Barbarians at the gate

By : Marek Matraszek

   Forget Polish politics. The assault on the United States last week served not only to put the Polish election campaign on temporary hold, but also exposed the extent to which politics – and politicians – have become truly banal. The issues of the day are no longer taxation, budgetary deficits or communism, but much deeper questions of fundamental challenges to social and political order and the required response to them – and whether today’s politicians can provide it.

   In the perspective of global history, it is easy for those raised in the post-war world to forget that the past is essentially the story of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization and barbarity. Indeed, it is remarkable that it could be thought otherwise. Death, war and disease have been a constancy of human experience throughout time, and anybody born at any time in history would have found it quite normal to be at their mercy at some time in his life.

   The second half of the 20th century was unique in generating the illusion that these challenges to human existence had been overcome, and even that illusion has been one shared only by those fortunate enough to live in the what we used to call the Western World. It should be recognized that the attack on the United States last week represents not some new phase in human history, but possibly a return to the normality that in the past was experienced by past generations: namely, that death could strike at any time, and was an unavoidable adjunct of everyday existence. The 50 years of the Cold War has had the unfortunate effect of convincing those raised during it that war had been eliminated from the experience of Western man. Indeed, whole political projects, engaging the life energies of scores of politicians – such as the construction of the European Union – have been based on this assumption.

   There is a deeper sense in which the West, it is now clear, has been lulled into a false sense of security. The sense in modern man that he was living in a privileged age of an unavoidable march to prosperity and well-being have suddenly been exposed as illusory. That illusion was in part self-generated by man’s natural tendency to believe in his own self-sustaining capabilities, as well as the natural arrogance of seeking to control destiny. But a large part of the blame must lie with the rise of technology, consumerism and “mass entertainment,” which has at last delivered to man the ability to generate satisfaction of his appetites with minimal effort and entrenched the infantile assumption that the purpose of life is “fun.” The obsession, too, with prolonging life, which historically is a new development, has been increasingly fed by medical advances, which themselves offer the opportunity to further the illusion that human destiny is controllable through barbaric attempts to manipulate the origins of life.

   Although few would admit it, the shock at the events of last week in the United States reflects not only a natural revulsion at the specific deaths of innocent people, but more deeply a recognition that this world view of millions of people in the Western world was fundamentally mistaken. The horrible recognition that the next terrorist attack might involve the use of germ warfare or nuclear extermination, and that such an attack might come anywhere and anytime, has brought home as never before the condition that in many ways is the most basic to man – his own mortality. The sense that tomorrow you, or I, or our families might no longer be alive is not a perspective that modern man is used to, nor is it one which his entire perception of the world is based on. The sudden recognition also that there does indeed exist an enemy who is intent on extermination is made all the more frightening by his nature, that is, not bounded by a nation state, but driven by a religious fanaticism making use of all the modern technological tools that Western man himself has created.

   It may be that over time, man’s condition will shift from delighting in the inanities of sanitized fun-seeking toward an overbearing sense of dread and angst. In the past, of course, the prospect of unpredictable death was – paradoxically – an everyday aspect of life. Death was visible, and frequently occurred in the home, not in anonymous hospitals. It was also real, and not cartoonized by the entertainment industry. Above all, it was made inevitable, and even liberating, through religion, which taught that death was not the end, but merely the beginning of meaningful experience. The end of Christian religion as a belief system for most of the West, on the other hand, has left ordinary people utterly exposed before what they perceive as the chasm of non-existence. As the coming months and years unfold, it will be fascinating to track the human response to this sudden experience of mortality: will it provoke a new spasm of instant consumer-driven hedonism, or a deeper reflection as to the goals of human life?

   Today’s politicians and leaders are particularly ill-suited to provide an appropriate response or leadership. Democratic politics by its very definition is about appealing to man’s temporal and self-serving interests, and to providing the answers in terms of “delivery of services” and “improving the standard of living.” Moreover, the post-war world has seen the decline of politicians who have defined themselves in accordance to a belief that there was anything more important than themselves, either in terms of natural law, or a divine order. Reflecting on the collection of fools, or near-criminals, who have governed Poland during the last few years, it is despairing indeed to realize that it’s these men whom the Polish people have the misfortune to have competing for their votes in two weeks’ time, and who will thereafter be stumbling to provide the answers to the above questions.