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

@Boletus, you are interpreting everything I said too much in black and white, I am not going to take the time to explain it for you again. My impression of Polish culture is that because of certain influences, it seems to be more on the altruistic side. When I started the thread I stated my opinion and my impressions and was then asking what other people's opinions were.

Can someone explain to me what this Polish saying means? Under Capitalism, man exploits man; under socialism, the reverse is true.

It means that the exploitation of man by man doesn't end under socialism although the exploiters and the exploited switch positions.

PolkaTag, the historical facts seem to show that Polish individualism, or the sense of independence and personal uniqueness, had a powerful expression in the
First Polish Commonwealth, where the dominant social class was the nobility. When the First Commonwealth was partitioned by Muscovy, Prussia and Austria in the late 1700s, we had our personal freedom greatly limited. For this reason, we had our bloody national uprisings and zealously conspired against our oppressors, especially the Muscovites. Our partitioners tried to arrest brutally our political, economic and cultural develoment. When in 1918 we regained independence and it seemed our freedom was going to last, our national character again started coming to the surface. The country began to flourish economically and culturally. Some 20 years later, WWII began. Our elites were murdered by the Muscovites (who called themselves then "the Soviets"), the Germans and Ukrainians. The subsequent over four decades of the Muscovy occupation are called the communist era. During that period, the totalitarian oppression was especially destructive, because of the harsh censorship and brainwashing by the media. The latter were totally controlled by the communists. Again, we rebelled regularly. In 1980, we had Solidarity. When it was crushed by the communist authorities, we had almost a decade of intellectual rebellion preceding the fall of the communist ideology. In 1989, communism seemingly ended in Poland. I say "seemingly" because, paradoxically, those who benefitted the most from its fall seem to have been the communists. Many of them got very rich. In Poland people think that in 1989 the communists and the leftist part of the political opposition agreed to share political power and economic benefits at the expense of the rest of society. At present we still feel we are not free. So our sense of independence and personal uniqueness remains dormant. It will certainly come eventually to the surface, maybe soon. But first great political changes must happen in the world around us. Eventually, they will.

I don't think our sense of independence has anything wharsoever to do with the Jews. The Jews had no influence on our culture when we started developing as a nation some 1050 years back. Also, they had practically no cultural influence on us in later ages. We were two separate nations living in the same country. First of all, we were Catholics, and they were Talmudists who isolated themselves from our world. Even in the 1930s, the Jewish masses didn't speak Polish, only Yiddish. We have practically never mixed and I doubt if we ever will. "Polish" isn't at all the same as "Jewish." It's actually totally different. You shouldn't believe any one, including some Poles, telling you that the Poles and Jews have always been close to each other, Jews greatly influenced Polish culture, etc. It's all pure fantasy; it hasn't been corroborated by historical facts.


--- It means that in socialism people are exploited the same as in capitalism. It's a joke; actually a subtle one, or, as you in America say, dry one.

:)

Oh haha I get it.


Now I am beginning to understand the historical influence for that quote. When communism went away, it mostly turned into completely rich and completely poor people right? So, what do you think needs to happen in the world before political and cultural changes can begin to take place in Poland?

When I say cultural changes, I mean a stronger national identity that cultivates the individual and no censorship in the media.

Stronger national identity, what do you mean by that? And I dont think there is more consorship, then anywhere in the west.

Well, he said they still don't feel free in Poland. I'm guessing if censorship from communism was going on not too long ago there is still a hint of it going on, because it takes time for people to become unbrainwashed. I've never been there, so I don't know.

Believe me, people were never LESS brainwashed than during communist times. You had to learn to read between the lines and speak in riddles sometimes... ;-)

We don't feel free, as we are dominated by EU.
As for the censorship, I think ist is far worse in the West. The "hate speach" anyone? All opinions are supposed to be PC, if it is not censorship, I don't know what is.

Oh, no problem - just vote for the right politicians (literally...) and leave the EU. Of course you won't get any money from then on, but hey, at least you are free again... :)

Pretty simple really.

Of course, I don't expect Americans to understand the European political system.

Individualism and a lot of pride might be seen as trying to prove being better in an offensive way in Poland. But there is individualism there, of course. Again I would say that comparing to eg, Sweden, Poland is very individualistic. The point is that it is less so than, for example, the USA, but hey - very many other places in the World, and Western/Northern Europe, are.

