Why has the political sphere appeared so conducive to falsehood and liars throughout the ages? What is the source of acquiescence to the presence of falsehood in politics on the part of both public opinion and philosophers? An attempt to answer this question, among many others, was undertaken by Hannah Arendt, when she reflected on the status of truth within philosophy and politics. Fact that one cannot dispute truth becomes an insurmountable problem in the mutual relationship between politics and truth. (...) The truth doesn’t take privileged position within the political realm. Its foundation is made by opinions that are always formed within a discourse and refer to facts, and it is an agreement of the majority, not the absolute validity, that decides on the outcome of a debate between opinions. In light of this, however outrageous it might seem, Arendt sees unlimited possibilities for the lie, which are due to the nature of facts; their contingency allows for the whole of the public realm to be different from what it is. Equally surprising is the conclusion that telling the truth about facts does not lead to action and, by the same token, is not an act of freedom. Action, and the experience of freedom achieved through action, are born almost exclusively through the lie. (shrink)

The author describes the perspective on the phenomenon of totalitarianism held by Jozef Tischner, who, although intrigued by politics and its manifestations, never saw a space for positive human activity in it. In his endeavor to investigate the problems faced by an individual sensitive to the ethical dimension of their life, he used to describe totalitarian experiences as those revealing the negative phenomena in the interpersonal world. It is for this reason that his reflection on totalitarianism has little in common (...) with analyses carried out on the grounds of political sciences, which are focused on descriptions of the structures of a totalitarian state. (shrink)