the technological strategy not only in conventional civilian liberties, but besides interference in our bodies, as we experienced in the years of the alleged pandemic, and with what we are tamed by ideologists specified as Yuval Harrari whether the philosopher computer Ray Kurzweil.
The ancient Romans with appropriate laconism said that The price of freedom is vigilance. This saying translates philosophical analysis very well into a more applicable language of politics. It hides the fact that in a planet where there is simply a constant conflict for survival, 1 of the means of endurance is preventive control over rivals and limiting their freedom. On the another hand, maintaining freedom requires constant effort not to be controlled and enslaved by others, to work constantly to cultivate their own strength. Widely understood work, besides intellectual and advanced morale inside their own group, fall in as much as possible into this principle. The other is, on the another hand, ‘eating, drinking and letting go of the belt’, thought laziness and self-deception about the real threats to same and to his own homeland, which caused the failure of actual independency and then of formal sovereignty by the First Republic. Interestingly, actual independency was given distant without a fight about half a century before the first partition, but this fact is from the Polish collective memory carefully and effectively removed. At a time erstwhile successive Tsaric ambassadors ruled in Warsaw, the noble masses considered the top threat to strengthening and so peculiarly weak royal power, due to the fact that it was in it that they saw the threat of their freedom, for which they refused to give even "two cents and 2 drops of blood".
Lost Freedom
The discussion on why Poland gained with the collapse of communism and the withdrawal of the russian Army's freedom, in the next 30 years they both lost so easily, has not actually begun yet. alternatively of it, the present strategy is dominated by descriptions of globalist concepts and a bit depressing though possibly in part a actual mantra claiming that whatever is going on is planned and serves to accomplish Satanist goals. The only way to be saved is in this poetics an unspecified awakening or a spark coming out of Poland.
Knowing the enemy and his intentions is by all means justified, but... But the examination of conscience and the reflection on our mistakes and omissions seems to be no little necessary. To any extent, we request a fresh debate akin to that in the 19th and 20th centuries on the causes of the collapse of the First Republic and partitions. After 1989, did we not repeat the errors of the Saxon era? Why were we not afraid about defiling and impoverishing specified an crucial component of our culture as Polish language? Why did we accept alarming reading statistic with indifference? Why didn't we subscribe to Polish newspapers? Why didn't we pay contributions to civilian societies by giving them to grantees like Soros? Why, alternatively of practicing in politeness, which “is not easy or small” we have imposed an online “label” with its simple rudeness? Why do our discussions remind us of Mickiewicz's brilliantly described gathering in the courtyard with all its chaos and the final triumph of a skillful manipulative? Why did we let our children to be raised by smartphones and a stream of addicts and demoralizing nonsense that is supplied through them? Why did we let the triumph of fashionable insult over elegance and beauty? Why did we accept our participation in the barbarous assault on another countries, the failure of sovereignty to Brussels bureaucracy and the forces behind it?
Finally, the fundamental question raised above is the very nature of freedom and its dependence on factors specified as demography and technology. Why we were not curious in this, disposing of uncomfortable facts and questions with tales of development, which “no average individual questions” or inexpensive mon motami about scanning and returning to caves or to trees. These questions can be multiplied. Unfortunately present there is no figure to measurement Primate Wyszyński or even priest Blachnicki, who would talk straight about our real flaws and undertake to repair them. There have besides been times in past erstwhile not only Amish, but besides Popes were not afraid to question the meaning and ethics of fresh technologies.
Therefore, by observing the behaviour of the general Poles and Polish elites, it is safe to hazard saying that we have lost our freedom due to the fact that not only would the Romans not consider us vigilant adequate to be free, but Napoleon as liable and wise adequate to be a nation. After the failure of freedom, Poles frequently tried to prove otherwise, through an unthought-out and calculated what the planet would say about us "throwing life on the stake", due to the fact that according to this communicative freedom is to "measure its crosses", while it is alternatively a late and desperate effort to hide that we had previously lacked virtues far more crucial than conflict courage. On the another hand, the starting point for moral improvement, but besides intellectual strength, is always nothing in the confessional of interior sincerity and bold acceptance of truth, nevertheless unpleasant it may be to our ego.
After all, the Greek call to “know yourself” and the Gospel teaching that only the fact can deliver us and that it is the way of the Christian shows how crucial and crucial our civilisation would be. Will these words prevail and put aside a bitter opinion Ksaver PruszyńskiThat we didn't just forgive ourselves? The work for making specified a fundamental choice for our condition can no longer be assigned to Bill Gates And the Davos people. This choice is up to us.
Olaf Swolkień
photo public domain
Think Poland, No. 41-42 (8-15.10.2023)
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