Hope and hope of the state. Around Rafał Matya's emergency exit
Written by: Krzysztof Mazur
In 1971 Leszek Kołakowski announced an essay in the Parisian “Kultura” under the prominent title “The Thesis on Hope and Hopelessness”. It was an effort to deal intellectually with the trauma in the left circles caused by Marc. Kołakowski, with his essay – in spite of the widespread temper of hopelessness – wanted to encourage the future democratic opposition to make areas of independent thought. However, the programme demands developed there should not have been addressed to the PZPR, but straight to the public, thus expanding force on power.
Almost 50 years later Rafał Matyja follows the same paths, although the realities are completely different. By publishing a book ‘Emergency exit’ He wants to deal intellectually with trauma caused by the governments of PO and PiS in the circles of statemen. In 2005, the belief of people counting on serious systemic improvement of the 3rd Republic broke down. Both parties, with which there were large hopes at the time, chose a common political conflict alternatively than a real change in the state's rules. Despite the temper of hopelessness, Matya wants to point out a fresh doctrine of action by her book to the “elitis of perception”. alternatively of yielding to an increasingly sterile political dispute, areas of independent thought, i.e. a network structure called “think-tank Poland”. However, the programme demands formulated within this structure should not be addressed to the current parties, but straight to the public, thus expanding the force on power. Whoever's in charge.
Matyja is not so looking for an "emergency exit" from the regulation of the Law and Justice (the following text was published in April 2018), but wants to escape the full logic of the 3rd Republic. Like Kołakowski half a century earlier, he abandons the attitude of “revisionists” believers in the ability to repair our political strategy while remaining inside his logic.
You gotta go beyond the strategy to see a fresh horizon. “It is essential to tell everything – history, state, identity of the political nation, politics – again”, he argues in the last conviction of his book.
Agreement – not mafia, but social
Matyja looks at the current situation of Poland from the position of “long duration”. Individual political events are little crucial than the first-hand civilizational and social changes. Calling these mechanisms does not offer clear terminology, eating alternately 2 categories taken from another thinkers. Behind Alexis de Tocqueville, he talks about the "social arrangement", that is, the relation between the individual groups and the rules of propriety, which disappears in a given society "for the first origin of most laws, customs and ideas which constitute the way peoples live". Behind Pierre Bourdieu, in turn, he speaks of the "spirits of the state" treated by the political community as natural, undisputed and objective, and thus "constituting modern states at their invisible roots".
According to Matya, specified “spirits of the state” constituting our “social system” are “centralism, east standards of bureaucratic control, clientelism, personnel selection mechanisms”. He adds that "this catalogue can besides be extended to include issues of generational conflict or public-wide machism patterns, even if behind its rhetorical facade there is weakness and uncertainty of its social role." Unfortunately, the author of the “Emergency Output” does not order these issues, although they play a leading function in his speech. Therefore, the reader can only guess from where specified a selection of "spirits of the state" comes from, and how much this catalogue is simply a closed catalogue. any tips may be the books by Adam Podgórecki ‘Polish Society’ or Janin R. Wedel ‘Private Poland’, which Matyja refers to in this context.
Despite these ambiguities after reading, we know for certain that it is clientelism or centralism that “constitute our state at its invisible roots.” They are the ones that spoil our parties, not the consequence of these or another governments. The present "social system" did not arise from the conflict of the PO-PiS, but is the consequence of 3 processes lasting many decades: the expropriation and failure of assets of the Polish society as a consequence of planet War II; the emergence of an egalitarian society in the period of communism "having as much as essential for its own needs"; and yet the characteristic of the 3rd Republic of Poland's process of property division, economical degradation of full groups (great industry, PGRs, partially mining), while promoting others. These 3 historical processes, not any mythical mob system, are liable for the state's current weakness. These experiences have shaped the current "social system".
Society of “dorobkiewiczs”
The consequence of these observations is an idealization-free image of our society. In order to last all of this, Poles had to form as a regulation the appropriateness of the procedure "to keep their affairs in mind, alternatively by individual alternatively than collective actions, alternatively than open-minded". That's the regulation in our lives today. It is hard to build an inclusive civic community due to the fact that the dominant "spirit of the state" is amoral familialism. Any effort to appeal to the common good shall be regarded as a suspicious effort to manipulate and conceal their actual intentions relating to the interests of a peculiar individual or group. Moreover, according to any researchers mentioned in the book, the main engine of Poles' action is envy, due to the fact that social prestige is built by comparing to others, and the measurement of social position is money. That is why specified a strong motor that activates us is “dorobkiewiczy”.
