Destruction, offense, blasphemy, and protestation hold a certain allure for them. But this allure speaks only to fools who consider themselves revolutionaries, pretending to be God and creating a new magnificent world. However, these fools are dangerous. Their minds, like any human mind devoid of memory and the wisdom that experience imparts, cannot grasp the consequences of their actions. – says Ryszard Legutko, a philosopher and member of the European Parliament representing the PiS party.
“In man, there is a propensity for self-destruction, paradoxically arising from his exceptional nature. Man changes the world for the better through technology. The ancient Greeks already noticed that techne, which was a blessing for man, also brought great danger. Sophocles wrote in Antigone about man being the most extraordinary creature, but this extraordinariness, manifested in his creativity, sometimes leads him to good, but also to evil. Evil appears when man becomes arrogant and surpasses human and divine boundaries. The Greeks even believed that pride is the source of all the misfortunes that man brings upon himself,” emphasizes Legutko, who is a philosophy professor at Jagiellonian University. “If we look at the world today, we see that pride is triumphant. Modern man believes he can completely control his own life and the surrounding world. He thinks he can experiment with gender, death, life, and family. He has become obsessed and amok, succumbing to successive frenzies. The results are usually grotesque. It is no coincidence that it was once said that the devil is the ape of God – someone who becomes arrogant and thinks he is almighty, but in reality, he is laughable, and the fruits of his actions are catastrophic,” he emphasizes.
A Serious Warning
As he points out, serious ethics always warn against pride. “Remembering past experiences usually helps exercise caution in transforming the world. Lack of memory is a great ally of pride. It is no coincidence that revolutions – both the bloody and violent ones, and the meticulously planned and quiet ones – always target institutions that transmit accumulated experience – the Church, family, cultural heritage, etc.
One might think that the gigantic and devastating experiment of communism would have taught people caution and respect for historical experience. But far from it! Another gigantic global experiment is already underway. Why is it possible? Because the modern world encourages amnesia, and human life is perceived as limited to individual existence. The family, which preserved the memory of ancestors and connected our lives with successive generations, has become an enemy. Similarly, the homeland, a great community with a historical and spiritual dimension, as well as religion connecting us with the ultimate, have also become objects of contempt and rejection,” laments the Member of the European Parliament.
The Frenzy of “Liberation”
He also points out that people who allow themselves to be convinced of this resemble Herostratus – a cobbler from Ephesus – a man driven by the obsession to gain importance by destroying something valuable. He set fire to the Temple of Artemis, considered one of the wonders of the world. “Herostratus, an ordinary man, thought that destruction would make him great. In mass societies, there are many such Herostratuses. Destruction, offense, blasphemy, and protestation hold a certain allure for them. But this allure speaks only to fools who consider themselves revolutionaries, pretending to be God and creating a new magnificent world. However, these fools are dangerous. Their minds, like any human mind devoid of memory and the wisdom that experience imparts, cannot grasp the consequences of their actions. None of these revolutionaries ask themselves about the long-term consequences of family disintegration, inciting children against their parents, or the state assuming parental authority,” Ryszard Legutko assesses.
“Engulfed in the frenzy of destruction and “liberation,” we unwittingly fall into true enslavement. The power of the modern liberal-democratic state is immense. It now regulates almost everything: behavior, speech, and thought. A repressive system deeply infiltrates human life, where any dissent is condemned and increasingly punished. Additionally, corporations and international institutions like the European Union are effectively co-creating this new despotism. The society, proudly called pluralistic, increasingly consists of people who are indistinguishable from each other. Millions of people march in step, singing in unison, with identical gestures, associations, and imagination, accompanied by self-admiration: oh, how diverse and original we are,” Professor Legutko satirizes.
“We are facing a global fraud, extremely dangerous and fatal to humanity. While there is some movement towards freedom and experience, the machinery of the new despotism is still gaining momentum. Conformism and uniformity of thought continue to seize new territories,” concludes Ryszard Legutko.