Community, Solidarity, and John Paul II

Not all that long ago, at the end of the twentieth century (give or take a decade or so), the idea that we were living in a post-secular age was making some headway among those interested in the place of religion in modern societies. The primary evidence was to be found in places such as the United States with its highly religious population and ditto Poland, as well as in a number of post-communist countries where religion seemed to be undergoing a revival after the official atheist ideology of communism was finally cast aside once the subjugated nations regained their sovereignty.1 By and large this optimism concerning the modest return of religion has faded, with a few significant exceptions such as Africa where religious practice continues to experience growth. One of the remaining expressions of the post-secular view among social scientists in Poland is proffered by Mirosława Grabowska in her 2018 book, Bóg a sprawa polska God and the Polish cause.2Although she does note trends of significant decline in religious practices in the country—especially among the young—she is nevertheless cautiously optimistic about the overall future of religion in the country.Ronald Inglehart links the advancing progress of secularization with growing wealth and the rising standard of living in such societies where this process occurs. Furthermore, he makes the claim that by and large this is an emancipatory phenomenon.3 One would likely be not far off to say that such an opinion is now fairly mainstream and becoming more so in Poland as well. In his book Does Religion Do More Harm Than Good?, Rupert Shortt presents a number of negative stereotypes concerning religion as well as his arguments against them.4 The book under review by Maciej Zięba likewise devotes attention to the problem on the Polish scene and beyond. However, even the most sensible argumentation will not carry much weight in contemporary polarized societies with a highly prejudiced meritocracy in this and other matters.5Inglehart is a prominent social scientist, and his claims must be taken seriously whether one accepts them or not. However, at least in part the accompanying phenomena he describes are a matter of interpretation. In his provocative essay The Disappearance of Rituals, cultural philosopher Byung-Chuk Han, who teaches at the University of the Arts in Berlin, implicitly challenges the sanguine view that the socio-economic processes accompanying and also driving secularization are particularly emancipatory; on the contrary, he forcefully argues the disappearance of "rituals"—obviously so important in religious traditions—drive the "erosion of community" (p. vi).After the downfall of communism in the seminal year of 1989, Polish society has quite rapidly elevated its standard of living. Indeed, through its dynamic economy that fostered this change the country has been dubbed "Europe's growth champion" by one economist.6 In order to attain this, Poles underwent a severe transformation that Han would describe in the broadest terms as a forceful version of neoliberalism together with its system of production. A number of the pathologies he ascribes to this combination have certainly gripped the society, and although they might not yet have taken quite the powerful hold he describes in his book, in the historically short period of time the socio-economic system has been employed the effects are nevertheless quite substantial. Will they continue to build up and—conversely—what forms of resistance to the erosion of community can be mustered are important to consider, but first we turn to Han's diagnosis.Han does not specifically deal with secularism. Nevertheless, it is implicit in his diagnosis of the contemporary world, especially considering the importance of ritual in preserving community in a given society. Rituals, for the author, are symbolic acts that "represent, and pass on, the values and orders on which a community is based" (p. 1). Although we might add patriotic rituals connected with a national community, religion plays an important role in this process, not only through ordinary rituals but also their heightened form in festivals, which imply rest and leisure, that through their circular treatment of time respond to the profound fact that "humans regularly feel the need to unite" (p. 39).The self-centered nature of individuals in contemporary consumer society has been labeled as a "culture of narcissism" by social thinker Christopher Lasch. The prominent communitarian philosopher Charles Taylor challenged that charge by forwarding an interpretation that members of these developed societies are primarily bound by an ethics of authenticity wherein they aspire to be true to themselves and their originality. "This is the background that gives moral force to the culture of authenticity," he argues, "including its most degraded, absurd, or trivialized forms."7 He also proffers some ideas as to how the ethos can avoid being trivialized and better serve society. Han cites but is not convinced by these arguments. Upending Taylor's claims he curtly retorts: "The narcissism of authenticity undermines community" (p. 17). Han rejects the moral façade of authenticity, claiming it leads to a form of self-exploitation, which the neoliberal regime appropriates into its production process. The seeming originality of individuals is actually a form of conformism, evident, among other places, in the fashion for tattoos, wherein the body becomes an "advertising space." The narcissistic cult of authenticity rejects sociability and politeness, effectively leading to the brutalization of society. Even the arts have become increasingly profane and disenchanted, losing their playful nature through focusing on form and content. Thus "the disenchantment