Despite recalling these bitter opinions, Matyja does not precisely make this charge against Polish society. Rather, it seems to propose that widespread activity to enrich oneself is simply a healthy and natural reaction to expropriation done in erstwhile decades. Well targeted, it can become an crucial engine for building the prosperity of future generations. Unfortunately, in the reality of the 3rd Republic, the desire to enrich itself is realized in unfavorable organization circumstances, which form the centralism already mentioned, east standards of bureaucratic control or clientelism.
It is these "spirits of the states" that make our talents and industriousness not the key in this process, but the "system to come" to state "confiture". The richest lists are not made up of people who invented fresh products, but those who "used well contacts with politicians and service people, access to credit".
The same is actual of the mediate class, which Matyja calls "uncreative mediate class." It arose not in dispute with authority, but in close symbiosis with it. Middle-class clienteleism was further strengthened by European funds, the main component of which was the Marshal offices, which further strengthened the position of local elites. The 3rd Republic was so incapable to usage the natural momentum of society to enrich itself in order to advance the ethos of honest work. In return, she gave us all a common lesson in clientelism, with large failure to the social sense of justice.
Neither civic republicanism nor elite conservatism
Therefore, no republican task can be the title "contingency exit". For this to happen, it needs a strong mediate class, and this 1 cannot be created in a "system to come" which, by definition, forces the resignation of citizenship in favour of your – client relationship. The change of this agreement will not be supported by its beneficiaries, as they like to stay in a "dirty community" alternatively than hazard changing. This besides applies to 3rd sector activists, because, according to theory, they function independently of the state, they can actually make only if they accept their clientelistic dependence on the political patron. The Republican task cannot be based on those who stay outside the "dirty community" due to the fact that they do not believe in the real anticipation of change. Rather, they like to stay distant from politics due to the fact that they are looking for areas where industriousness and talent are truly important, not dependence on the principle.
The republican projects are, therefore, summed up Matyja, "full of nostalgia behind a country that will no longer return, behind a model that in Poland has never rooted and is contrary to the realities of the modern state". These words should take, first of all, specified environments as ours, which Republicanism loses as an crucial category of reasoning about public life. Is it truly our function to stimulate the imagination of the perfect system, or truly to ‘postulate the impossible’? We'll get back to that.
However, Matyja's strong criticism is directed not so much towards the Polish society, but towards the elites who are liable for pedrying specified an organization arrangement. As a critical view of Polish society allows Matya to challenge the reality of Republican projects, specified a negative image of the elite makes him reject projects referring to conservative eliteism. As in the first case, the author addresses his criticism to "a generation of thirty- and forty-year-olds present," so this time he beats himself in his own chest, making a circumstantial account with his own biography.
We are utilized to Matyja defining the elite very widely: from academics and politicians, employers and crucial government officials, to infirmary director, bishop or city president. The modern elite on the emergency exit cards is described as disorganized and devoid of a social mission; incapable to think more than in terms of its own corporate interest; parasitising in a weak country to only “take something for themselves”; even if the discerning point-to-point problems, it is not seeing the image of the whole; not able to distance itself from the organization dispute, but alternatively “filling oil into the fire”; objectified by the political elite, sometimes through “dignity”, another time due to “scaring”, and this difference is only a substance of taste.
It is the elite that bears the primary work for the current weakness of the state. The roots of this weakness should be sought in the PRL erstwhile the PZPR together with the safety Service created a strategy of control not only over opposition but besides over state structures. In this way, areas specified as diplomacy or the army, which in mature countries should be taken out of the political logic of the dispute, have been weakened. The takeover of power by weak solidarity parties only deepened this dysfunction, as the opposition mostly dominated distrust of the state.
Conservative eliters of the 1990s formulating their task of the 4th Republic – with Rafał Matyja at the head – consisting in the request to repair the institution, make autonomy towards organization rivalry and give the legal strategy a circumstantial axiology had to recommend.
The logic of this task was contrary to both the post-communist agreement and the "spirits of the state" forming our "social arrangement". This is how Matya bitterly accounts for her own biography.
