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What has really happened in Poland since the election of 2005? After such spectacular events as the practice of lustration and the questioning of solidarity with the European Union, one has to ask: what is the nature of this newly emerging society? As with many of the recent developments in former communist countries that seem to be mysterious and irrational, the situation and ensuing problems are complex and the answers neither trivial nor easy. This book, by the distinguished Polish philosopher, addresses these complexities through the role of the communist past in post-communist Poland. It describes the events that led to the collapse of the Solidarity program and the growing influence of the nationalistic and religious parties in the government. The author investigates the nature of social and political temporality and develops a theoretical framework that allows him to apply his conclusions not only to Poland but also to other formerly communist countries.
Preface
Chapter 1. Political Time or the Past as a Political Issue
- Memory of Politics, Politics of Memory: The Politics of the Past in Post-totalitarian Poland
- Mechanisms of Exclusion and Inclusion
- Liberating the Future from the Past: Liberating the Past from the Future
- The Politics of Political Biography: Self-realization, Loyalty, and Political Change
- Civil Society as an Ethical Challenge
- Life as Simulacrum: Stanislaw Lem’s Science Fiction
Chapter 2. Social Time or the Ontology of Expectations
- Ontology of Expectations
- Genealogy of Expectations
- The Myth of the Unity of the Nation
- Marxism as a Way of Life: The Failure of an Impossible Project
- The Mythologies of Solidarity
Chapter 3. Perspectives on Time: From Philosophy to Anthropology
- The Problem of Time in Pragmatism and Phenomenology
- Time, Dialogue, and Society
- Time and Social Practices
- Politics of Memory, Politics of Time
Epilogue: What has Happened to Us? The Rise of Post-post-communism
- The Emergence of Post-post-communism or Populist Post-communism
- What is Post-post-communism?
- Democracy against Democracy or Who has Hijacked the Common Background?
- Possible Scenarios and Two Conservatisms
- New Tribalism, Post-post-communism, and the Politics of Time
- Epilogue – Supplement
Appendix: Post-communism and Pop Music: Annihilation or Restoration of Memory in Disco-polo
- Two Views on Disco-polo: Intellectuals’ “Horror Vacui” and the Nation’s Hope “All Poles” or What is Disco-polo?
- The Glorious Past and the Slavic Soul
- In Opposition to the West
- Disco-polo and the Dilemmas of Polish Past and Present
Notes
Bibliography
Index