Er(r)go, (paste the English text) Wojciech Kalaga

Ewa Łukaszyk

Political/Religious Correctness as a Landmark of Reflection: an Obstacle and a Temptation

The essay attempts to juxtapose the phenomenon of political correctness with other modes of thinking based on unshakable orthodoxy, most notably with religious thinking. To uncover the roots of political correctness it is necessary to go back to Renaissance humanism, which was historically the first to endow the Other with equal rights. Attempts to construct a solid pluralism are fraught with substantial difficulties that result from a major problem with thinking difference out. Political correctness is a transgression against intellectual integrity but, by the same token, it is tempting as a system of simplified thinking, which offers the comfort of not having to cope with the hardships of individual reflection. On the other hand, attempts to evade correct thinking, as José Saramago’s case illustrates, often lead to another kind of correctness.

Djelal Kadir & Paweł Jędrzejko

Between Self and State: on Discourses of Political Correctness. A Dialog

The central issue of the present dialog is the ambivalence of the phenomenon of „political correctness”. Located in the liminal space between the political discourse of the state and the ethical discourse of individual choices, political correctness, originally postulated as a means to inflect political debates with a modicum of civility, has since morphed into a discursive construct of many faces. In certain contexts, the central concept of the present debate manifests its nature as an obvious tool of power, or becomes a label connoting political or social hypocrisy. At the same time, however, the deliberate application of the now-negative term frequently serves the purpose of disqualifying behaviors, gestures or discourses that are ethically sound, but„inconveniently” reveal the logic of the speaker’s agenda, imperil his/her goals, or deconstruct the elementary distinctions upon which his/her discourse relies. Thus, the dynamics of the present dia-logos of „political correctness” not only indicates that central to the understanding of the amorphous character of the concept is the awareness of the purposes to which its applications may cater, but also, perhaps more importantly, it provides a stimulus for further debates concerning ethics in the context of dominant metanarratives marginalizing other, possibly „discomforting”, discourses.

Maciej Nowak

Extreme and Intermediary Forms of Political Correctness

Nowak reads various implicit mechanisms of political correctness through Žižek’s and Nietzsche’s specific discussion of Christainity, Western worldview and its discontents. His theoretical considerations are coloured by examples from Polish and Anglosaxon culture and literature, as well as a vivid (nocturnal) reading of a lucrative Hollywood production The Independence Day.

Rafał Borysławski

The Un-mouth: Pornography and Political (In) Correctness in the Fabliaux.

The question whether it is possible to view the discourse of the body present in the fabliaux as a manifestation of medieval pornography is the starting point for the discussion of what might have constituted the medieval sense of political correctness. The author briefly examines medieval perspectives on sexuality and sinfulness, which the Church Fathers constructed around the notions of potentiality and actuality. This, in turn, provides an analogy with the pornographic discourse of the fabliaux, where the potentiality of sin becomes actualized by the act of communication. Thus a correlation between pornography and speech in the fabliaux is also a correlation between sinfulness and a sense of political correctness. In this way, then, medieval sexuality shaped cultural correctness and medieval correctness shaped medieval cultural sexuality. However, both medieval pornographic discourse and medieval political incorrectness, so often represented by the former, could have only taken place in the sphere of the potential rather than the actual. In other words, what was politically incorrect in medieval pornography, was only so within the politically correct impositions of the discourse of social or literary norms.

Kevin Hannan

Le(c)h Loves Stupid Ludmila: Poles, Slav Stereotypes and Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird

The essay examines Jerzy Kosiński’s novel The Painted Bird in the context of the author’s biography (Kosiński’s war-time experiences) and its diverse receptions in Poland and the United States. The ideologies of Political Correctness and multiculturalism have prevented American scholars and the public from relating to the Polish perspective on the book and the events it purports to represent. In conclusion to his analysis, Kevin Hannan states: „The Painted Bird suggests a deceptive distortion of Polish history in the twentieth century, and the book demeans those Poles who risked their lives to save and shelter Jews such as Jerzy Kosiński”.

David Schauffler

Moral Correctness and the Artwork. The Case of Knut Hamsun

David Schauffler distinguishes five different levels on which one can consider the relation between art and politics: contextual, intentional, temporal, categorical, and finally and most importantly – ethical, a level which he regards as primary and fundamental. On the example of Knut Hamsun’s infamous pro-Nazi stance during World War II and his pro-German inclinations even long before the War, Schauffler exposes the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of reconciling a high appreciation of an author’s artistic merits with revulsion towards his or her offensive political opinions. Regardless of the numerous reasons we can adduce to explain Hamsun’s political views, among them the urge to remain untainted by commonly held beliefs, time came, argues Schauffler, when the conventional wisdom was right.

Małgorzata Tomaszkiewicz-Ostrowska

„07 zgłoś się” or the Politics of Incorrectness

The article considers the modern phenomenon of political correctness from the perspective of Bakhtin’s theory of monologic language. The author discusses a socialist police thriller 07 zgłoś się in relation to the concept of political correctness. On the basis of the analysis of this TV series, the argument demonstrates the universal mechanism of the monologic language, a standpoint which attempts to eliminate all potential occurrences of heteroglossia.

Slavoj Žižek – Four Discourses, Four Subjects

Drawing from elements of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Žižek analyses subject positions in the light of four discursive formations.

Ewa Bińczyk - Richard Rorty's Last Concession in Favour of Representationism

The article, drawing from Richard Rorty’s theory, discusses the notion and the discursive contexts of Representationism.

Katarzyna Thiel-Jańczuk - Otherness as Identity. Subjectivity Lost and Found: Patrick Modiano i Annie Ernaux

Taking the literary output of Patrick Modiano and Annie Ernaux, two contemporary French writers, the article discusses the problem of narrative representation of identity crisis.

Jacek Mydla's review of "The Shakespeare Canon Revisited" by George Volceanov (2005).

Tomasz Kalaga's review of Beyond Interpetation. The Meaning of Hermeneutics for Philosophy" by Gianni Vattimo (1997).

Critical notes on books

Summaries of the feature texts of the issue.

Colophon