“Absolution” by Kaczyński
Such a diagnosis of the state of society and the elite leads to rather schizophrenic conclusions about politics. On the 1 hand, the author leaves no uncertainty about his criticism of both the PO and the PiS governments. It was these parties that did not take advantage of the historical constitutional minute of 2003-2005, erstwhile a social approval for real state reconstruction appeared, followed by respective mature intellectual projects. However, the leaders of these parties preferred to usage the chance to make a bipolar organization strategy guaranteeing them a strong position for years alternatively of real state reform. alternatively of fighting a weakening state with a destructive “social system” they preferred to “use bad habits for their benefit”.
In this explanation of the Law and Justice Office, the Law and Justice Office is not an alternate to the rules of the 3rd Republic, but constitutes "its sad decadence, an exaggeration of its errors". If the "spirit of the state" in force here is the east standards of bureaucratic control, then the ruling organization has proposed to us, based on the political will, a "pregnant state", a simplification in the function of parliament and contempt for institutions. If our problem is clientelism, then the Law and Justice Office, as well as the PO, treated the state as a "slaying system" and a large employment agency. If we have been struggling with excessive centralism for decades, there must have been proposals for an even greater simplification of local authorities. If our dysfunctional "social system" digests flawed personnel selection mechanisms, the Ziebra improvement besides introduced them in the judiciary. If the challenge is generational change, Beata Szydło has established 1 of the oldest governments in fresh history. Finally, if in our culture there are macho patterns hiding behind the rhetorical facade a real weakness, then the same patterns will be found present in propaganda served by the public media. According to Matya, PiS serves us the 3rd Republic square.
On the another hand, The emergency exit gives us a large reason why another policy is not possible. Jarosław Kaczyński's policy is simply a combination of large determination and pure rationality, which allows him to draw conclusions from erstwhile failures. In the early 1990s, he was close to the sensitivity of conservative elites erstwhile he built his organization "based on intelligent formations", for which he was even publically criticized by Jan Olszewski. This strategy, due to the mediocre condition of the elite, led to his defeat. A twelve years later, erstwhile he set up a strong alliance with the Catholic-Popular mainstream, he built 1 of the most powerful political formations. It was akin with the mediate class. The Centre's agreement was initially a organization with a larger electorate among tiny entrepreneurs than the Liberal Democratic Union.
Kaczyński rapidly understood, however, that his constituents did not want to change bad customs and build strong institutions, and the communicative about the settlement of politicians from the real effects of their regulation can be inserted among fairy tales. He did not resent reality, but changed his strategy.
He utilized the mechanics of clientelism to build his party, besides paying more attention to the issue of symbolic dispute than the sphere of facts. In turn, drawing conclusions from the organization weakness of the AWS, he placed on the leadership party, which provided him with stableness of leadership. The rational choice was besides the dispute with the PO itself. erstwhile common letters were created to self-government in 2002, then a very bad consequence was achieved. This made the leaders of the 2 formations aware that "they can number on electoral profits only if they are in a heated dispute over everything." Finally, the 3 "populistic" Kaczyński phrases were very rational: the division into Poland "liberal" and "solidar" allowed us to win the 2005 elections; the coalition with Self-defense and LPR allowed him to take over the electorates of these parties; anti-immigration and anti-German rhetoric contributed to the triumph of 2015.
The leader of the PiS in all these decisions proved to be insanely rational. That is why Matyja yet “sacrifices” Kaczyński with the words: “bad politics are not the derivative of their [party leaders] evil characters. It is primarily due to the conditions under which they must act." Kaczyński did not make the destructive "social system" – it was the "social system" that Kaczyński created. By doing otherwise, he would never have reached for power.
Matya Drama
Matya, therefore, is torn apart in the assessment of politics, which will become understandable to us after reflection. It all boils down to the relation between political power and the "social arrangement" considered in the context of the long term. Mathyja-analyst understands that politicians in order to gain power cannot play against these forces, but must submit to them. After all, as he writes, politics in today’s Poland “requires players to borrow a kind of systemic credit. designation of mechanisms for gaining support in a planet accustomed to clientelism, where jobs or access to public funds are paid. designation of media-defined competition mechanisms". That is why Matyja-analyst is able to realize Kaczyński, and even to a certain degree to “save him.” It is hard for a politician to accuse him of wanting to gain power and to usage the “rules of propriety” in force in society.
