Why am I staying liberal?
It is impossible to pass indifferently next to the book by prof. Adam Wielomski, an interview-river he gave Kamil Klimczak. The book was markedly titled, “Why am I not a liberal?” It provides expressive criticism of modern liberalism (neoliberalism).
Critics, let us add, argumented according to philosophical and political reasons, with which the author of the book is identified – not devoid of subjectiveism. I do not make this charge, but I emphasize this aspect, given that in humanistic teachings the epistemological apriorisms of the researcher, looped in his ideological/cultural – ipso facto hermeneutic – approach to the subject of knowledge, do not lead to objectiveism circumstantial to natural sciences. They only make another explanation perspective.
Hermeneutic quivering brings prof. Wielomski to the battlefield with contemporary caricatures of liberalism. These, on the another hand, are self-righteous and self-righteous. The surviving juices of these narcissistic creations are provided by the doctrine of neoliberalism, which convinces them that (dixit Wielomski) “man is born as a reasonable and perfect being. There are only individuals that form a common cosmopolitan world." It dominates the belief that "man has only and only powers." In the postmodern era, liberal ego “is emancipated even from the biological nature of humans. And it can, for example, find which sex is 147. These are stages of emancipation connected with the belief that “me” is above any community... All those who believe that this LGBT revolution is now taking place should remember that its sources are in the apology of “me” – that is, liberalism”.
Without a doubt, specified portrayed liberalism looks completely Dadaistic and suitable for a countercultural opening. Nevertheless, we are talking about liberalism as an thought which lay the foundation stone at the foundation of modern Western civilization. But in the case of modern neoliberalism we see how this thought degenerated, as in that time the Inquisition and the witch hunt went beyond the simple teachings of Christianity, as fascism lied to the core of Nietzscheanism, and Stalinism or Maoism exterminated Marx's doctrine. Thus, specified neoliberalism is as easy fought as a flapping stick eliminates flies. Furthermore, it will be more appropriate to call the Adherents of specified neoliberalism libertarians or liberalists.
It is believed that the eyes of liberalism are the free marketplace embodied by the planet economy, which in turn conceptualizes the minimalist knowing by liberals of the function of a national state – as long as it does not take a nap at night. Liberalism is besides attributed to hostility to authoritarianism, combined with the readiness to engage in armed global interventions "in the name of democracy", and the cultivation of human rights. However, it is not worth supporting the doctrine of liberalism of these qualities as integrally integrated in it, regardless of historical time and from various liberal thinkers. The second combined that they adored private ownership of the means of production and the free market. Atoli liberalism did not reject state interference in the socio-economic context. Liberalist governments have, for example, encouraged protectionist policies to defend the home marketplace from abroad imports; they have acquired fresh markets and sources of natural materials through colonial conquest; they have suppressed institutions of opposition of the working class (trade unions, strikes, etc.). According to Andrzej Walicki, “centralized state power, acting to unify rights and to measure individuals according to meritocratic criteria, has frequently been an ally of liberal freedom. The state service allowed individuals to escape from despotic, omnipotent spiritual and state communities, local (such as agrarian communities) and clan, guild and characteristic communities."
In little developed countries, which sought to accelerate industrialisation, state interventionism, including in terms of raising funds for investments, played a leading function in building a free marketplace economy. In this case, synergies between the state – frequently revealing authoritarian strings – and the free marketplace seem to be more correct than occasional convergence. It should besides be mentioned that we are talking about a country belonging to Western civilization or under strong cultural influence of the West (such as post-war Japan and the Republic of Korea).
