Part 2 of Academies of Hatred takes off where Part 1 ended, concluding with a critical account of the present cultural and political dangers facing Poland. Chmielewski links the disruption of Bauman’s lecture to the argument of the lecture. Bauman presented a critique of Poland, and Europe’s more generally, neo-liberal path, and specifically the Social Democrats’ complicity in this. The rise of the xenophobic right is materially a consequence of such policies, Chmielewski maintains. I am not as sure as he is that there is a direct connection between neo-liberalism and the politics of hatred, such politics seems to have a life of its own, but no doubt the production of extreme inequality and the absence of decent life chances for many young people are factors. And as Chmielewski shows here, those who would fight for norms and values that stand as alternatives to the blind workings of the market, those who would work for, to take a key example, the value of free intellectual exchange and the autonomy of the university, do not have the means to fight against direct political assaults and systematic underfunding.

In my piece on the Bauman affair, I warned of a new treason of intellectuals, intellectuals who worried about their security and personal interests and didn’t defend the ideals of free inquiry. Here we see the difficulties: authorities who don’t understand their legal responsibilities to include the integrity of the university, rectors who don’t have the material means to defend their institutions, a minister of higher education who writes a letter against the interference by neo-fascists of the Bauman lecture, but doesn’t formulate policies to address the problem. All of this pushed forward by real intellectual treason, by professors who abandon their role as scholars, who become populist propagandists, such as the one described by Chmielewski, calling for the purge of Stalinists from the university, in full bad faith at the monument of the first king of Poland, Bolesław Chrobry, Bolesław The Great, 967-1025.

Chmielewski sees a rather dark future of Polish academic life: a situation where those with different opinions and identities will feel threatened, where the unconventional will be under siege and protecting the unconventional will become a persistent expenditure. And ironically it will be a lose – lose situation, if the expenditure is made, Chmielewski worries the quality of scholarship under siege is not likely to be very good, while if the expenditure is not made, there will be no scholarship. The new treason of the intellectuals, we see here, has significant social and political supports.

Chmielewski ends on a very pessimistic note, perhaps too pessimistic. After all Bauman gave his lecture and many heard and appreciated it. The University of Wroclaw has not yet closed down, far from it. And Chmielewski has reported on the event. There is resistance to the lessons of the Academies of Hatred. A serious battle rages, and as with the Dreyfus affair, a nation’s future is on the line.

To read Adam Chmielewski’s In-Depth Analysis “Academies of Hatred – Part 2,” click here.

To skip this introduction and go directly to read Adam Chmielewski’s In-Depth Analysis “Academies of Hatred – Part 1,” click here.

I tried to highlight in my post on Monday how the “Bauman Affair” challenges Polish democracy. The extreme right is working to turn public debate, to give priority to the politics of retribution for “repressions past,” as it enacts “repressions present.” The comment to the post clearly illustrates this.

But to understand this development, to understand the depth of the challenge to democracy in the recent upsurge of extreme right agitation in Poland, requires a close analysis of its social and political setting, which Adam Chmielewski, the Chair of the Department of Social and Political Philosophy of the University of Wrocław, one of the sponsors of Bauman’s lecture, explores in his two part post. He provides an informed insider’s analysis of the clear and present danger to democracy and academic freedom in Poland. Part 1 today. Part 2 on Friday.

In today’s post, Chmielewski explains the deep symbolic significance of the lecture in Wroclaw and shows how the right of center mainstream is supporting neo-fascism, both intentionally and unintentionally. While the leader of the main opposition party PiS (Law and Justice), Jaroslaw Kaczynski, openly applauds the “patriotic protesters,” the governing party PO (Civic Platform), a pro-Europe, normal, conservative, neo-liberal party, has supported what Chmielewski depicts as academies for hatred in the extensive development of Poland’s soccer infrastructure. Chmielewski shows how politicized soccer hooligans are the storm troopers of Poland’s far right. In his next post, he deepens his analysis, addressing: the support the new right is receiving on the university, Poland’s relationship with the Nazi legacy, and the ineffectiveness of cultural programs beyond soccer.

I find all this surprising, upsetting and bewildering. I have difficulty in discerning how profound the threat is. I see an unsolved puzzle. The people of Poland have experienced in the last twenty years unprecedented affluence, a well-institutionalized democratic system, and close and creative integration into the European system. In many ways, things have never been better. Yet the ghosts of the past: populism, xenophobia and anti-communist paranoia, added to new demons, homophobia front and center, are on the rise. The political system is now shaky, cultural accomplishment is compromised, and the dark side of nationalism threatens social solidarity and Poland’s relationships with its neighbors, both to the east and the west. In the best of times, the worst of times are on the horizon, a tragedy in the making.

To read Adam Chmielewski’s In-Depth Analysis “Academies of Hatred – Part 1,” click here.