At that time Matyja-citizen is active in the narrative, but he would like the acquired power not to submit to the dysfunctional “social system” but to be deliberately utilized to change the rules of the game in force in society. To guarantee that the state does not service solely to consolidate the positions of the rulers, but to fight the destructive “spirits of the state”. And again, the author, although he has just abandoned the illusion of an elite conservative, expresses regret that the policy uses assurance in the institutions, weakens our ability to cooperate beyond divisions, reduces our global position, establishes inappropriate rules for the usage of public funds, etc. Matyja-citizen would like to believe that "another policy is possible".
This is how we got to the point of the “matya drama” which is actually the drama of all stateman. It spreads between the past's unfavorable "social arrangement" and the improvement imagination with the ambition to change this "agency". Between the analytical capacity to realize the cynical principles governing the current policy and the civilian desire for them to be somewhat different. Between the readiness to engage, which will most likely end in failure or cynicism and the escape into “expertity”, which will most likely end in bitterness or desecration from reality. To put it plainly, this stateman drama is set between the hopelessness of past and the hope for the future.
Blind emergency exit
But Matya does not want to give in to hopelessness of history. After all, from the cover of his book, he gives us a promise to find a title “contingent exit”. The reader, however, may feel disappointed after reading, as the promise is not covered.
Matyja expects from the modern state “only” 2 things: “an efficient institution and manipulative, with a comparatively well-informed public opinion”. He immediately adds that “the first has nothing to number on.” Why specified a categorical court? It takes on the failure of the author's religion in the affirmative causative power of the policy under the rules laid down in the III Republic. He says: “The parties and governments they make cannot be a tool to repair the state. This is judged by their dependence on the current competition rules, as well as the arrangement of interests and social expectations that they must take into account." So, erstwhile again, the "social arrangement" is the decision! Kaczyński is not the 1 standing in the way of a better policy. The voters don't want it. The party, which, after the winning election, would inform its members and voters that it would not support "its own", would immediately lose contact with its social base.
It so remains "well-informed" and "manipulated" public opinion. Therefore, the ‘emergency exit’ is to be the ‘elita of perception’. Matyja outlines the request to establish a working structure called "think-tank Poland", which would combine existing intellectual environments and people with a wider designation of the challenges facing our country.
Such a network should have respective features. To emergence “out of the media and political centres of gravity” as political “attraction” is besides powerfully influenced there. Be dispersed and decentralised, that is, go far beyond Warsaw, based on “contact points operating in respective twelve cities”. Be open to all those who want to rebut in substance; work together on key solutions. To be supported by the media, which will hierarchize and organize this work. yet – be free from any individual connections.
Matya has no illusions that politicians will benefit from the work of specified a network due to the fact that they are not curious in it. However, it believes that it can "impact on how problems are perceived". possibly in crisis situations, it will scope out to people from specified a network, like "servicers" of computer networks, pages or servers erstwhile companies have a problem with their systems. ‘Think-tank Poland’ can so fulfil the function of ‘service provider’ erstwhile the political strategy of the III Republic suspends.
It is only a pity that it is very hard to believe in creating specified a network after reading the "Emergency Output". After all, the reader has read so much about the disorganized and entertained social missions of elites, that he does not realize why this time they should merge from the bottom up into "think-tank Poland"! Neither does the book say anything about financing specified a structure, and that is simply a key issue for the success of the project. I don't think there's much to number on for backing from public grants, due to the fact that these are in the hands of the political elite petryllistic arrangement. Nor is there any peculiar illusion that it will be able to sustain itself thanks to the generosity inactive left on the “uncreative mediate class”. Finally, we must besides have no illusions as to how the identity media criticized by the author will treat this project. It's not just about the bipolar image of the planet they create. It is besides about the inability to break through the entertaining mash they serve. After all, Matyja himself notes that "from a substantive press conference on ecology or regional policy nothing will penetrate the media, and all infantile prank has a chance to find itself in them repeatedly". In specified a "social system" no "think-tank Poland" can be created.
And that's the biggest problem with Matya's book. Well written, well mapped the basic challenges facing Poland, very perceptive, sometimes even ruthless in criticism. Only this title doesn't truly fit the content. As if Matyja-citizen did not want to admit to Matyja-analyst that there is no "emergency exit". Yet the "social system" shaped by our past makes "another policy impossible". Hopelessness clearly dominates all hope.
Which way to an emergency exit?
