Value basis of the Polish modernization: M. Dzelski

Abstract

This paper considers normative dimensions of modernization in Central Europe and role of M. Dzelski in the moral sanitation of post-soviet societies. He uses moral-normative approach as a starting point of his research of Soviet epoch, national memory and formation civil society in Poland. M. Dzelski argues that re-claiming of the past, the revival of values and traditional culture is central to transition in overcoming their occupation legacy. For him intellectuals are a central component and driving force of values transformation. M. Dzelski states that moral values for Central European intellectuals historically were not a private matter but were conceived as a collective guarantee of justice and common good. For this group, pre-modern moral values are a source of civil participation and the embodiment of the practice alternative to colonial power. At the same time he focused on the combination Christian principles in culture and liberal motivation in economical life.

The author emphasizes social and cultural determinants of the process of formation and development of traditional and post-material values, their conceptualization in Central Europe. The analysis is centered on the clash of democratic and cliental discourses in the context of shaping the identity in the in the third Rzeczpospolita. The paper raises some general problems regarding these discourses as well as the development of values within the life world of local intellectual community in the context of its belonging to certain socio-cultural traditions, its compatibility with the dimensions of morality, social responsibility and openness to changes. Synthesizing the different approaches to the historical experience of formation and evolution of the intellectual community, it also explores the role and significance of M. Dzelski's philosophy in the process of social changes.