The following was written in 1956 by Leszek Kolakowski and immediately confiscated by censorship:
“Let’s not say that we were cheated. Nobody is excused by being a victim of a cheat. Furthermore, let’s not claim that, when we saw crimes, the situation deprived us of the courage to speak the truth. The lack of courage does not explain anything, even if it can be historically explained because a man is responsible for everything he does. Let’s not say that we lacked the knowledge of what was indeed going on: because even though back then we had it in less supply than we have it now, we still had it more than enough to gain clear understanding of the abyss between the socialism and the Russian and our own social reality. What’s more: we were not blind: thousand of facts kept awakening our horror or laughter - both of them platonic, not-threatening and toothless.
That’s why let’s not kid ourselves that only having the newly acquired knowledge and seeing the dreadful new facts we found ourselves standing on the silent earth from which Gods had left. Our mirages were not fueled by the lack of knowledge. They were fueled by the mental and moral system of the organization of that knowledge, in which each uncomfortable fact was easily explained by a network of ideological myths. These myths served as tools for voluntary self-blinding to reality. The crisis of the communist consciousness does not therefore arise from the new knowledge about the word: it arrises from the collapse of the mythology that initially gave shape to this knowledge.”
How does it work today? We are living in the free world but not everything is perfect (let’s just leave it with that). The suffocating oppression of yesterday is gone and we the lucky inhabitants of the Western democracies enjoy good life, freedom and wealth. However, who knows how our today’s choices will be judged in the future from the perspective of the global, environmental consciousness?
The world of ideological myths does not allow a vacuum. What than would be small, uncomfortable facts that we sweep under the carpet in order not to see the truth of today? What are the present ideological myths that do not allow for the unobstructed view of the world?
