Myriads Of Me: Tellur's Journal

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Wanderlust Project to moje muzyczne alter ego – projekt, nad którym pracuję od końca 2008 roku. Zapraszam Was do przesłuchania mojej twórczości!

22.6.09

Kataryniarz... (Część VI)

POKAŻ/UKRYJ SPIS TREŚCI | POKAŻ/UKRYJ TREŚĆ NOTKI

Polish Neo–partitional Politpunk ― a Case Study of The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder (pl. Pieprzony los Kataryniarza) by Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz as an Exemplar of Domestic Cyberpunk

Having demythologized the hacker persona, Ziemkiewicz pokes fun at its counterpart from traditional American cyberpunk:

People want spies who break in at night, photograph some top–secret documents and conceal the photos in their teeth. In the meantime, they might engage in some steamy affair with a member of the opposing counter–intelligence. Who the hell gives a damn about some mathematical analysis on the pricing of red meat? (20)

At the same time, however, Ziemkiewicz liberally borrows attributes from traditional cyberpunk aesthetics. Not unlike Neuromancer's television tuned to a dead channel, the world of Ziemkiewicz's Warsaw is filled with the unintelligible white noise of omnipresent information:

The only thing everyone needed was the soothing buzz [of information], constantly leaving people in the false impression that they know what's happening around them, that the world more or less conforms to their beliefs, meaning it does not spin out of control, and even if it did, there would be someone to inform them in advance. (21)

In another instance of deromantization, the VR of the Net is not metaphorized as an architectural wonder, but rather as a crude system of robust shaft mines, tunnels and wells winding like Escher's impossible constructions.

People themselves are metaphorized (and dehumanized) as forming parts of a larger clockwork machine. Their lives are compared to a dance of atoms

clashing with each other and orbiting around each other, while at the same time spinning in clusters of two and three around their bosses, and, in even larger groups with those bosses at the core, orbiting around even more important bosses, who in turn traversed wide circles around Very Important individuals, on orbits so far away that at first glance they could be taken for straight lines. [...] Everyone was spinning. turn traversed wide circles around Very Important individuals, on orbits so far away that at first glance they could be taken for straight lines. [...] Everyone was spinning. (22)

V. CONCLUSION

Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz is the essential Polish cyberpunk author who not only understood the underlying mechanisms of American frontier discourse in cyberpunk, but also avoided the mistake of replicating such discourse without much thought in Polish cyberpunk. His The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder consciously offered valid criticism of American cyberpunk from a post–cyberpunk perspective, which focused on demetaphorizing the aesthetics and discourse of the sub–genre. Using the stripped–down attributes of cyberpunk poetics, Ziemkiewicz succeeded in reinventing the traditional Polish political fiction narrative and updating it for the '90s.

WORKS CITED

  • Lekiewicz Z., Filozofia Science Fiction, Warszawa 1985
  • Mazurkiewicz A., O polskiej literaturze fantastycznonaukowej lat 1990–2004, Łódź 2007.
  • Orliński W., Polskość jako nerwica natręctw.
  • Parowski M., "Kilkunastu Hamletów", Czas Fantastyki, Szczecin 1990.
  • Ziemkiewicz R. A., "Inżynierski epos", "Ucieczka przed eskapizmem", "To oni mieli kłopoty ze mną,nie ja z nimi", Frajerzy, Lublin 2003.
  • Ziemkiewicz R. A., Pieprzony los Kataryniarza, Warszawa 2003.

