Nowość w sklepie KP
CYTAT DNIA
Uczymy się po to, aby zmieniać świat, a nie po to, aby się do niego
przystosowywać.
Jacek Kuroń
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Vermin Control |
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Tomasz Piątek
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21.10.2009 |
Our apartment is undergoing a radical make-over and as a result I’ve been finding it difficult to put pen to paper. The situation has become nothing short of dramatic: the kitchen as we knew it is no more; neither is the bathroom. Even the loo was missing for a while. Hygiene standards have fallen and our predicament has been compounded by our octogenarian neighbour’s multiple levels of social exclusion: Her minuscule hovel has no running water, while it abounds in rescued animals and all manner of accumulated rubbish. In time, the foundlings fade into the rubbish, while the rubbish starts stirring alarmingly and animatedly. We have succumbed to a plague of next-door fleas as large as fully-grown mushrooms and flies the size of hamsters; what with our hygiene at an all-time low and our windows wide open because of the debilitating heat wave. We have been spraying ourselves with everything and anything we could lay our hands on, including veterinary doggie preparations, but to no avail; I alone can count some sixty bites all over my skin. Our complaints to the building’s administration had fallen on deaf ears, until we resorted to threatening a television exposé. Our primary concern - that social services should take care of our little old lady next door; that she should be washed, given medical care and provided with decent living conditions - was out of the question; but pest control did turn up and we have been given a temporary respite from the chorus of jolly buzzing noises until the ecosystem next door regenerates as it surely will. In the meantime, our pest-driven apocalyptic cataclysm has been paralleled in the political arena; which can be described as equally pest-driven and apocalyptic. Even as our abode is being thoroughly tackled by the vermin control operative, I’m going to submit Polish politics to a similar wholesale, broad-spectrum anti-vermin spraying.
Apparently our next door neighbour used to be a poet in the dim and distant, so her plight provides a perfect example of an artistically surreal fate that has befallen many Polish artists and writers in their old age. It can be said that we Poles have recently scored many famous victories in our struggle against culture in all its manifestations and consequently, when the Civic Platform (PO) announced the impending final demise of public media and culture per se, The Great and The Good among the Polish artists rose up in vehement protest. Not so long ago, one word of censure from these quarters would provoke a ministerial resignation at the very least; but now – not a slightest wave has broken. Take Tusk: The man has not deigned to receive Agnieszka Holland in a full year and it’s obvious that he’s not going to bother with a nobody who doesn’t own even a single puny bank. The Great and The Good remained in demand immediately after 1989 with the brief to help formulate neoliberal policies and keep the intelligentsia happy with the promises of the Great cultural Leap Forward yet to come. But now, after the twentieth anniversary of this relentless ‘Great Leap Forward,’ they are no longer needed, because the intelligentsia has withered on the vine, and there’s no one left to be kept happy any more. As a result, The Great & The Good can go and bugger themselves. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
This process of the alienation of the arts has brought about one cheery outcome: lots and lots of interested comments on websites devoted to Polish culture! Once upon a time, an announcement of a new Pawel Sala film about, say, ‘teenage murderers’ could only count on one measly, predictable comment of the kind: ‘Dear oh dear; shouldn’t be allowed, another degenerate film from another degenerate film maker!’ Today, oh joy, such interested comments can be counted in their dozens; and while correspondents still bemoan artistic degenerates, they have happily branched out into other spheres of interest, such as fiscal policy: ‘Shouldn’t be allowed’ has been ameliorated by the much nicer-sounding: ‘Don’t give him any financial backing!’
All these phenomena point to the fact that artistic ambitions are at cross-purposes and on collision course with the governing party’s directive, which reads as follows:
‘Dear Young Democrats,
Grzegorz Schetyna, the Secretary General of the Civic Platform, has approached us with a request to set up an Internet Monitoring Body. I cannot stress enough, how honoured we, as a Society, are; as Mr Schetyna invites us yet again to prove our loyalty and organisational strength. And so I say: ALL HANDS ON DECK! Our Internet Monitoring Body will track the most prominent Polish websites (WP, Onet, Gazeta, Dziennik, Interia) and post opinions sympathetic to the Civic Platform in ‘Comments,’ while staying clear of any discussion or chat forums (we all know from experience what a waste of time they are!).
