Individualism in Polish culture...Is it almost Nonexistant?

Well,not all of them but it's unbelievable how brainwashed they are and how easily they swallow even the most silly propaganda.

Granted, not all of them. The Jeffersonian spirit is represented by Ron Paul, Andrew Napolitano, Lew Rockwell and a few others, and about 10% of the population subscribes to similar views. For the rest, the 4th of July is just an occasion to mindlessly mouth the word "freedom" and light fireworks.

On a second thought they aren't that much different if any than the Poles.Freedoms in Poland are also taken away one by one for the last 20 years and not many protest.I guess it is human nature that majority just want to live by their lives as long as they have few basics provided.Lets not forget that strikes in Poland in 70's and 80's were not caused by the lack of freedom but had strictly economic nature.

Still, we are way behind the Western societies on our way to statism. At least when asked about freedoms being taken away in Poland, we can respond with "look who's talking". As for the long term prospects, I am as pessimistic as you are. Democracy and freedom are not necessarily correlated (hardly a surprise, see Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", Chapter XV,

xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch15.htm
scroll down to "Tyranny of the Majority"). For this reason America was conceived as a republic, not as a democracy, but the Constitutional safeguards against tyranny proved not strong enough.

I'm sorry Gruffi if I've offended you.

I1) I never said anything about the quality of education during the PRL days. In fact I was very impressed with it during my stay.

2) Being fluent in a language doesn't automatically make you a good teacher. Especially, if the teachers have never spent any meaningful time in an English speaking country.

I'm only reporting what I experienced in Wrocław. In my six years I failed to meet any student who spoke good English. I don't think it's fair to blame it all on lazy, underachieving students. They, after all, made it to med(dental) school.

You absolutely haven't! This is a public forum, and while I may directly respond to you, I also address issues raised by others. The "polar bears" (figuratively speaking) argument was used by certain others, and that's why I somewhat broadened the scope of my answer to quality of education in general.


Being fluent used to be just a pre-requisite for being admitted to language studies programs. Scholarships in English-speaking countries (usually in Britain) were also part of the curriculum, as far as I know (my high school colleague studied English at the University of Lodz). Naturally, not everywhere things needed to look that good, but it is also hard to believe that Lodz, being not a first-tier academic city, somewhat managed to develop uniquely good language programs.

good :)

Well, at least before Obama (health care), no one was trying to force us to anything here.

- What about removing your shoes and being groped by TSA?
- What about routine domestic spying (during the martial law in Poland, receiving an envelope with a stamp "censored" was rare and merited a "wow!" Dissidents had to assume that their phone conversations were recorded. You, guys, are recorded EVERY DAY, and once the facility in Utah becomes finished, there will be no technical obstacles to storing your emails and phone talks indefinitely.

- What about the practical invalidation of the 4th Amendment through judicially-developed exceptions (the Terry stop, broadly excused "exigent circumstances", lack of 4th Amendment protection whenever you have "no reasonable expectation of privacy").

- What about the invalidation of the 2nd Amendment, especially in places like California, D.C., Chicago, New York?
- What about the blatant invalidation of the 5th Amendment through the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (recently blocked by a federal judge, so apparently some decency have remained in America)

- In what country Waco and Ruby Ridge happened?
- What country holds the world record in incarceration rates? What about "arrests for resisting arrests"?
- What about attempts to strip juries of their traditional right to judge both the defendant and the law itself?
- What about the infamous decision by the Indiana Supreme Court that declared resisting unlawful police entry as illegal (here is a comment by Michelle Malkin -"So Hoosier Staters can now be arrested and charged with "unlawfully resisting an unlawful entry"? Bizarre.")

- What about invoking your own Constitution being officially (by the FBI) declared as suspect and indicating that such a person may be a potential "domestic terrorist"?

I am writing these questions while listening to the sound of fireworks, merrily lighted by sheeple honestly believing that they live in the land of the free and the home of the brave...

