Kilka słów o niepewności demokracji Leszka Kołakowskiego

Abstract

The starting point of these considerations is the characteristics of the problem of “uncertain democracy” in the perspective of the Polish intellectual Leszek Kołakowski. After World War II, Europe revised its heritage which resulted in the rise of two totalitarianisms. The road to unification weakened particular national interests in favour of a guarantee of peace and the best possible democratic forms of conflict resolution. Despite this, democracy is currently in crisis. The uncertainty of the democratic era focuses on three problems: How to reconcile the diversity of national interests with the attempt to unify the rule of law in European countries? How does cultural relativism influence indifference to the atrocities of the world? How is a democratic Europe to protect itself from the undemocratic ideologies that are entering it? All three areas focus on the self‑degeneration that democracy is struggling with and its weakening in the face of the reemergence of radical forms of thinking, ideologies and worldviews that were to be the panacea after the tragedy of the war.