(…)
Dariusz Słodkowski
Deputy Secretary General
Young Democrats’ Society.
Well, there you have it: Who the heck needs discussion? Horror of horrors, discussion could give somebody ideas above their station or hatch a cultural trend! It’s so much more convenient to see off any cultural stirrings with the succinct: ‘bollocks’ and we have the Civic Platform to thank for the introduction of the concept of ‘bollocks’ (‘gniot’) into the political debate. ‘Bollocks’ refers to all cultural phenomena which have not turned out to be self-financing and have not performed according to their marketing strategies of providing light entertainment to specific socio-economic groups. In other words, ‘bollocks’ refers to Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal,’ Conrad’s ‘The Heart of Darkness’ and all of the artistic output of Van Gough, Gauguin and Cezanne. And Poland is to be thoroughly purged of such bollocks.
‘Nuf said about culture, because apparently no one wants to know anyway.
A pair of Catholic writers, Artur Bazak and Mateusz Matyszkowicz has recently published an article entitled: ‘No One Has Ever Died of the Drug Withdrawal Syndrome’ in the pages of ‘Rzeczpospolita.’ The title of the article itself gives me an inkling that the Messrs Bazak & Matyszkowicz know about as much about their subject as geese about marmalade.
Substance addiction is universally classified by medical and scientific institutions - such as AMA, NCAI, European Molecular Society, AA and medical compendia and encyclopaedias – as a ‘primary disease,’ which in turn may cause all manner of other ailments, problems and shock syndromes; physical, psychological or both. The drug withdrawal syndrome is viewed by medicine in terms of compulsive thinking about a given substance and a compulsion to ingest more and more of it. This compulsion is to blame for accidental overdoses, which happen when a person overindulges as a side effect of the syndrome. The same compulsion drives an addict to murder, suicide, or an accidental death under the wheels of a motorcar while fleeing the scene of a felony. Millions of people die as a result of the drug withdrawal syndrome. The way to any recovery must start with the acknowledgement of the compulsion. An addict must wake up to the fact that he is powerless in the face of his addiction. For as long as he keeps telling himself that he’s in control and only indulges in a drug of his choosing for the sheer enjoyment of it, he is lying to himself. Before he even attempts to escape the confines of his private psychological death camp, he needs to accept that he really is a prisoner and that the wire surrounding him is also all too real. Unfortunately for everyone, the court of public opinion has no time for medical testimony, however well tried and tested it may be. The dominant ideology does away with scientific niceties and the popular adage that an addict has only himself to blame has carried the day. It’ll take an awful lot of effort to overcome such endemic superstition.
But prick up your ears: the Catholic Messrs Bazak & Matyszkowicz have all the answers. Their understanding of addiction is apparently ‘higher’ than medical and so is their concept of the struggle against it. In their own words: ‘The system of moral values built on the foundation of Christian anthropology is being undermined by the system of Human Rights as interpreted from the leftist/liberal perspective. Leftist propaganda is being presented in the manner unlikely to challenge the modern man who has become sensitized to human misery and is therefore reluctant to pass stern moral judgements lest a person be offended, or, heaven forefend, slighted.’
Ok, I get it: sensitivity to another person’s misery does not present us with a challenge. Standing up for the rights of any ailing person; of any excluded person; of anyone set upon by others, or imprisoned, or beaten up or dying in the street; none of these constitute a challenge. On the other hand, it’d be laudable to pass stern moral judgement upon such a man, or to offend his dignity. It is an interesting take on Catholic morals and makes me wonder what Jesus would have to say on the matter.