Liberalism frequently identifies itself with democracy. Indeed, people who are liberal and thus at the top of the strategy of values that lift up the freedom of the individual flinch in the position of despotic governments. The ancient Greeks of this kind of government viewed the east despots, especially in Persia. Despotes in Old Greek meant an authoritarian patriarch of the family, who, by his will or even by his whim, overwhelmed by the usage of his subordinate household. And the political systems embedded in this logic have survived millennia in the non-European zone, from China and India, through the mediate and mediate East, to the Aztec and Inca states. For the Greeks, and then for European thinkers up to modern times, it was a strategy of all-encompassing slavery that suppressed the improvement of a human individual more than the physical force of anti-Nigger slavery or American slavery. You can be a slave, but you did not taste what freedom is – they sarcastically reposted Spartans to the costly Persian satrap robes, who had spoken to Sparta to persuade her to root out before the Ahemenid "ruler of rulers." Furthermore, the concept of freedom, or civic subjectivity and dignity of man, had its terminology equivalent only in Greek and Latin: eleutheria and libertas, It did not appear in any oriental language of that era.
Freedom in the European sense means freedom of political and socio-economic action of individuals, in accordance with the law set upon the principles of freedom and citizenship. These principles not only gave the citizen freedom of speech and co-decision on the destiny of the community, not only confirmed his private ownership of the means of production, but ordered his civic activity within the democratic decision-making process, taxation and order to defend his homeland. Otherwise, this activistic participatory freedom speaks to me more than escapist (and in this sense negative) freedom from civic engagement, freedom in privacy, advocated by Benjamin Constant. The liberal attitude besides requires a common sense of escalating and not numbing themselves in their own patriotic community. Władysław Konopczyński wrote about Polish conventional individualism: “This is simply a terrible misunderstanding! Individualism, whose essence was supposedly a veto liberum (...) has undermined our government and government, but he has not raised individuality. On the contrary, in the atmosphere of the Seymists, under unanimity, in order not to spoil the brotherly mood, she had to be silent, equalized, bent and broken, otherwise the Seymite would have been broken."
Liberalism, with all its display of individualism, grows above all out of common sense and the power of ethical vectors (curses), grown out of natural law. In turn on a regular basis it reminded the human individual that he is simply a social being, who must increasingly agree with the collective to which he belongs. This made it clear to the individual that the basis of her freedom was rational thought and sense of responsibility. It can be said that the work which feeds on the axiology of natural law, a free man more burdened with responsibilities and self-limitation, and not paves the way for him to be hoarse. It turns out to be mostly self-reliant and must face dense challenges, in the name of affirming its own effectiveness and dignity. Therefore, a large part of people, overpowered willpower and conflict for success, “flee from freedom” (Erich Fromm) in communityism and collectiveism, which infect them and inherently engulf them with plagues of “father” authority, authoritarian, pastoral power.
Today's "escape from freedom" – although portrayed as "escape to freedom" – embodies migration to Europe of refugees from Africa and Asia, said to be politically persecuted, although in fact those who "becoming a loser" to the corner of abundance represented by the Western world. specified refugees are anti-liberal by their nature, since they deficiency civic knowing of why things are bad in their country and how to deal with them well and actively. If the power in their country is bad, they do not effort to correct it, but run for protection of European benefits. In this context, a category of human rights emerges – linked to liberalism. Well, liberalism of human rights understands as its civic duty, not as the claim of predators outside the 7 seas.
The thought of liberalism is permeated by contradictory signals and it may sometimes be felt that liberalism appears as a semaphore at a crossroads that simultaneously displays green, yellow and red light. surely red light signals the frivolity of libertarianism and neoliberalism, where freedom resembles permisivism. Liberalism then transforms into any spongy or jelly-like life form, and it is easy to associate it with affluents and extravagants. And even with the goat, erstwhile it degrades to a state of catatonic germination, traditionally regarded in Russia as freedom ("will"): mindless Cossack destruction, burning and killing, and then possessed gallop by steppe. And libertarian narcissism and sybaritism super fits the poesy of a frivolous goat. However, I do not accept that these are manifestations of a liberal attitude.
Prof. Jarosław Bratkiewicz
Think Poland, No. 39-40 (27.09-4.10.2026)
