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Summary
Grzegorz Lewicki
P
ressje Quarterly brings together young thinkers and artists from various intellectual circles to provide a forum for open intellectual debate
across social, cultural, legal and philosophical issues that matter to Poland in the twenty-first century. In the spirit of tolerant debate Pressje asks the
questions which are often discriminated, downplayed or neglected elsewhere;
it highlights the issues which would otherwise never receive sufficient attention in the politically correct universe. Working within the broad framework of
ideas popularly described as conservatism Pressje tries to transgress modern and postmodern discourses while preserving some of their noble tenets
and deconstructing the ones that might be harmful to the vitality of Western
civilization.
“Post-Europe” – a place we live in. Current issue of Pressje scrutinizes
European Union understood as “post-Europe” – a neither secular, nor Christian structural entity. This entity is in itself neutral and can be characterized
by heterogeneity – that is to say tolerance for different cultural, institutional,
discursive and symbolical sets. We argue in the introduction by Jan Maciejewski and Krzysztof Mazur that many types of values can be pumped into
the pipes of European system and that conditional euro-enthusiasm is a must
if we want to avoid cultural wars. Professor Witold Wilczyński embarks upon
a journey through history to point out how geography privileged and, on the
other hand, determined European culture. He also describes how political
interest played a role in defining what “the proper Europe” is and reminds
that in the past it was eastern Polish border that was popularly considered as
a boundary of European culture. In turn Professor Krzysztof Szczerski elaborates on how the dynamics of the EU is exercised by a constant clash of the two
mutually contradicting logics – an altruistic international interest (a vehicle of
which is European Commission and European Parliament) and egoistic national interests (European Council and EU’s Council). This brilliant philosophical
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and logical analysis embeds the principles that govern EU’s dynamics in the
squares of qualitative oppositions. In turn Wojciech Czabanowski thinks over
some coherences within the EU. He unpacks the multiple identity of the EU and
orders it in accordance with five dimensions (confessional, religious, secular,
formal and queer), which implies, among others, that Christianity might compete with Islam and secularism, but is coherent with queer. As to religion and
secularism, Piotr Sawczyński argues that Weberian “disenchantment of the
world” is not linear, namely, that modernization does not necessarily reduce
irrationalism. In fact, there are many irrationalists in the EU, for example religious fundamentalists, who should be publicly tolerated in accordance with
“radical pluralism” as long as they respect the basic rules of democracy. Wojciech Łysek even claims this principle of pluralism is visible in the very flag
of the EU – the meaning of twelve stars on a blue background seems to be
deliberately vague and conductive to many interpretations.
How to live in such post-secular Europe? Karol Wilczyński’s advice is to
first follow Peter Sloterdijk and apprehend EU as “a crystal palace” – an artificial construct, where the crystal walls protect atheist cubes, Christian cathedrals and Muslim mosques, safely built within. Paweł Rojek focuses on the
strategies to be forged in these cathedrals, by elaborating how grassroot movements, in contrast to isolationist escapism, are capable of restoring vitality
of European Christianity. In his view EU for a Christian must not be “a prison”,
but “a duty”. Błażej Skrzypulec fully supports this claim by arguing that Christians on the institutional level of the EU should implement nothing more than
a “formalist” strategy, which means creating the boundary conditions for
a free cultivation of religion. This would effectively leave space for a “materialist
strategy” of fulfilling some more specified Christian postulates on the bottom-up level of social and civic action. Grzegorz Lewicki also elaborates on the
bottom-up strategies by applying game theory to formalize “The Europe
Game”, whereby interacting agents that may carry three sets of beliefs in different proportions (non-religion, Christianity, Islam), compete for power and
proliferation of their own beliefs through public commitment, reproduction
and bringing offspring up. Should these practical strategies not work properly,
there is always some space for Divine intervention left – our main section is
completed by Paweł Kostecki’s essay on the ongoing beatification process of
Robert Schuman, one of EU’s founding fathers, accompanied by the full text of
an official Catholic prayer for his beatification and individual support.
This time, by a way of exception, we do not publish our traditional interview with an intellectual and concentrate on Vâčeslav Moiseev’s detective account of a mysterious 19th century visit of Vladimir Solovev to Krakow instead.
It seems that the famous Russian thinker kept sending encoded messages to
convince Russian tzar that the unification of Eastern and Western Christianity
will be beneficial for Russia!