I absolutely agree. I lived in Kielce, and in late 80-s level of English taught in my school was at least decent. The woman was horrible, but she did speak very good English and she was a good, demanding teacher (possibly too demanding). I finished school with fair English (considering it was only taught twice a week) and only needed couple of months in UK to gain confidence and be able to communicate. I think that in many cases the inability to speak foreign language is not caused by lack of knowledge, but lack of confidence. I was stunned when my young cousin with very good English point blank refused to speak to my husband when we were in Poland. He wasn't plain rude - he was shy.

A new insult from TSA gropers. Lew Rockwell duly reports: "Hey, Serfs!"


Now, back to the subject of the thread: I am a former citizen of a communist, supposedly "totalitarian" country. I don't remember anything like this. It is hard to say how much we, Poles, are individualistic in the absolute terms, but one thing is certain: compared with the present day America, we, in PRL, were a nation of libertarians, living in a society that wasn't trampling too much on our inherent, individual rights. I repeat: compared with the practices in the present-day United States.

you gotta be kidding me. if you're going to compare the rights of Americans today vs. the rights of Poland today or any other time in history, you gotta come up with something better than that.

i've flown several times since the whole TSA step up, and i get nothing more than the usual metal detector, not even a pat down.

no country today has more air traffic than the USA and 11 years ago we had planes fly into very important buildings....so yes, at times airport security here is going to be extra cautious and because it's America, everybody is going to stomp their feet about it and blow it out of proportion.

but the shoe thing is still really annoying. that's literally the only difference i notice at the airports now.

So much of the airport security complaints come from people that can't follow simple instructions. I can remember about 4 years ago, flew home from Poland to Newark airport to visit my family, and while sitting at baggage claim waiting for my stuff, a police officer was berrating a guy, clearly not from the USA, because he simply refused to do what he was told. He was instructed to not walk somewhere, not cross a line on the ground, he'd do it anyway, and i even remember him trying to walk away at some point which obviously really pissed off the cop. He then pretended he couldn't speak English and that's why he didn't follow orders. When the cop pulled out his ticket book and mentioned the cost of the fine, lo and behold the guy spontaneously learned how to speak English and began trying to explain himself. I will also mention that he was with another guy who kept barking at the cop as he was trying to address his friend, and I'm sure if you asked either of them what their side of the story is, it would be that airport security is completely unreasonable and paranoid and that the USA is this and that.

Try going to Israel, they make US airport security look like a day at the spa.

Busted for drugs?


Americans are pragmatic and are governable, Poles are not and that's why they've been subjected to foreign political dominance.


Polish parents are extremely controlling. It's the worst thing about Polish culture. Truly suffocating.


People who believe this don't know much about history. It wasn't uncommon for women to die in childbirth or for a father to get fatally injured on the job or traveling and for those who survived it was pretty common for men to have mistresses with out of wedlock babies. None of these instances are family friendly. Blended families have always been more the rule and less the exception.

Sorry, I don't believe this. What proof do you have?

Yes, Polish parents are very controlling (my sister's friend married a Polish man and his parents ruined the marriage). This is actually one of the reasons I doubted individualism in their culture, because the parents have so much influence and control over the children their whole lives. I was talking about the closeness of the Polish FAMILY, not the parents in particular.

Without divorce and with the class system, in many European countries it was de rigueur.

In the non-fiction book, "Unquiet Days", Thomas Swick recounts the tale of a couple he knew who had been divorced for over 10 years, yet, due to the high cost and unavailability of housing in Warsaw, they remained in the one bedroom home of her in-laws, even sharing a bed. They slept with her feet to his head, and never shared a conversation unless absolutely necessary.

It is enough to look on the traffic in Poland, to know we are among the most individualistic people in the world. Seeing the behaviour of the drives in some countres, I get the creepy the feeling that the cars are driven by robots, strictly adhering some arbitrary rules, wheather there is a point to it or not. When someone stops at the red light, while there is no one in miles, I always roll my eyes, "are you even a human being?".

Couple of posts above, the stuff about crossing the white line in the airport. What this nonsencse is all about? Why should I obey some stupid rule about not crossing some stupid line? I am a free man, no one asked me if agree with that rule. If ordered otherwise, I'd just cross this line just out of spite. Security of the airport? They are paid to maintain it, their duty is to do it without inconveniencing me.

