The American Dilemma 70 years later

Autor ponawia pytania, jakie przed czytelnikami siedemdziesiąt lat temu postawił Gunnar Myrdal, oddając do ich rąk książkę An American Dilemma. The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York and Evanston 1944). Książka ta osiągnęła w dziejach współczesnych nauk społecznych status niezwykły. Myrdal szuka bowiem odpowiedzi na pytanie, dlaczego społeczeństwo i państwo tworzone od początku na oświeceniowych tradycjach i demokratycznych zasadach odmawia, wbrew konstytucji, istotnej części swych mieszkańców podstawowych praw i wolności. Kolejne istotne pytania brzmią: dlaczego tak wielu tak łatwo jest mówić o fundamentalnych wartościach, nazywanych nie bez racji the American Creed i jednocześnie znaczącą część mieszkańców tej samej ziemi uważać za z natury gorszą od siebie, a więc niezasługującą na obywatelstwo i prawa z nim związane. Jak ludzie łączą te przeciwstawne punkty widzenia w pozornie spójną całość? Jak doszło do takiego stanu rzeczy i czy można – a jeśli tak, to poprzez jakie działania – doprowadzić do trwałego unicestwienia tego the vicious circle, zmuszającego do wyboru pomiędzy dwoma wzajemnie wykluczającymi się możliwościami

Religious motivations for work ethics. The american case

From Initial Remarks: "At first glance, everything is obvious. Work after all belongs to the specific forms of human activity towards which no contemporary religion remains indifferent. Yet the question begins to become complicated once the questions being asked are finetuned: for example, 1) whether all religions have the same attitude to work, and, if not, 2) whether their different understanding of work implies onto the mundane plane an uneven development of a human civilisation, both in its material sense and that of the realm of symbolic culture, and also 3) remains in direct connection with the eschatological visions proper for the given religion (concerning e.g. the dependence of the posthumous fate of the human on his or her behaviour in the earthly life). Providing convincing answers to these seemingly simple questions is not easy, especially in societies that in the successive phases of their historical development have changed not only their ethnic and racial but also their denominational mix, moving from stable, homogenous states to dynamic heterogeneous structures. Undoubtedly, one such society is the totality of citizens of the United States of America. Here is the simplest of all possible proofs."(...

The making of national consciousness

"The ąuestion contained in the title of this paper, a question essentially referring to the scope of a person’s freedom within his own group relationships and his authentic opportunity to choose his own identity, is at least as old as the concept of national awareness itself. Both these matters - at least in Europę - date back to the first half of the 19lh century and are closely linked to one another. This is because national awareness - “selected history and the group of symbols connected with it” (Deutch 1953: 389) - is not borne of simple primary extrapolation of ethnic awareness, arising spontaneously, but - on the contrary - it is a thing which must be created by intellectuals and institutions. It is not enough, for this purpose - to bring about the emergence of a separate nation. The very naturę of this process was finely expressed by Massimo d ’Azeglio in his famous declaration in the mid-19th century: “Abbiamo fatto 1’Italia, adesso dobbiamo fare Italiani” (Latham 1970). Similar thoughts are expressed by phrases such as “transformation of the peasants into the French” or, in Polish, “nationalising the peasant”."(...

Demokracja i indywidualna wola

Considerations presented in this essay take for granted that: a) Human nature and democracy are an accumulated effect of human action, although these actions are never free from some structural conditions inherited from the past. But it is the people who modify or reinforce these condition. Hence, homo creator and homo sociologicus make their societies: civil, political, stats and the public. b) The growing sovereignty of individuals is one of the most important advancement of humankind. Sovereignty enables people to make choice, according to their own ambitions, possibilities and sensitivities, and enables them - as Vargas Mario Llosa asserts - run away from the gulag of religion, race, region and nation. c) Human nature and democracy are congruent. If human nature is free, and-oriented and calculating /rational/, therefore - as Jean Baechler rightly stresses - only democratic order is able, by its rules, devices and procedures to overcame consequence of human freedom, sociability and conflictuality. d) Participation, direct or through freely chosen representatives, of free and equal citizens in the polity, acceptance of the rules of the game and trust in the social contracts are the crucial factors for democracy. Therefore, according to the author point of view, it has to be remember that democracy is neither black, nor white nor red. As a matter of fact, it is the only political order which has, by the very nature of free and fair election, a built-in mechanism of self-correction, and, under the pressure of persistent or mounting cleavages (ethnic, religious and socio-economic especially), if majority of voters wishes so, even self-destruction. But, at the same time, only democracy posses the ability to question itself and correct its own mistakes without resort to naked force

Europejskie transformacje i ich wpływ na zmiany cywilizacyjne współczesnego Świata

Looking for the answer to the problem named in the title of his article, the author concentrates mostly on the questions raised among social and political scientists by The Arab Spring. He asserts that even if among the causes of changes lies analogical set of dreams and visions of human happiness, there is no one universal pattern of achieving it. Therefore, in order to fmd the rational answer to problems caused by resent changes in the Arab countries we must first of all get free of Europe-centrism

Janusowe oblicza populizmu

Z wprowadzenia: "Populizm, podobnie jak większość ważnych terminów używanych w językach nauk społecznych, zarówno w celach idiograficznych (w rozumieniu Wilhelma Windelbanda, gdy poznanie ogranicza się wyłącznie do opisu faktów jednostkowych), jak i eksplanacyjnych (np. wyjaśniających, dlaczego w określonych warunkach, zbiorowości – wspólnoty i stowarzyszenia – zachowują się w określony sposób, a także z jakich powodów w pewnych fazach życia publicznego retoryka skażona korupcją dyskursu politycznego znajduje swych zwolenników, a w innych nie), należy do zbioru nazw polisemantycznych. Czasami, w określonych stanach życia społeczno-politycznego, towarzyszy jej konotacja neutralna, podczas gdy w innych – emocje pozytywne lub negatywne. Co więcej, wbrew pozorom, nie jest to nowa kategoria pojęciowa, lecz ma długie dzieje, sięgającą przełomu IV/ III w. p.n.e. W metaforycznym sensie jest więc z populizmem co najmniej tak, jak z dwiema twarzami staroitalskiego Janusa, bóstwa biegu Słońca: jedna zwrócona jest w tył, a druga w przód, obie jednocześnie oznaczają przeszłość i przyszłość, początek i koniec, wejście i wyjście. Janusowe oblicze jest, zatem „zagadkowe, zmienne, dwuznaczne, dwustronne”."(...

Funkcje i dysfunkcje parametryzacji, modułów kształcenia i punktów za publikacje

As a result of the transformations of the higher education system, there began a search for objective measures, making it possible to compare different higher education institutions (in terms of their academic staff, research outcomes documented in publications, professional careers of university graduates and the like). It prompted the academic circles to refl ect on the actions undertaken by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, in particular those pertaining to the National Qualifi cation Framework. Academic disciplines differ from one another in terms of their research methods, which is why all attempts at a parametrization, implementation of quantitative indices to evaluate representatives of the humanities, mathematical algorithms or taxonomy as means enabling a “fair” assessment of all academic teachers regardless of the discipline they represent, appear to be worthless