However, let us effort to defend Matya-citizen from Matya-analyst, looking for inspiration in this essay Kołakowski. The fundamental importance of his argument was the belief that the plasticity of the Polish PRL strategy is greater than is commonly believed. By adding hope to the environments of resistance, he pointed out that each – even with the appearance of the most rigid and non-alternative strategy – has in itself natural contradictions that should be recognized and exploited. The question of consciousness is important. The invariability of the strategy is based on our belief that any change is not possible. However, if citizens erstwhile question this dogma in their heads, it could lead to far-reaching consequences.
This designation from almost half a century ago has not lost anything on its actuality, especially given the circumstances in which we found ourselves. Jarosław Kaczyński, as the "last revolutionist of the 3rd Republic of Poland", has led to his decisions erstwhile further revision of our political strategy cannot take place under the current rules. As Jacek Sokołowski pointed out, we were in a situation erstwhile our constitution lost its erstwhile function. The primary law consists not only of written standards, but besides of “a squad of people and institutions which are widely regarded as exclusive to the explanation of this act. In the course of the revolution, however, the legitimacy of these organs and people was denied. Now everyone can claim that a given thing is constitutional or not, due to the fact that there is no more universal agreement among Poles, who is competent to say what is constitutional.”
So we have a situation where, in fact, the constitution has stopped working and at the same time no fresh rules have been proposed in return.
The III Republic was so peculiarly susceptible to change. We do not know how long our strategy will proceed with inertia. However, we know that it will be essential to establish fresh rules in force in a year, five, 10 years. Our country will gotta come up with a fresh idea.
However, these changes cannot be designed in an arch-intelligence design. They must be developed in a completely fresh way. Matyja rightly notes that the work on the fresh rules of the game must be started by recognizing the "social system" that is constituting our society with invisible roots. However, it is incorrect to presume that this society is homogeneous, in a way determined, and that there are no affirmative elements in it that can be utilized for change. Mathyja-analyst is right that politicians in order to gain power cannot play completely against the "social system". However, Matya-citizen wrongly concludes that policy cannot be a tool for the recovery of the state.
Rather, the right strategy should be to identify specified groups in the Polish society which are discriminated against present due to the "social system" in force and would gladly support a credible state change project. Only their political emancipation by realizing their own position and then combining their group interest with state reasoning can give specified a task social load. The strength of any movement of change, even to feed on the example of the feminist movement, is the appropriate designation of social problems with a credible draft change, the integral component of which is the promise of a clear improvement in the life situation of a peculiar group. specified a constructed task can only be considered in terms of a credible “emergency exit”.
Conservation of ‘state spirits’
A example of specified reasoning can be carried out on the “spirits of the state” indicated by Matya – without deciding how much this catalogue actually contains all our social problems.
Let's start with centralism, due to the fact that this seems to be the simplest case. There is simply a powerful group of people, or possibly better said – cities that lose real lives all year due to this "spirit". Prof. Przemysław Śleszyński spoke about this case in a cross-cutting way in an interview with the clubjagiellonski.pl, pointing out that "after 1990, improvement policy implemented by subsequent governments was put on major metropolises". This trend was further strengthened after the 1999 administrative reform. As a result, the large cities "went very forward" at the expense of medium-sized cities, which are 255 in Poland. There is so a powerful group of citizens who lose their centralism and are willing to support change in this area. It was the creation of specified a social “deglomeration lobby” that Piotr Trzedowski had late proposed on our behalf. The enthusiasm and engagement of local elites, which was triggered by our first deglomeration initiative aimed at 1 of the medium-sized cities, shows that in this subject we can truly number on building any super-party network.
If centralism continues to hold tight with us, this is primarily due to organization centralism. 4 years ago, we looked at this problem by analyzing the secret of the success of 5 fresh then city presidents. At that time, we learned the communicative of Mark Materek, the young president of Starachowice, whose career in the PO was brutally interrupted by the organization arrangement. The study showed how local leaders with real achievements for their local communities are besides treated by organization centres as a deadly threat in another cities.
That is why we have advocated a change in the doctrine of the party's operation by empowering the primary "party cell", which would let local leaders to build a position on the authority of their constituents, alternatively than being dependent "on the horse riding your grace". The change in the functioning of the organization should besides be part of the revision of the electoral code to the Sejm by restoring the passive electoral law, which is to give a real chance for candidates not associated with any political party, which is recommended in their OSCE report.