In Poland we know that the state is an enemy, so we should defy it at all times, even the trifles like ignoring the traffic regulations are helping to preserve the freedom.

As for forumers speaking about the (bad) influence of the family... Family helps you fight against the tyrany of the state. If you are alone, estranged from your family, it is easy for the government to enslave you, to make you follow all sorts of laws.

If you hope to stay as a free individual, you must remember this: You and your family are paramount. Any other thing is secondary, and no concern of yours.

On SSC is a nice thread about the urban chaos in Poland: skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=131333

Or "individualism" in architecture: skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=967926

If you've seen the examples there I'm sure you would prefer a few more rules and less individualism too...

case and friggin' point.

keep this in mind the next time you read an article or hear from a friend who has a friend who has a friend that was harrassed at an american airport.

What a stupid thing to say ! phew!

No. Now my turn. Busted for pedophilia?


Well, actually, he is right, although he may not like the conclusion. Americans (the majority) have indeed forgotten about the principles their country was founded on, and turned into "pragmatic and governable" cattle. He is also right about foreign political dominance over Poland: a free country is a very nice concept, but when it has authoritarian and expansionist neighbors it has a slim chance of survival. So, the funny thing is: Americans are excessively obedient, when in fact there is no such need, while Poles are too individualistic considering their geopolitical situation.

A good post on the reasons why Poland was foreign dominated for approximately 300 years and why foreign armies had their way in Poland, tough to raise an army with thinking like this. At some point you have to go along to get along. Heresy to a Pole, of course. As Ben Franklin said, "Stick together or hang separately", the Poles chose to hang separately.

yep, but funny wise, none of them who are criticizing us right now is mentioning anything about what it used to be here to be before 9/11.

I still wonder where this idea of Poles being individualistic comes from.

I felt as though Poland was a land of "the same". People watch one sport, eat the same food, TV is always a spinoff or complete ripoff of another show, I can't think of anything "Polish" that spreads throughout the world today that people clearly identify as "Polish" that can be accredited to this Pole's inviduality/ingenuity/artistic ability, the entire country is white and almost entirely Polish, most of the architecture is the same boring run down looking thing....I just don't see it.

It's not a question of architecture, skin colour, or artistic ability. It's about not following rules, of thinking for yourself, of questioning authority. Not on a grand scale though - just locally, individually. A typical example would be a pig-headed farmer who refuses to cooperate with his neighbours over some farming issue or other, because "he likes doing things his own way". Most of the time, he's wrong, and "his own way" is either outdated or inefficient, but so what? The other farmers are thinking the same, no matter what a well-meaning "agricultural advisor" from the city might want or wish ;-)

Say things like "cooperative", "civic responsiblity" or "community effort" in the presence of most Poles and hackles will rise ;-)

This doesn't mean that Poles are incapable of doing anything for the community or as a team - but the initiative has to come from a group of individuals, and be taken up by other individuals, who will each judge for himself/herself whether they like it or not; it will not be accepted / respected if it comes from an official body or comes in the form of an order.

I'd describe that as old fashioned and stubborn....or like you said, "pig headed", not so much "individualistic".

I guess we are using different defnitions here because to me, for someone to be an individual, they must be unique, have independent thoughts and ideas, and it must be easy to pick them out of a lineup, not just someone who "fights the power". Anybody can be stubborn and fight the power, especially because you don't even have to be right.

You know what's funny? Most people aren't though.
It's not as easy as it seems and it's not attractive or fashionable. It's just something you are - it's being XYZ, a particular person, an individual. It all boils down to that.

I don't really think I understand what you're saying here.

I meant "most people aren't stubborn and don't fight the power" (even though you say that anybody can). I hope this helps ;-)

I still think you're mixing individuality with stubborness or refusal to conform.

If lots of people, let's use your example of Polish farmers, all refuse to conform to a new set of laws or standards because they like "the old way" better, it doesn't have any relation to being "invidividualistic". It's simply a refusal to change, nothing more. Now, if farmers decided that they wanted to do it in some new, unique way, they'd be on to something.

I think you'll need to provide me with some new examples of individualism in Poland if we're going to get on the same page.