of art is a symptom of narcissism, of narcissistic internalization" (p. 25). Significantly, the fashion for tattoos as well as—considering the public square—crude and brutal public demonstrations are all evident in Polish society at present, symptoms of an atomized society as Han would put it, or more accurately a significant segment of Polish society. In a consumer society this adds up to the phenomenon that in symbolic terms through self-absorption we consume ourselves.Another crucial element in Han's list of pathologies of the neoliberal society is the lack of closure, or at least a certain manner of closure. He lists nationalism as a negative, fundamentalist form of closure, while culture is a positive form that aids in providing an identity for a community. What is important culture is receptive to what is foreign, thus it helps create an "including identity." In contrast, globalization creates a hyper-culture that perforates healthy boundaries and the natural attachment of people to sites.8 "A de-sited hyper-culture is additive" and thus hampers closure, what is more, it propagates "a cancerous proliferation of the same, even to the hell of the same" (p. 34), argues Han. This is one of the causes of the culture wars—although he does not use this term—since, as he puts it, "the strengthening of site fundamentalism . . . is a reaction to hyper-cultural non-sitedness" (p. 34). Needless to say, the confrontation is hostile, and both sides are at fault to different degrees.Rituals are important among other things since they provide structure to essential stages in life and give meaning to time. Rites of passage are threatened in the current intense forms of communication and production. And so, "temporally intense transitions are disintegrating into speedy passages, continuous links and endless clicks" (p. 35). One might add that this likely aids in creating the plague of singletons, likewise present in Polish society.The neoliberal order does not only wreak havoc in traditional societies. In the West, it has transformed the pursuit of knowledge initiated in the Enlightenment. Since the human being is no longer capable of producing it rapidly enough, machines now produce knowledge, and do so mechanically. Even the human being is reduced "to a data set, a variable that can be calculated and manipulated" (p. 82). This augments an overabundance of communication without substance.The above hardly does justice to Han's rich discussion and proffered insights. Among his main points is that in a ritualistic society, as he succinctly puts it, much is implicitly understood by its members, and therefore, effectively, there is "community without communication," while the reverse is true today, where there is a prevalence of "communication without community" (p. 1, passim). Although he attempts to present the situation in a balanced manner it is evident where his greater sympathies lie. When he claims the processes that create this current situation are not emancipatory, that is putting what he describes more fully quite mildly. In The Strange Death of Europe, Douglas Murray astutely detects a palpable sense of ennui in the eponymous continent: the sense that "life in modern liberal democracies is to some extent thin or shallow and that life in modern Western Europe in particular has lost its sense of purpose."9 Han's insightful essay goes some distance in suggesting the roots of the continent's malaise, in no small measure caused by the loss of religion.10Where does this place Poland? If we were to map Polish society onto Han's full schema the seemingly most obvious course would be to present an until recently traditional society rich in community-building rituals that has been bludgeoned by the neoliberal order together with its accompanying economic processes that have largely transformed it. Among other things Poland has moved significantly in the direction of a contemporary secular, atomized society. However, there is a major problem with formulating the problem in such a manner.It must be stressed that Poland was only apparently a "traditional" society at the end of the Cold War. If the neoliberal order has indeed played a major role in the breakdown of community and the erosion of nourishing forces such as festivals and rituals that allow it to flourish and develop an identity, then it can be said very similar and in some ways more powerful forces were confronted during its subjugation to the communist system within a totalitarian state. Why Poland exited that regime in such a relatively healthy condition is a long story and some straight forward aspects are fairly well known.11 Through great effort the national community largely overcame the socially destructive forces of the communist system aimed at atomizing Polish society in order to control it more easily, and thus significant traditional elements of the society were saved, especially if we compare it with neighboring societies.12 And so these "traditional" elements had confronted and overcome a very modern opponent: one of the slogans the communist state forwarded was the necessity of "scientific socialism."Perhaps unsurprisingly given the seductive erosive forces Han describes affecting its society at present, even in Poland the memory of the heroic effort to gain sovereignty needs to be periodically refreshed. Since John Paul II played a particularly important role in this, at least in the last decade of the criminal system's existence, the late Maciej Zięba's last book, Pontyfikat na czasu zamętu: Jan Paweł II wobec wyznań Kościoła i świata A pope for a time of confusion: John Paul II and the challenges facing the Catholic church and the world, is especially timely for the task of refreshing the memory of younger Poles on the Polish pope's seminal accomplishment and impact, while