Well, talking about the IQ and political knowledge then US and the most of Europe have almost the same IQ. Political knowledge in Poland is not widespread and many people vote only because the guy looks nice or promises a lot, but close to 0% actually read party programme for the future on their own. Europe is badly managed, much more so than the US, because the US is truly one country, whereas in Europe there is Brussels and local governments who have overlapping rights so for example making country to cuts its spending cannot be done from Brussels because people like their flags, languages, cultures and patriotism (sometimes ill-defined) more than the EU, whereas America is really united. Also in terms of politics, democracy as a whole is bad because of populism and lack of consecuences in the long term for bad decisions, but we do not know good alternatives.Instead of arguing about which one of you is the most stupid one could propose something maybe? Or help in a campaign to popularize social sciences?

Sorry, I dont want to sound offensive, but I would not call Americans individualistic. I do know, that you like to think about yourselvs as such, but you are anything but.

As a matter of fact I came to conclusion that Americans have a law fetish.

I've noticed that when debating Americans over various topics, they will often bring in (usually their own skewed interpretation of some) legal code and then declare the debate over, as if law trumps everything. This happens even when the legality of something is not even under consideration.

I will give two examples



This happens over and over and over again when talking to Americans about anything. I appeal to morality, they reply with law. I appeal to utility, they reply with law. I appeal distributive justice, they reply with law. And they feel so smug about it too. As if, I dunno, law was everything.

I find this disturbing and unhelpful.

In many ways, the USA is far more totalitarian than the USSR could ever hope to be. The law in the Communist Poland was basically a show-piece that everyone, from the common citizen up to the highest bureaucracy and the Politburo, tried to quietly evade or ignore and end up doing what they wanted to do anyway. Complaining to authorities about a minor offense was and still is viewed as a rather shameful lack of integrity.

In America people are socially conditioned to view the law as the reason behind everything, rather than a set of codified norms based on numerous factors, some of which may be outdated or passed with wrong/malicious intent. It's a bottom to top sort of dictatorship, where the people themselves will gladly rat each other out and point fingers for offenses that could have been easily ignored for the sake of community and understanding. Americans will gladly complain about their government and claim the Congress is filled with greedy morons, but at they same time do not question the laws these "morons" draft and vote for.

You're right about that Kondozier.

Very true. One contrast between the USA and Poland in all this is the police department websites that exist in some parts of America showing people's photos, addresses etc. even if they're only accused of something and havent been found guilty and the anonymity in Poland where the media don't even report people's surnames after theyve been convicted of something. Two extremes really, but I prefer the latter.

Kondzior, the art of discussing with Americans (as with any other nationals) involves pulling the right strings. They indeed have been conditioned to fetishize "the law" (consider, for example, the answer the cop gave to Rosa Parks - you can find it on Wikipedia)


They indeed have established a tyranny of the majority, in a manner described by de Tocqueville (Democracy in America, Chapter XV). Morality or utility are too abstract concepts to many of them. To overcome the conditioning, or at least to counter it to some degree, you need to appeal to another strong fetish. To most Americans, the Constitution is such a fetish. So, you don't say "this is immoral". You say "this is unconstitutional!", and your opponent is forced to choose between the law in question and the Constitutional principles.

This is not a dishonest method, by the way, because the Constitution is in fact an embodiment of moral values. According to Andrew Napolitano, the most important word in the Bill of Rights is "the", indicating that the Constitution merely recognizes certain preexisting, natural laws.

hahahah, *charity* is a worse swear word than *c#nt* in Poland :)

Really?! I think catholics would be pretty snooty about being philanthropic.

Of course its not universal,there are some people doing tireless charity work in Poland and Poles around the world etc,but, in general it doesnt have the same Kudos or respect as it does in the UK or the USA.

Not entirely sure why,at first it just comes across as selfish but that would be too simplistic and unfair to say that is the only cause of Polish apathy to Charity.

But,if it involves giving loads of money to some Priest to build a hideous statue,well,thats different......

ah yes, it naturally boils down to this in most threads.


that, and the bible, only that was written reeeally reeeally long ago.

Certainly in this one, Fuzzy, being a thread started by someone from the US but concerning Poland. Quite a relevant contrast too, since quite a few of the American posters in the thread have talked about personal freedom.