(20) Translated from Pieprzony los Kataryniarza, p. 136:
Ludzie chcą szpiegów, którzy włamują się nocą, odfotografują lajką tajne plany i potem szmuglują je w zębie. A jeszcze po drodze mają erotyczne przygody z kontrwywiadem strony przeciwnej. Kogo, u cholery, interesuje analiza matematyczna cen baraniny?
(21) Translated from Pieprzony los Kataryniarza, p. 28:
Ludzie potrzebowali jedynie kojącego uszy szumu, ciągłego utwierdzania ich w fałszywym przekonaniu, że wiedzą, co się wokół nich dzieje, że świat jest mniej więcej taki, jak sądzą, nie wymyka się spod kontroli, a w razie, gdyby się wymyk, zostaną o tym w porę powiadomieni.
(22) Translated from Pieprzony los Kataryniarza, p. 47:
[...] odbijając się i wirując wokół siebie nawzajem, a jednocześnie dwójkami–trójkami wokół wspólnych szefów, i jeszcze całymi, skupionymi wokół tychże szefów grupami wokół szefów jeszcze ważniejszych, którzy pomykali na odległych orbitach osób Bardzo Ważnych; orbitach tak odległych, że w pierwszej chwili można by pomyśleć, iż poruszali się po liniach prostych. [...] Wszyscy wirowali.

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20.6.09

Kataryniarz... (Część V)

POKAŻ/UKRYJ SPIS TREŚCI | POKAŻ/UKRYJ TREŚĆ NOTKI

Polish Neo–partitional Politpunk ― a Case Study of The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder (pl. Pieprzony los Kataryniarza) by Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz as an Exemplar of Domestic Cyberpunk

IV. CASE STUDY ― THE FUCKED–UP FATE OF AN ORGAN–GRINDER

The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder by Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz, a conservative journalist, television anchor, science fiction and mainstream writer, is a spiritual successor to Polish political/social (science) fiction, while also belonging to Polish cyberpunk. A. Mazurkiewicz acknowledges the existence of this peculiar sub–genre:

Politpunk is its own, marginal sub–genre, though it remains connected with "political fiction". The author of the term ― Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz ― lists the following features of politpunk: "a Polish setting, references to latest history and a punk fashion of describing reality." [...] Thus understood, politpunk would be first and foremost a description of a certain distinctly Polish sub–genre of science fiction, which I propose could be called partitional science fiction (or ― as Wojciech Orliński would have it ― neo–partitional science fiction). (15)

The neo–partitional (pl. neo–rozbiorowa) adjective refers to Poland being partitioned off to neighboring countries by force or as a result of conspiracy. Such laid–out topography rejects American frontier discourse and, in consequence, the cowboy figure. This foreign partition/Poland dichotomy resembles the nature/civilization dichotomy of American discourse to a much greater extent than that of old America/Western frontier. The protagonist ― Robert ― is not a cowboy figure by any stretch of the imagination. Not unlike Zajdel's protagonist Sneer, Robert is more of a shepherd figure; forced to negotiate between partitions/Poland as if he were negotiating between oppression/freedom. The topography of the West is substituted for a topography of the last bastion ― Robert is forced to apply his sophisticated knowledge to "hack" the political system in order to remain true to his political and moral creed. He hopes to achieve the minimum negotiable political and moral independence ― although his fate as an Organ–grinder is fucked–up and he will be inevitably forced into conformity. In a more post–cyberpunk fashion, he uses his "hacking" skills not against the system, but for the system ― though against his preferred vision of Poland.

In a somewhat Polish, cynical fashion, Ziemkiewicz attempts to demythologize cyberpunk and liberate it from distinctly American discourse. When asked if he considers himself part of the cyberpunk tradition, Ziemkiewicz replies:

No. I couldn't care less about this pathetic punk, social filth, cyber–drunkards and others of that sort. I believe that the interesting activities within the society involve the elite, and not the drop–outs. I look with interest upon the aristocracy, and not the tramps, whose lives are as mundane as those of livestock. There is an obsessive cult of the drop–out within the older generation, visible [in science fiction] in the writings of Oramus, or, in the mainstream, in the writings of Stasiuk ― a mere no–good drunkard is automatically considered to be an arbiter elegantiarum. I consider this to be an aberration, not unlike cyberpunk's fascination with underage gangs and the outcasts of the urban jungle. (16)