It would be pointless to pick fault with the Messrs B. & M., since they quite shamelessly wallow in blatant lies and vague clap-trapping in their oeuvre. Here’s how they describe Cenacolo community, which has become notorious on account of its draconian methods (such as 24/7 Big Brother observation, and normal life - including book reading - banned): ‘Cenacolo is a Catholic equivalent of MONAR. Recovering addicts are treated like a monastic community, dividing their time between simple labour and prayer. There have been scores of testimonies as to the success of Cenacolo’s regime of complete abstinence, both from the inmates themselves and from affiliated organisations (such as Agape and Bethany Community), even though Cenacolo has been accused by the Left of having lost touch with reality.’
Well, numerous Charles Mason Family members have also testified as to the wonderful validity of their sectarian way of life. And anyway: where are those ‘scores of testimonies?’ Any chance of a few facts and figures? Preferably from independent, not Catholic, sources, please? Just how many individuals have remained sober after years of that particular abstinence therapy? And how many addicts have been put off giving other therapies a go because of the draconian methods used by Cenacolo? How many have died as a result of the lack of replacement medication? The vast majority of available statistics shows that merely around 20% of cases treated by the complete abstinence therapy remain sober. What happens to the remaining 80%? According to the Messrs B. & Mr.’s Catholic beliefs they should be either thrown onto the scrapheap or imprisoned. The Bible might disagree with their point of view.
…Moving swiftly on… from the dregs of society (and no, I don’t mean substance abusers)…to one citizen Zychowicz. As is generally known, neo-post-Nazis have organised a demo outside the Jewish Historical Institute. Life’s too short to split hairs over their objections to the ‘Jewish,’ or ‘Historical,’ or simply ‘Institute’ part of the appellation; maybe they find all these concepts objectionable; who cares. The important thing is that the demo was graced by the presence of precisely five demonstrators; while the rival, anti-Nazi demonstration was attended by at least a hundredfold bigger turnout. This is surely something to gladden every democratic and public-spirited heart. And yet citizens’ imprint ‘The Citizen’ does not appear to be rejoicing at all. Citizen Jacek Zychowicz, a columnist for The Citizen, writes in his article ‘The Whole of Poland is Fantastic:’
‘The jungle telegraph has woken up the entire social circle known by a somewhat dog-eared but still apt moniker of the ‘Varsovian luvvies’ (‘warszawka’) (…). I was somewhat surprised to see the Youtube video of the stormy events at the ŻiH (Jewish Historical Institute), and recognise the luvvies in the company of a motley crew of Marxists, Bolshevik-Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Guevaraists, Hodgeists, Foucault’s and Althusser’s acolytes, deconstructivists, postmodernists, political and art critics, random blue- and white-collar stewards, nurses and even municipal tenants. The whole lot is apparently shaded by the all-inclusive umbrella of the Far Left, but realistically speaking the twain should never have met: on one hand the polite readership of ‘Agora;’ on the other, the anti-capitalist warrior hordes. But this peculiar twinning can be explained by a scientific law formulated by yours truly, which runs as follows: Any participation in events by your typical leftist radical is inversely proportionate to the degree of real endangerment, but directly proportional to the chance of mass media exposure. (…) And there were plenty of cameras at the ŻiH demo. (…) Present day Robin Hoods, modern El Che incarnations and Polish Žižeks were falling over themselves to get into the spotlight.’
You’ve hit the nail on the head, citizen Zychowicz: We live in a market society, where everything and everybody’s raison d’être is to be successfully marketed; in and of themselves. Every product must be tailored to its statistical consumer and every statistical consumer must be tailored to his statistical product; to which end he has been pre-conditioned by relentless advertising. We all of us are being formatted as consumers and products at the same time. ‘Selling yourself well’ has become a matter of survival and the adjective ‘well’ only serves to gloss over the verb ‘to sell out.’ It’s impossible to escape the imperative to self-format, self-advertise, self-promote and to make the best of one’s body language. This imperative is at the root of our social structure and it’s nothing to be proud of because it contaminates our every action.