Party centralism present strikes a powerful group of social leaders, self-government leaders, activists and local organization activists – both those inactive active and those in fresh years discouraged and "punished" outside the system. This group is waiting for a credible task to change the rules of personnel selection in politics.
The generation of highlands awaits political initiation
The establishment of fair promotion rules in turn straight involves generational change. It is mainly people entering adulthood after systemic transformation who lose on the “generation block”. Meanwhile, in our social and economical life, the demographic boom generation, the yearbooks born between 1975 and 1985, is starting to play an increasingly crucial role. Today, these people, about 40 years old, are middle-level staff of many businesses, universities, ministries, social organizations, media and hospitals.
Looking at the image of this generation – even if well outlined by Paulina Wilk in peculiar Characters – we will see very characteristic circumstances in which it functions. It is ‘pressed’ between the generations of ‘Solidarity’ and NZS, which have reached the ‘great hand’ and ‘Y generation’, which does not want to wait besides long for professional success. Unlike its somewhat older colleagues, it will exert expanding force on the existing social hierarchy.
The reconciliation of sensitivity and the rightness of these different generations present represents a central challenge facing most companies and institutions on a regular basis. It is the generation of demographic boom that can play a key function in this process, because, if you believe Wolf's description, it wants to establish fresh rules for promotion.
Unlike generations earlier, it appreciates much more substantive issues than knowledge. Unlike the younger generation, it understands the importance of interpersonal cooperation and is ready to work hard for a long-term effect. Although it remains a "great absent policy", the election preferences of this generation will besides find the election consequence for the next 2 decades. His political “special signs” are of large interest: disillusionment with the state and political class; questioning the social hierarchy, where the “anointing” of elders determines everything; seeking ways to “be together, not against each other”; longing for concepts specified as “public good, state right, common interest”. If the image of Wilk is true, then the generation of demographic booms can be a powerful ally in the fight against a negative "social arrangement".
Eastern standards will not withstand competition
Another "spirit of the state" is the east standards of bureaucratic control, which involves both disastrous government and the weakness of public institutions. This case is absolutely crucial due to the fact that administrative arbitrage takes all the energy to work. This has been experienced by anyone who has undergone a control done with clearly “bad will”. It does not substance whether it was taxation control in a private company, verification of the implementation of a public grant in a social organization or control of NIK in 1 of the branches of the state administration.
If the checks are carried out according to “eastern standards” – i.e. they give controlers a immense field of explanation – then our destiny is placed in the hands of an authoritative who can challenge the years of our work with 1 decision.
Sokołowski is right, therefore, that “it is impossible to regulation a modern, insanely complex country and control modern, complicated social life solely through an administrative mechanism. The totalitarian systems tried and collapsed. They fell not due to the fact that they were bad, but due to the fact that they were little effective.” Rather, the modern state must delegate to judges the anticipation of interpreting the law in specified a way as to "adapt them with circumstantial rulings to the changing needs and social expectations".
Eastern control standards service only the political and bureaucratic class due to the fact that they give it peculiar prerogatives. All active and self-respecting citizens, from private entrepreneurs to social workers, should, however, stand to reject them. specified a change should besides be supported by the legal elite, which is closer to the model of the Western State based on the judge's authority, than the model of the east State based on the authority of an official.
Empathy in “machism”
Matyja besides points to the destructive influence of “maczism” as a cultural pattern which behind the rhetorical facade of force hides its own weakness. The etymology of this word indicates that it must primarily be a problem of the "male component of the soul", and the consequence of any kind of female emancipation. However, these are only conjectures, as the author of the "Emergency Output" does not make this theme.
I am increasingly convinced that the imagination of a sex dispute, which the media has given us – between the soldiers who are supposedly looking at the Soldiers of the Cursed Men who are insecure of their strength, and the strong women who see their main enemy in the PiS and the Catholic Church – is any horrendous hoax. I don't find real problems with my relatives and friends in this dispute.
If they are troubled, it is alternatively the feeling that they must conflict with expanding frustration and the failure of unchangeable household and social ties. They are worried about increasingly violent changes in civilization and technology. Most importantly, their children, who, as investigation shows, are in a "psychic mess", endure the most. Depressive symptoms are 1 in 5 Warsaw 15-year-olds. In 3 years, the number of teenagers trying to take their own lives has besides increased by a third.