offering a few suggestions concerning the current situation.13Few authors are better prepared to present papal teaching to a contemporary Polish or world public. Zięba—he passed away the year the reviewed book was published—was the author of Papal Economics, which has been translated into English in 2013, and fairly well received.14 He ran a summer school course together with the American-based Ethics and Public Policy Center for Polish and foreign students, where eminent scholars such as author George Weigel often participated. In his book he initially presents the situation of religion in the West before John Paul became pope, as well as what Polish traditions and culture he drew upon and adapted for his papacy. Regarding the latter, he quotes a significant passage from the pope's speech at UNESCO in 1980: I am the son of a Nation which has lived the greatest experience of history, which its neighbours have condemned to death several times, but which has survived and remained itself. It has kept its identity, and it has kept, in spite of partitions and foreign occupations, its national sovereignty, not by relying on the resources of physical power, but solely by relying on its culture. This culture turned out in the circumstances to be more powerful than all other forces. (p. 54)15It is clear from this that John Paul's sitedness fostered a powerful "including identity" that opened him up to the world at a highly communitarian level and allowed him to honor the attachment-to-site of his hosts throughout his numerous pilgrimages, symbolically expressed through his ritual kissing the ground of the different countries he visited upon his arrival.Even before he spoke at UNESCO John Paul had famously visited his homeland in 1979 as the first pope to be allowed into a communist country. This historic event was intended to be a flop: the regime did not help in the logistics of the pilgrimage, hoping in this way the Church would fail in organizing such a massive enterprise. As it happened, this allowed the Church and thousands of its members to organize an event for which millions turned out to participate in open air masses and various events, the success of which played its part in the empowerment of Poles, leading to Solidarity arising the following year.Ostensibly a trade union, Zięba notes that the Solidarity movement generated enormous energy in Poles, with great emphasis placed on the participation of every possible person: "Through supporting a variety of grass-root, spontaneous initiatives that arose within the perspective of the values of solidarity and the common good, Solidarity successfully extricated its members from the passivity and apathy in which they were immersed through the hoisted upon them authoritarian regime" (p. 107). This community building period was known as the carnival of Solidarity, effectively a festival. And John Paul supported the movement internationally, seeing within it a confirmation of Catholic social teaching to which he was able to confer a universal message.Significantly, Zięba also stresses the importance of prayer for the pope, which he would promote regardless of the circumstances. John Paul was not afraid to break media protocol to demonstrate the importance of prayer and contemplation. For instance, during his visit to Wawel Castle in Krakόw during his pilgrimage to his homeland in 2002, he likely spent a much longer period in silence in the chapel with television cameras from around the globe focused on him than the media has ever been wont to exhibit (p. 123).Han observes that in religion "the divine commands silence," and silence gives rise to "a special receptivity . . ., a deep contemplative attentiveness" (p. 37). The words of John Paul have caught the attention of many, but his silence was likewise evocative. And nowhere was this more the case than in his last "sermon," as Zięba calls it, where he did not hide the fact that he was dying and was no longer capable of speaking. "The age of production," notes Han, "is dominated by an irreversibility" (p. 51), and that is why death is effectively banished. Here again John Paul broke a contemporary taboo. Quite pertinent is the fact that in the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic in which Italy was particularly hard hit, a number of Italians claimed the memory of the pope's "sermon" helped them face their own death.Zięba bemoans the fact that in currently polarized Poland the spirit of solidarity is all but dead. One can add another necessary virtue that has virtually hit rock bottom in the country and beyond. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first prime minster of the independent Poland after 1989, recalls how during his visit to Poland in 1979 John Paul instilled Poles with hope: "He lifted up our spirits. We received a great impetus of strength. We felt like a society and community" (p. 103). During the pandemic, political philosopher Marek Cichocki astutely observed that Europe needs a politics of hope; instead, the politicians serve the continent "project fear."16 John Paul II was certainly the foremost apostle of hope in the world of the last decades. As such his formidable legacy remains a particularly inspirational resource for Poles today, especially in the face of the newest challenge catapulted upon them by the invasion of neighboring Ukraine by Russian imperial forces. Now a religious leader from that country follows in the footsteps of the Polish saint in his effort to instill hope to Ukrainians in dire times: as the Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, emphasizes, "God has not abandoned Ukraine."17Aimed ostensibly at his countrymen, this is a message all citizens of Central Europe would do well to take in for themselves in these tragic times; now and however they evolve.