It's a very sad impression today. Debt. erstwhile I look for answers to questions about the essence of the Polish identity, I see in it not so much a image of the crime and weakness of the state in the 1990s, but alternatively an alarming – and inactive valid – evidence of the Polish mentality. The movie shows, as in the palm of our hand, that we came out of PRL as intellectual slaves, incapable to defend ourselves, and, worse, incapable to even separate right from incorrect and in moral judgments based on emotions alternatively than reason.
This text is the second part of the Polish triptych as part of the "Deconstruction after Catholic" cycle. The first was devoted to the spiritual image of Poles, which emerges from the movie Andrzej Wajda Miss Nobody, the last 1 will talk about the state of the Polish state and will service as an example Dogs Władysław Pasikowski.
Krzysztof Krauze's excellent and shocking movie tells the communicative of a fictional debt, which is simply a typical 1990s thug (Gerard Nowak, in which Andrzej Chyra acts) trying to enforce from 2 young men with large dreams entering the era of Polish capitalism. alternatively of sleeping about the first Polish surviving area with Italian scooters, they are facing a crossing with a psychopathic gangus, which intimidates them, their friends and families, extorting more and more money. This is 1 of those stories in which – crucially – the Polish state is absent and does not respond to the harm of the citizen. It is the movie all the more meaningful that based on facts. So it is hard to produce that would talk more about our moral condition after 1989.
It is simply a masterpiece, and at the same time difficult, suffocating and overwhelming. The main characters throw themselves in hysterical helplessness, and the viewer – at least about conscious of moral issues – asks himself: erstwhile are they yet gonna pull themselves together and rationally plan a way out of this situation?
One of them goes to the police and learns that the service is not going to do anything (a bored officer at the desk kindly informs that they will “teach” a dangerous criminal). At this point it is clear that they are on their own. The another tries to satisfy the extortionist's demands and steals a large file of dollars, but the bad guy reappears, stating that the bills were allegedly fake. Then they're clear on another substance too: the guy won't leave himself alone. However, it is crucial that they have made these 2 attempts to address the problem without violence, thus exhausting the amicable possibilities.
Their actions do not show any clearly defined purpose. Even erstwhile they yet decide to pacify Nowak and his gorilla (who late got out of prison), they act chaoticly without knowing what they want. They're taking them to any abandoned facility, and they're trying to pull them up on a line upside down to throw a baseball bat and... You'll be crippled for the remainder of your life – says 1 of them. But even as a cripple, the bad guy can inactive hold quite a few stolen money, contacts, and influence. In fact, he himself points out: I'll find you and get revenge.
Finally, again in emotion, 1 of them kills the psychopath and his “protector”. He's doing the right thing. He's doing what they should've planned from the minute they saw the state didn't work, and the bad guy won't back off. And it would be all right if we didn't abruptly see a scene in which 1 of the heroes – besides in emotions, staged with music for the reflex of “justice” – calls the police and detonates itself. All 3 “involved” go to jail. For what? Yeah, for defending themselves, their families and their property from a psychopathic bastard.
In my opinion, from a moral point of view, they did what was most unpleasant and repugnant, but necessary, and so (objectively, or without going into the condition of their consciences) did not take the blame—in rule they did not commit sin.
The sound of this communicative is shocking. It shows that Poles do not realize what morality is. They do not realize that morality is simply a reasonable assessment in the light of the principles of natural law. For the protagonists of this communicative morality is emotions and momentary feelings. From the beginning to the end they are driven solely by emotions, and in the end they confuse their intellectual state (yes, I realize that after specified horror a man is confused and traumatized) with nonsubjective moral judgment. There is not a single scene in which they would sit to reason and plan to destruct bandits. They do everything chaoticly, and after all, they do not realize that they have done something essential and it is morally incorrect to waste twenty-five years of their lives after that, sitting for de facto doing the state services and the justice strategy that capitulated and refused to execute their duties.
They abandoned their families, abandoned their dreams, and put a guilty friend's ghost in jail God who did six years, just due to the fact that Gerard Nowak happened to find him. This shows the injustice of the Polish system, but above all the senselessness of Poles themselves. We endure from ignorance worse than pagan, due to the fact that pagans recognized the basic moral principles of natural reason. We present the mentality of the perfect slaves. The scapegoat mentality – as Jan Maciejewski would have said (including the movie Debt I spoke to the author of the book It's nothing. Why does Poland gotta repeat itself? – click here to view).
Throughout the film, I was amazed and tense about why the heroes were so pitching. In a average system, physically assaulted by Nowak would have the right to kill him in self-defense. But it's not here. Not under this latitude. Not in this interplay of historical circumstances. And that's what's scary. And emblematic for the 3rd Republic of Poland and ourselves.