To think over Europe even more profoundly we present a separate section
about art, law and religion. We recall some performers who starve animals to
Summary
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death to trace a hopeful intellectual trend that might bring similar practices
to an end in the future. Then we give examples of this emerging trend by analyzing some controversial art related rulings of the European Court of Human
Rights, which are unpredictable and follow contradictory principles. This volatility suggests a lack of established norms and potential malleability of the
normative system. In turn another author suggests that some currents of liberal culture might sometimes dangerously drift towards intolerance.
Another section is devoted to the so called “culture of memory”. We recall
a speech by Stanisław Kracik, the governor of Malopolska district, who – together with other authors – puts forward this term as more conductive to
the issues of collective identity than the hitherto used term “historical policy”.
A theoretical argument is supported by a political case study and some relevant suggestions.
Yet another section analyzes the role of social sciences in modern Poland.
The suggestion of our authors is crystal clear: social scientists must not confine their research to academia. Instead, they must establish new institutions
and stimulate innovative mood in the society. To support this thesis, we present and analyze another portion of case studies.
As to our regular sections – the poetry section, apart from contributions,
reviews and interpretations presents another interview – this time with Marek
Buś, a literary critic, about Polish poet C. K. Norwid. Our debates from previous
issues continue and our reviews of books and journals may make you – as
always – shine in different intellectual circles.
The issue is completed by another portion of memories from Soviet forced labour camps (Gulag) by Tadeusz Pietkiewicz. This time they are more
symbolical than ever: they will make you thank God you happened to live in
a warm European “crystal palace” and not in a devastated Syberian barn,
where ruthless violence is as ubiquitous as blizzards and death awaits behind
every frozen tree.
„ P r e s s j e ”, t e k a 2 1
Postmodernistyczna
Solidarność
Klub Jagielloński
Kraków 2010
280 stron
oprawa miękka
cena 20 zł, przesyłka za darmo
Zaproponowaliśmy nową teorię Solidarności. Naszym zdaniem był to ruch
niedogmatyczny, antyoświeceniowy, antyglobalistyczny i postmodernistyczny.
Opublikowaliśmy też dwa ważne teksty Maryjane Osy i Michała Łuczewskiego
o religijnych źródłach Solidarności. W Krakowskim Kredensie rozmawialiśmy
z o. Janem Andrzejem Kłoczowskim.
W „Pressjach” młodzi, naprawdę najwybitniejsi krakowscy intelektualiści analizują Solidarność nie jako politykę, ale jako fenomen, który trzeba zrozumieć
[…]. Spotykam tego typu ludzi i czuję, że coś w nich ze mnie zostało.
Jadwiga Staniszkis, Polskie Radio
Pomysł, aby wielką narodową konfederację, jaką była Solidarność, czytać przez
nieco przywiędłe intelektualne nowinki w wydaniu Jean-Francois Lyotarda
czy Gianniego Vattimo, budzić musi sprzeciw. Trudno oprzeć się wrażeniu, że
jest w tym spora doza właściwego (nie tylko) młodości efekciarstwa.
Bronisław Wildstein, „Rzeczpospolita”
Robota Klubu Jagiellońskiego, który postanowił nałożyć na doświadczenie
Solidarności zupełnie inne niż dotychczas kategorie, okazuje się czymś ze
wszech miar ożywczym i potrzebnym.
Andrzej Horubała, „Uważam Rze”
Bardzo odważny eksperyment intelektualny […]. Myślę, że może stać się ważnym impulsem do ponownego zastanowienia się nad fenomenem Solidarności.
Zbigniew Stawrowski, Instytut Myśli ks. Józefa Tischnera
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Polscy romantycy zrozumieli, że walka o niepodległość to walka w imię Boga
„za wolność waszą i naszą”. Dokładnie tak rozumiem proponowany przez
„Pressje” postmodernizm Solidarności.
o. Jan Andrzej Kłoczowski, dominikanin
To, co zrobiły „Pressje”, niesamowicie mi zaimponowało. […] Redakcja powinna jednak zachować coś z oświecenia, na przykład autokrytycyzm.
Adam Workowski, Uniwersytet Papieski im. Jana Pawła II
21. teka „Pressji” stanowi dowód., że postmodernistyczno-konserwatywny
eksperyment wnosi wiele świeżości i pozwala formułować ciekawe wnioski.
Marcin Suskiewicz, biochemik
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