Humanities Review
en
Humanities Review

Humanism Under Siege: The Janus Face of the Modern Revolution of Dignity

2021, 65, No. 1

Nina Witoszek

0000-0002-5354-4664

Civitas University in Warsaw

DOI

10.31338/2657-599X.ph.2021-1.1

Publication date

11.06.2021

Publishing model

open access

License type

CC BY 4.0 Int.

Field

arts and humanities

Discipline

philosophy, history, archeology, linguistics, literary studies, culture and religion studies, arts studies, polish studies

Language of publication

English

Downloads

PDF 297 KB

Article

Number of views:137

Number of downloads:24

Crossref citations:0

Altmetric score:0

Abstract

The article interprets the crisis of liberal democracy in the 21st century as the result of an ongoing, dual revolution of dignity. One such revolution is the work of “humanist outliers”: small groups and individuals dedicated to compassionate social emancipation. Thus anti-authoritarian revolutions like that of Solidarity in Poland (1980–81) succeed in large part thanks to cultural and political innovations springing from the work of such small groups. However, the humanist revolution of dignity – featuring altruism and cooperation – has its “tribal doppelgänger”: a twin revolution that strives to reclaim national dignity and pride at the price of submission to authoritarian rule.

Keywords:

Bibliography

Agamben, G. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford University Press, 1998.

Arendt, H. Crises of the Republic. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.

Ascherson, N. The Polish August: The Self-Limiting Revolution. New York: Viking Press, 1982.

Ash, T. G. "It's the Kultur, Stupid," The New York Review of Books, 7 December 2017, www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/12/07/germany-alt-right-kultur-stupid/

Bielik-Robson, A. "Obrona kołtuna," Krytyka Polityczna, 1 (2002), 85-100.

Bowles, S., and Gintis, H. A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400838837

Bralczyk, J. "O języku Wałęsy." Teksty Drugie. 4 (1990).

Brzeziński, M. The Struggle for Constitutionalism in Poland. London: MacMillan Palgrave, 2000.

Danahar, P. The New Middle East: The World after the Arab Uprising. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.

Düwell, M., et al. The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511979033

Castells, M. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity, 2012.

Chisholm, G. Handbook of Commercial Geography. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1908.

Domosławski, A. "KOR: Hieny, zdrajcy, terroryści," Gazeta Wyborcza, 21 Sept. 2001, www.wyborcza.pl/1,76842,444838.html

Falk, B. J. The Dilemmas of Dissidence in East-Central Europe: Citizen Intellectuals and Philosopher Kings. Budapest: Central European University, 2003.

Frankl, V. Man's Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.

Freire, P. The Paulo Freire Reader, eds. Ana Maria Araujo Freire and Donaldo Macedo. New York: Continuum, 1988.

Friszke, A. Czas KOR-u: Jacek Kuroń i geneza Solidarności. Kraków: Znak, 2011.

Gawin, D. Wielki zwrot. Ewolucja lewicy i odrodzenie idei społeczeństwa obywatelskiego 1956-1976. Kraków: Znak, 2013.

Gawin, D. "Inteligenckie obrachunki epoki transformacji," Krytyka polityczna, no. 1 (2002), 94-100.

Gombrowicz, W. A Kind of Testament, ed. Dominique de Roux, trans. Alastair Hamilton. London: Alder and Boyars, 1973.

Grel, O. P., and Scribner, B., eds. Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Griffin, R., ed. Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion. London: Routledge, 2005.

Fukuyama, F. "Against Identity Politics: The New Tribalism and the Crisis of Democracy," Foreign Affairs, 97, 5 (2018), 95-115.

Iyengar, I. "Barricades are down..." Time, 24 September 2015, www.time.com/4047648/hong-kongumbrella-revolution-occupy-anniversary/

Jacob, M. C. The Origins of Freemasonry: Facts and Fictions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Korolko, M., and Tazbir, J., eds. Konfederacja warszawska 1573 roku. Wielka karta polskiej tolerancji. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX 1980.

Kowalik, T. From Solidarity to Sellout: The Restoration of Capitalism in Poland, trans. Eliza Lewandowska. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012.

Krasnodębski, Z. Demokracja peryferii. Gdańsk: Słowo/obraz terytoria, 2005.

Krastev, I., and Holmes, S. The Light that Failed: A Reckoning. London: Allen Lane, 2019.

Krastev, I. "Naś́ladowanie zachodu już się wyczerpało," Gazeta Wyborcza, 28 December 2019, www.wyborcza.pl/naszaeuropa/7,168189,25549011,nasladowanie-zachodu-sie-wyczerpalo.html

Kuroń, J. "Myśli o programie działania," Aneks, London, 13/14 (1977), 33-48.

Kuroń, J. (aka Maciej Gajka) "Chrześcijanie bez Boga," Znak, 4/5 (1975), 531-32.

Laba, R. The Roots of Solidarity: A Political Sociology of Poland's Working-Class Democratization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400861552

Leder, A. Prześniona Rewolucja. Ćwiczenia z logiki historycznej. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, 2014.

Michnik, A. "Nowy ewolucjonizm," Aneks, 13/14, 1977, 33-48.

Michnik, A. Letters from Prison and Other Essays, trans. Maya Latynski. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985.

Michnik, A. Kościół, lewica, dialog. Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1977. English translation: The Church and the Left, trans. David Ost. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Michnik, A. Wściekłość i wstyd. Kraków: Znak, 2005.

Michnik, A. Diabeł naszego czasu. Warszawa: Nowa, 1995.

Miłosz, Cz. Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition, trans. Catherine S. Leach. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1959; 2002.

Norton, A. 95 Theses on Politics, Culture and Method. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.

OECD data: https://www.oecd.org/sdd/oecdmaineconomicindicatorsmei.htm, 2019.

Ost, D. The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501729270

Osa, M. Solidarity and Contention: Networks of Polish Opposition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Pawełczyńska, A. Wartości a przemoc ("Values and Violence"). Warszawa: Test, 2004.

Pleşu, A. "Humanism for the Weak," paper at The Future of Humanism conference, University of Oslo, 4-5 June 2004.

Popper, K. The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 2. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1945; 1973.

Skórzyński, J. Siła bezsilnych. Historia Komitetu Obrony Robotników. Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2012.

Środa, M. "Po co kościól obesesyjnie zajmuje się seksem?" Rzeczpospolita, 4 May 2009.

Wat, A. My Century: The Odyssey of a Polish Intellectual, with a foreword by Czesław Miłosz, trans. Richard Lourie. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Wilson, D. S. Does Altruism Exist? Culture, Genes and the Welfare of Others. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

Witoszek, N., and Środa, M. "Kvinnelige ofre i nytt katolski-nasjonalistisk Polen," Aftenposten, 29 May 2016.

Witoszek, N., and Sørensen, Ø. "Nordic Humanism and the Welfare State." In Nina Witoszek and Atle Midttun, eds., Sustainable Modernity: The Nordic Model and Beyond. London: Routledge, 2017.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315195964

Witoszek, The Origins of Anti-Authoritarianism. London: Routledge, 2018.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315164540

Witoszek, N. "The profits and pitfalls of prosociality: cultural-evolutionary perspectives on Scandinavia." In Sakari Hänninen, Kirsi-Marja Lehtelä and Paula Saikkonen, eds., The Relational Nordic Welfare State: Between Utopia and Ideology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019, 50-73.

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788974653.00010

Zielonka, J. Counter-Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Similar publications