Communitarian Dimensions in the Socio-Political Thought of the Solidarity Movement in 1980–1981
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Date
2019-02-11
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Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego
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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is an interpretation of the social and political thought of the Solidarity movement in the light of the political philosophy of communitarianism. In the first part of the paper, the controversies between liberalism and communitarianism are characterized in order to outline the communitarian response toward the authoritarian/totalitarian challenge. In the second part, the
programme of a self-governing republic created by Solidarity is interpreted in the spirit of communitarianism. I reconstruct the ideal vision of human being expressed in of ficial trade union’s documents and essays of Solidarity’s advisers (e.g., Stefan Kurowski and Jozef Tischner), and the efforts of the movement for telling the truth about history and its vision of Polish history. Also, I interpret the programme of Self-Governing Republic adopted during the First National Convention of Delegates
of Solidarity. In these programmatic documents of Solidarity, one may find ideas characteristic both of the communitarian and liberal political philosophy. However, the liberal ones—including, primarily, the guarantee of human and citizens’ rights, and of individual liberties—were subordinated to the postulate of reconstructing the national and social community. In the course of transformation after 1989, these
communitarian elements of Solidarity programme, incompatible with liberal ideological agenda, have been erased.
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communitarianism, liberalism, Solidarność, Solidarity, Self-Governing Republic, transformation, authoritarianism, totalitarism
Citation
Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Communitarian Dimensions in the Socio-Political Thought of the Solidarity Movement in 1980–1981. "Studia Philosophica Wratislaviensia," 2019, vol. XIV, no. 1, pp. 109-128.