Ziemkiewicz's positive approach towards the elites (meritocracies) of mainstream society is a reevaluation of cyberpunk discourse from a post–cyberpunk perspective. Though Gibson's Neuromancer was published in Poland only two years earlier, Ziemkiewicz's novel, though aesthetically somewhat similar, is a clear counterpoint to Neuromancer's American discourse. The romanticized cyberpunks of American discourse are reduced in Ziemkiewicz's novel to mere anarchists and trouble–mongers:

― I've read about some affair involving hackers. ― The press often confuses them with cyberpunks. But they're an entirely different lot: snotty blokes who simply destroy data in a blind rage, distribute viruses, stomp the root sector of the Net, you know, try to deal as much damage without getting caught. A form of cyber–terrorism really. (17)

Not only does Ziemkiewicz reevaluate the image of the cyberpunk, he also renders useless the image of the hacker itself. In the novel, true hackerdom is no longer possible. Robert is not a hacker, but an Organ–grinder (pl. Kataryniarz) ― his profession thus named because navigating the VR interface resembles operating the street organ. Such a comparison does not hold positive connotations:

Period literature often represents the grinder as a gentleman of ill repute or as an unfortunate representative of the lower classes. Newspaper reporters would sometimes describe them cynically or jocularly as minor extortionists who were paid to keep silent, given the repetitious nature of the music. (18)

Confined to their VR consoles for hours without end, the Organ–grinders are a profession of passive information brokers. Because their consoles are state– or business–owned, Organ–grinders are dependent on influential, sociopolitical third parties. This capitalist dependency is also a feature of American cyberpunk, although Neuromancer leaves the possibility of operating as an independent contractor. In Ziemkiewicz's novel, the fucked–up fate of Organ–grinders is their inevitable dependency on omnipresent, mafia–structured third parties. The Organ–grinders are not left with much freedom, and therefore there is nothing romantic/Western in navigating the Net:

The same convention obliged all users of the Net to use fixed and instantly retrievable ID codes. Anonymity in cyberspace was gone. And with it was gone the hackerdom of old movies, when one could hack the Pentagon network and nick some top–secret documents. Not any more. (19)

(15) Translated from: Mazurkiewicz... p. 99:
Jako zjawisko osobne i marginalne, choć pozostające w związku z "political fiction", należy traktować nurt określany mianem "polit–punkowego". Autor tego określenia ― Rafał. A Ziemkiewicz ― jako wyznaczniki "politpunku" wyróżnia: "polskie realia, nawiązania do historii najnowszej i punkowy sposób przedstawiania rzeczywistości." [...] Tak rozumiany "politpunk" byłby ― przede wszystkim ― określeniem pewnego specyficznie polskiego nurtu "science fiction", który można byłoby (roboczo) nazwać "fantastyką rozbiorową" (bądź ― za Wojciechem Orlińskim ― "neorozbiorową").
(16) Translated from an interview with R. A. Ziemkiewicz:
Nie. W ogóle mnie nie obchodzi ten nieszczęsny punk, margines społeczny, cyber–żule i inne takie. Uważam, że to co się dzieje interesującego w społeczeństwie, dzieje się wśród elity, a nie mętów. To arystokraci są ciekawi, w życiu meneli nie ma nic więcej, niż w życiu bydła w oborze. W starszym pokoleniu zaznacza się jakiś taki obsesyjny kult lumpa, u nas widać to u Oramusa, w głównym nurcie na przykład u Stasiuka ― byle zapity obszczymurek to dla nich z punktu arbiter elegantiarum. Jest to dla mnie jakaś aberracja, chyba podobna do zafascynowania cyberpunku młodzieżowymi gangami i wyrzutkami wielkomiejskiej dżungli.
(17) Translated from Pieprzony los Kataryniarza, p. 124:
― [...] czytałem o jakiejś aferze z hakerami.
― Prasa czasem ich myli z cyberpunkami. Ale to zupełnie inna sprawa: gówniarze, którzy po prostu niszczą zbiory, na ślepo, rozprowadzają wirusy, zadeptują obszary systemowe sieci, no wiesz, starają się zrobić jak najwięcej zamętu i nie dać się złapać. Taka odmiana cyberterroryzmu.
(18) Wikipedia, Organ grinder, retrieved on 19.06.2009.
(19) Translated from Pieprzony los Kataryniarza, p. 123:
Ta sama konwencja narzuciła wszystkim użytkownikom sieci obowiązek posługiwania się stałym i dostepnym na każde życzenie kodem identyfikacyjnym, ID. Skończyła się anonimowość w cyberprzestrzeni. A z nią skończyło się takie hakerstwo jak w starych filmach, że tam ktoś się włamuje do komputera Pentagonu i podbiera tajne dokumenty. Nie te czasy.