Debt It shows that we're so profoundly intimidated that... we're even afraid to think. We are afraid to ask hard questions about moral order. We accept as something apparent that evil from the stronger can happen to us, and we do not have the tools to defend ourselves against it. Debt It's a tragic story. A communicative that works and – most importantly – inactive happens in front of our eyes. While the crime in fresh years has been much little than in the last decade of the 20th century, the treacherous power of Warsaw took over as if a baton from then bandits. It takes distant the prospects of development, destroying us with taxes that exceed half of our earnings and expenses, and at the same time it exceeds further limits of our rights, our privacy, our property, our families, and late even our physical integrity. And we inactive act like children in the fog, having no thought that the people who regulation us are violating laws infinitely higher than the state law—natural, Divine, changeless and unappealable. This law is on our side, if we follow it ourselves.
Do we have the right to kill the perpetrator?
St. Thomas of Aquinas points out that the deprivation of someone's life in self-defense is clearly morally acceptable, unless our main intention is not to kill, but to kill comes as though in vain. It seems seemingly contradictory, or at least hard to achieve, to act with specified orderly motive. But, given the fact that the state's inertia is above, let us consider the intention of the individual who is in specified a situation.
A good mention point will be (also an excellent and serious moral problem) movie Kill Sekal. There the title Sekal (played by Bogusław Linda) is simply a monster whose hypocritical agrarian community bred itself. He is simply a bastard, whom his parent hates, and who – humiliated throughout his life for his father's sins – takes revenge on the villagers. But they participate in his faults. They're the same bastards, but they cover themselves with appearances of decency, as pointed out by the Lutheran, Mr. Baran, to whom they turn to kill Sekal.
What is the intention of the heroes DebtWhen they take revenge on a psychopath ruining their lives? They want to free themselves and their loved ones (like in The Cape of Fear). From a natural perspective, they are not the perpetrators of the evil that affected them. They didn't provoke him. This evil is not a deserved punishment for their circumstantial transgressions. It is not a consequence of their mistakes that they should humbly accept. It's not like they went into any shady business, so they had to deal with the consequences. Their business was clean. Evil, on the another hand, is the consequence of only and only the perverse will of a criminal who persecutes them and who has de facto inflicted himself by accident.
Therefore, even if we presume that this would be a planned murder, alternatively than a spontaneous act of direct passion, I am inactive saying that the main intention would not be to be deprived of life. Our heroes wouldn't have any reason to take that man's life if he hadn't been harassing them. It wouldn't be plotted at a circular table of judgement (as in Kill Sekal). This would be an act of self-defense and de facto the only – although traumatic – exit from the stalemate situation. Their goal is to regain their own right to life, which the bandit wants to take distant from them. The goal is to defend your loved ones. The goal is to supply for the household by moving an honest business in which they have invested money and years of their lives. On the way to this goal stands them – let us repeat: without their responsibility – a ruthless criminal whose appetite is insatiable, and it seems that he will never give them peace unless they go nowhere, no 1 knows for what and no 1 knows how.
The release from this evil so requires the elimination of its source. But killing a torturer is not an end in itself, it is just a essential means to an end. Heroes are forced to do so, and do not take specified action on their own initiative. They are set before this necessity, and no 1 would have the right to require them to proceed to draw evil on each another for the remainder of their lives, working on this thug, or that in an act of despair they would take their lives by suicide, in order to "free themselves from it." Because, let's face it, in the case of passiveness towards evil, this evil could lead to specified an end...
I'll tell you more, if 1 of them had a wife and that wife was pregnant, that puts him in another situation. In a situation where he had an work to defend his family. To let go of specified a defence would be his moral responsibility and his sin. specified a omission could be ashamed and regretful. Besides, the household communicative ends tragically, due to the fact that due to the stress that the full case caused the wife, the kid dies. So Gangster is not only a thief but besides a murderer, but a passive attitude of my father – unfortunately, I am aware of the weight of specified a message – contributes to the indirect committing of this crime.
From a subjective point of view, intention is, of course, an individual substance and is settled in conscience. Therefore, it would not be possible to justice her in the characters of this depressing story. However, erstwhile dealing with the issue in the light of moral principles, it is clear that the desire to shepherd the torturer (to excel in beating him with baseball), as shown in the film, had more of blind revenge than of a reasonable countering evil. Our fundamental problem besides arises here: we are cruel erstwhile we are incapable to usage legitimate force wisely. In my opinion, it would be morally acceptable (and even indicated for the protection of the family) to accomplish the effect of defeating evil, and in specified a case the death of the oppressor – although conscious and deliberate – would not be the main nonsubjective of action, but would be in rule in vain, as if contrary to the desire of the heroes.
Besides, the situation (remember, real!) about which he tells Debt Krauzy, shows the pathology of the legal strategy in force in Poland, which protects criminals and gives them mythical "human rights" and takes distant the means of effective defence. Do I gotta compose what a akin movie would look like produced in the United States?...
Filip Obara
... I wrote about the American version of the killing problem here:
Deconstruction after Catholic: “The want of death” – can a citizen take justice into his own hands?