Would complete inaction provide an escape route from this morass? If this is the case, then The Citizen itself should fold, because it is as market driven as the rest of us, even though I’ll concede that it underpins an interesting attempt at centre-left platform building in Polish politics. The marketing rationale behind The Citizen can be summed up in a few sentences:
Your average Pole wants the government’s protection from poverty and Catholicism’s protection from sin: This is why PiS’ socio-conservative rhetoric managed to pull the wool over his eyes for a short while. Q.E.D: left-of-centre conservatism is the logical way forward and its ideas shall fall on fertile ground. Sadly, this has not been the case so far; neither in Poland nor anywhere else (And talking about would-be Žižeks; John Milbank, English ideologue and theologian of the so-called ‘red conservatism,’ thought it necessary to publish his book in cooperation with Slavoj Žižek himself).
…So how come that PiS has successfully managed to sell itself to the public thank you very much; but The Citizen is struggling? First of all, PiS has stayed well clear of declaring itself a leftist party. The editorship at The Citizen also have a sneaky suspicion that giving wide berth to the leftist label would be the correct marketing strategy; and if you look carefully at their main Internet page you may just spot a small flashing disclaimer to this effect in the top left hand corner. But the leftist label has – and quite rightly – stuck. After all, The Citizen lobbies for a welfare society. After all, it bemoans the hegemony of the Right. After all, it uses the term ‘leftist’ in positive context. Finally, it proclaims the need for the power to be handed over to the ‘true’ Left; that is, the good, old-fashioned Left anchored in the mentality of ordinary men and women. And here I’m driven to the conclusion that The Citizen and Polish centre-left don’t get what Polish - popular, of the people, down-home and organic - conservatism is about. They fantasize that their target audience consists of the salt-of-the-earth people who will embrace centre-left thinking as long as it is slowly and patiently explained to them. Remigiusz Okraska, another of The Citizen’s columnists (and a very nice man he is), writes in ‘What Has Become of Your Social Class:’ ‘ The majority of Polish working class is (…) by and large conservative with a small ‘c,’ patriotic and more interested in religious pilgrimages or in their own family circle than in feminist or pro-abortionist rallies (…) your citizen-voter is interested in (…) ethical and religious values every bit as much as the economy.’
Dear oh dear; Mr Okraska must be harbouring really wild fantasies about the average Catholic Pole, if he reckons that ethical values have anything to do with Catholic pilgrimages or Catholic family life. To rid himself of his delusions, he’d do well to talk to the denizens of Czestochowa about the landscape-after-the-battle each time a pilgrimage has passed: empty vodka bottles, empty beer cans and condoms which had been utilised to the tune of ‘Mary Here, Mary There, Mary Everywhere’ (‘Maryja Tu, Maryja Tam,’ courtesy Youtube). The tune, by the by, has been ripped off from a Rumanian-Moldovan boy band ‘O-Zone’ and the processional ritual is a faithful recreation of pagan orgies dating back to two thousand years ago: unbridled drinking and fornicating under the aegis of the goddess Astarte-Cybele-Isis; blasphemously renamed in Poland as the ‘Mother of God.’ Catholicism is not there to stop you from sinning. It is there to stop you from thinking.
This lack of understanding of their target consumer’s mores explains why those logical ideas of the centre-left groups will not be welcomed with open arms. No one can sell logic to a frenzied Bacchante. There’s no way to explain to her that certain centre-left socio-economic solutions may be just the ticket to solve her problems. Logic is powerless in the face of the Eternal Fatwa imposed on the concept of the ‘Left’ by the goddess’s powerful acolytes.
Does it all mean that Mr Słodkowski is right in his insistence that political discussion is pointless? Gianni Vattimo once told me that the likes of us can only hope to resort to intellectual self-defence nowadays, because it would be impossible to reopen any semblance of an in-depth discourse in today’s society. Constant vigilance is required in the face of the dumbed-down stereotypes surrounding us on all sides, which must be ridiculed and have a crooked mirror held up to them; but we can do no more. Was he also right?
I myself am of the opinion that we haven’t as yet lost our ability to cogitate, as long as we retain our freedom to switch off the buzzing noises which assail our minds from without; the most pernicious ones for a start. This calls, unfortunately, for a minor revolution; but maybe a throrough make-over of the society should suffice.
I must be off to oversee my own domestic make-over, so it’s over and out till next time!
Transl. Malgosia Skawinski
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