The bimonthly “Przegląd Polityczny” (“The Political Review”) celebrates its fortieth birthday. The publication has been created as an underground magazine within the circle of the so-called Gdansk urban liberals, one of whose founders was Donald Tusk, current leader of the Civic Platform opposition party.

In communist Poland, the publication took on the mantle of the Solidarity opposition that came to the fore only together with the capitalist transformation. It promoted classical laissez-fairism in the 1980s. In the later republic new areas of debate occurred. PP became engaged in cultural conflicts on the side of deconstructing Polish national identity.

    It remains the case that PP regards classical liberalism as a dam against all forms of pressures on individual liberty. The villain of the piece is the great ideal narrative from left to right, aimed at the support of the rationalism of the middle class order

  The latest edition is such an example. The anniversary edition has persuaded the editors to question liberal wellbeing in their opening article. Of course in these political trends there are criticisms from all sides, not least that their place belongs like that of communism in the dustbin of history

In particular, the Jan Tokarski article is worthy of attention. He is a philosopher and his piece is entitled “The Conflict around liberalism”. The author poses as an apologist for the eponymous conflict. But also one notices their problems. He becomes the critic of his own views, in order to demonstrate that a liberal cannot become a dogmatist. Tokarski wants to disarm the opponents of liberalism in this way.

In this spirit he follows the authors of three books which he refers to. His departure point for him is Adam Gopnik’s “A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism” translated into Polish as “The Manifesto of the Rhinoceros. Arguments about liberalism”.

The New Yorker essayist oozes aversion to all that is doctrinaire. He uses the metaphor in his arguments. Every political idea, according to him, so each “ism” is a unicorn or a chimera. The exception to this according to Gopnik is liberalism. The rhinoceros is not the most beautiful of animals to be sure but real at least.

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    Tokarski’s entire thesis rests upon one thing, namely that all the ideal narratives, either from the right or from the left, are more or less utopian. Conservatives and progressives live in the illusion that they can improve the world. The former that they can return to the “good old days” and the latter that they can introduce social equality.

  In contrast to this, the liberals in Tokarski’s eyes are realists as they have attainable goals characterised by elasticity. They can admit that individualism does not supersede social bonds. The free market is no substitute for the regulatory functions of the state in the economy.

  Liberalism, Tokarski concludes, concerns itself with reality. It does not violate this and if it were to go too far it would correct itself and withdraw.

  But Tokarski also writes that liberal humility is false. Non participation in the great conflicts of ideas is only a political strategy.

  The liberal message is as follows. Between the right and left there is a fight for life or death. Conservatives and progressives are both dangerous fanatics who will set the world on fire in the name of their delusions. Not for us, lovers of middle-class peace who satisfy ourselves with our family and social relationships, barbecuing in our gardens on sunny holidays.

For this to be cogent and honest, liberalism would lead to political escapism. This is impossible and cannot be possible.

Tokarski cites Gopnik with approval in which the liberal mission is laid out as “the substitution of hallowed truths by mutual decency and sympathy, mixed feelings for obvious convictions and statements about the fallibility of human beliefs, stressing the skepticism about all claims, and the gradual improvement of the social condition, the elimination of the suffering caused by higher and eternal salvation”.

  Someone who calls for such things considers themselves to be a cut above the rest of us- more enlightened than those who in their eyes haven't achieved the required level of conscious development. Unsurprisingly, many Christians may be found in these ranks. Gopnik doesn’t hold the idea that he thinks that liberalism is superior to current religion. But it is in need of religion so that its humanist ideals illuminate the ancient witness of faith.

  In Polish, this may be called “kindliness”. An infantile philosophical anthropology hides under this particular umbrella. It rules that religions are dispensable and that to solve our problems, people must just be nice to each other

  Human nature is far more complicated than liberals suggest. If everything were to be that simple, people would have fallen on the idea that Gopnik suggests.As St Paul states in his Letter to the Romans that man does nor do what he wants but what he doesn’t want.

At the same time , the much lauded article by Gopnik in PP is a form of arrogance. Liberals like to portray themselves as humble, who do not harbour revolution but emerge as progressive thinkers, convinced that they are right.

Liberalism emerges as just one version of progressivism. It’s no surprise that PP stands on the left of the current Polish culture wars. But it’s a conditional moderation that liberals exhibit on the radical left scene…it is not however relevant.

– Filip Memches

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

– Translated by Jan Darasz