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19.6.09

Kataryniarz... (Część IV)

POKAŻ/UKRYJ SPIS TREŚCI | POKAŻ/UKRYJ TREŚĆ NOTKI

Polish Neo–partitional Politpunk ― a Case Study of The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder (pl. Pieprzony los Kataryniarza) by Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz as an Exemplar of Domestic Cyberpunk

III. B. FFOG in the Context of Polish Political Fiction

Though highly critical of Polish, right–wing conservative political/social (science) fiction, the literary journalist Wojciech Orliński nevertheless acknowledges that

Poland was perhaps the only country in the world where political fiction became the main genre of science fiction. It was not as fascinating to read in the West and not as safe to write in the East. (12)

The tendency to explore conspiracy theories of left–wing world domination in Polish political fiction Orliński dismisses as obsessive–compulsive patriotism. Yet there is much more to Polish political fiction and its subsequent cyberpunk retelling ― the politpunk of Ziemkiewicz's The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder ― than Orliński would like to admit.

FFOG is one of the last novels written within this political (science) fiction genre. M. Parowski has labeled the generation of Polish science fiction writers from the late '70s and '80s the Hamlet generation ― for their inability to express their political dissatisfaction with the Polish communist regime directly and doing so indirectly by means of ― then misjudged by the censors as apolitical ― science fiction narratives (13). The first generation of political fiction authors (M. Oramus, M. Parowski, A. Wiśniewski–Snerg, M. Wolski, E. Wnuk–Lipiński, W. Żwikiewicz, J. Zajdel) wrote in direct opposition to the communist regime, although their narratives strove to be more than makeshift political pamphlets. The novels (Zajdel's Paradyzja and Limes inferior, Parowski's Twarzą ku Ziemi...) were an attempt to construct a full catalogue of the general mechanisms of totalitarian oppression (14). Although Polish political fiction was written in a specific historical context, the universal character of its sociological diagnoses provides for their adequate modern re–readings. Zajdel's Paradyzja, though aimed at communist Poland, describes mechanisms of dehumanization and oppression universal enough that it could as well describe the modern North Korea or China.

Polish political fiction of the Hamlet generation had certain qualities which enabled its spiritual successor, The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder, to fully embrace the cyberpunk aesthetics. In most novels of the genre, the protagonist was a proto–hacker ― one which did not hack the then–nonexistent cyberspace, but "hacked" society. The full knowledge of the mechanisms of social oppression/repression and totalitarian regimes enabled the protagonist/antagonist to "hack" the "system". Zajdel's protagonist Sneer from Limes inferior is more akin to the American shepherd figure than to the cowboy. Being forced to live on the borderline of the oppressive system and his own convictions, he is forced to negotiate between the totalitarian system and his own creed of freedom as if an American shepherd figure would negotiate between nature/civilization ― or a Polish citizen would between communism/freedom/capitalism. Not only does this imply no cowboy figures in Polish cyberpunk, there also is no frontier in Polish political fiction which would provide a topography of potential freedom. Instead, there is the image of the last bastion ― the last possible negotiable quantity of freedom in an oppressive regime, usually attainable by the meritocracy by means of "hacking" the system. In addition, dehumanization in Polish discourse did not begin with the image of the cyborg. The literary creation of oppressive regimes (dehumanization of individuals/collective) was sufficient context for such discourse to appear in and therefore the cyborg, as a redundant figure, did not appear in Ziemkiewicz's FFOG, nor, for that matter, Dukaj's short stories.