It is hard to see the direct link between these real social problems and the cult of the Cursed Soldiers or the abortion dispute. However, I believe that a serious social debate on these issues is uncovering more and more interested. It is adequate to mention that on our portal, devoted primarily to politics, more and more popularity is gaining... articles devoted to the challenges of civilization. matrimony stability, dependence on fresh media or the intellectual state of the young generation – these are topics that thrill many people in the republic more curious in the public life of citizens than organization pushes or even details of crucial reforms. Honest, nuanced and empathetic exposing them and discussing them has the chance to weaken “mightiness” as a valid cultural code in our “social system”.
Customerism Our Universal
Finally, I have left the issues of clientelism due to the fact that this "spirit of the state" is most likely our biggest Community challenge.
On the 1 hand, at the level of the declaration, everyone rejects the mechanics of building a network of economical influences for political support. On the another hand, many of us truly anticipate that if they win “our” our destiny will improve. due to the fact that it'll be easier to get a public contract, a investigation grant, a social organization grant, or just if it's not paid decently, it'll be a unchangeable job.
Opponents gain power and start ‘their own’ granting public funds – we voice our opposition. The card turns around and “our” begins to regulation – we line up and look for “access”. This is the top paradox of clientelism: everyone wants to change it as long as the close squad does not regulation it. erstwhile the situation changes, then we recognise clientelism as a natural component of democracy.
At the same time, this "spirit of the state" is destructive not only for politics but for the full social life. In the Capitalism of Andrzej Szahaj’s fine print, we can read that “in politics and business it is only worth playing honestly erstwhile everyone plays honestly. Then it is rational, due to the fact that it can be successful. However, if individual plays unfairly and is not punished, what is more, succeeds, then the road to demoralization is open. If everyone is prepared to play unfairly in advance, demoralization reaches its apogee.” This is what political competition in the 3rd Republic looks like.
How do you fight it? The answer is trivially simple to spell and tragically hard to perform. They must – if not in the heart of politics, then on its outskirts – be environments that will care for little dependence on clientelistic networks. They do not have a chance in the long run to accomplish political success, but the concern for any independency can paradoxically warrant them a longer organization life than another political centres. They are the ones who are able to more meaningfully and more crediblely articulate expectations of the political mainstream and repudiate its representatives erstwhile they “fly outside the band”. The longer duration of specified centres can besides long-term change the position of those citizens who have decided to enter the planet of hard politics and have just been disappointed by the ubiquitous clientelism and deficiency of origin they have experienced there.
Such an idealistic, almost utopian script of combining these people and promoting fair rules of the game we effort to implement in pains at the Jagiellonian Club. However, we realize that our efforts are a drop in the sea of need. All we gotta do is believe that specified an environment that promotes fair principles in politics and the economy will grow. Otherwise, we will never escape the devil’s grip of clientelism.
Hope for Impossible
Reading the Emergency Output leaves a bitter taste. Matyja painfully reminds that being a state man in modern Poland is simply a game against current trends, due to the fact that this model of reasoning about politics does not fit the "social system" developed in our 20th century. reasoning of politics as a power game, we must "use evil morals for the benefit of ourselves" alternatively than waste our lives on "postulating the impossible." However, at the end of his way, we are bound to have a nihilism of abandoning all hope. Modern politics strengthen our fears alternatively than give us reason to be optimistic.
Therefore, I like to stay with the doubtful hope that tragic past does not full find us. That Polish society is much more diverse than is expected to be. That it can identify very many groups discriminated against due to the "social system" in force, ready to support a credible state change project. That politics can be a “case” fight, not just a “against someone”. Finally, that we entered a period of "inter-equipment" separating successive phases of modernity, so present it is not adequate to just follow the West, but to look for fresh solutions with it. That gives us a full fresh field of manoeuvre.
Agreed, Republicanism is indeed a game against trends. past teaches, however, that a triumph can be achieved by playing in this way during the solstice era. Let this be the “return exit” we are looking for, even if it is only utilized in moments of crisis erstwhile the building truly starts shaking in jobs.
- The text was originally released in April 2018 in KJ. I thank Peter Kaszczyszyn for his approval to make it available
- Krzysztof Mazur – president of the Jagiellonian Club from 2007 to 2012 and 2015-2018; creator of social projects (including the Academy of Modern Patriotism) and talks about Poland and the planet on the YT channel 'Geoeconomics' ; He's not from Krakow.