After the political transformation of Poland, political fiction writers were no longer forced to allegorize under the guise of science fiction and indeed, most of them (M. Oramus, B. Wildstein, M. Wolski) went on to write mainstream historical and sensational novels with scarce SF elements. Ziemkiewicz's FFOG was the last political SF novel and afterward he also started writing mainstream literature.

(12) Translated from: Orliński W., Polskość jako nerwica natręctw:
Byliśmy jedynym chyba krajem na świecie, w którym political fiction stało się głównym nurtem literatury fantastycznej. Na Zachodzie nie był to temat aż tak fascynujący jak u nas, na Wschodzie zaś nie był to temat aż tak bezpieczny jak u nas.
(13) Parowski M., "Kilkunastu Hamletów", Czas Fantastyki, Szczecin 1990.
(14) See: Ziemkiewicz R. A., "Inżynierski epos", "Ucieczka przed eskapizmem", "To oni mieli kłopoty ze mną, nie ja z nimi", Frajerzy, Lublin 2003; Dębska A., "Ten pesymista Zajdel, czyli co nam zostało z Paradyzji", Czas Fantastyki nr 3 (4) 2005, p. 8–11; Dużyk A./Żwikiewicz W., "Wołanie ze smutnej galaktyki", Czas Fantastyki nr 2 (11) 2007, p. 3–16; Klementowski R., "Literatura w czasach przełomu, czyli ― A nie mówiłem!", Czas Fantastyki nr 3 (12) 2007, p. 27–31.

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18.6.09

Kataryniarz... (Część III)

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Polish Neo–partitional Politpunk ― a Case Study of The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder (pl. Pieprzony los Kataryniarza) by Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz as an Exemplar of Domestic Cyberpunk

III. LITERARY/EXTRA–LITERARY CONTEXTS

Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz's The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder (FFOG) (1995) is a syncretic mixture of elements belonging to two distinct aesthetics and discourses ― those of the cyberpunk novel and the Polish political/social fiction novel, which together constitute a uniquely Polish variation of the political cyberpunk novel ― the politpunk novel.

The novel's protagonist, Robert, is an Organ–grinder ― a sophisticated information broker who scans cyberspace in search of information for companies, politicians and governments. During a routine assignment for a contractor, which consists of gathering data on the state of the Polish infrastructure, Robert discovers that Poland's infrastructure has become evenly partitioned among the areas of influence of Russia and Germany. The same is true for all the countries of Eastern Europe in the buffer zone between Western Europe and Russia. Having realized that the partitions he discovered are a prelude to invasion and occupation, Robert is contacted and intimidated by a certain influential third party, which does not wish for such knowledge to see the light of day. Robert struggles with his persecutors in an attempt to stay independent.

The last of its kind, FFOG is a '90s retelling of a typical '70s and '80s Polish political fiction (dystopian) narrative within modern cyberpunk aesthetics. It should not be understood to represent Polish cyberpunk in general, as there is no distinct Polish cyberpunk sub–genre or subculture to speak of. Instead, it should be interpreted as a unique cyberpunk reinvention of Polish social/dystopian writing.

III. A. FFOG in the Context of Polish Cyberpunk

Polish cyberpunk has never become a distinct sub–genre within Polish science fiction, despite early expectations to the contrary. Until the '90s, knowledge of Anglo–Saxon science fiction in general and Anglo–Saxon cyberpunk in particular in the readers' consciousness in Poland was trifle due to the limited number of translated foreign works. After the political transformation of Poland, access to foreign popular literature improved considerably, though more in quantity than in quality. A. Mazurkiewicz provides the ratio of Polish science fiction novels to translations of their (usually) Anglo–Saxon counterparts (9):

Year1990199119921993199419951996199719981999
Polish29351513152226271528
Foreign105140132195271209214223241239

The over–saturation of the Polish market with foreign translations and the scarce Polish offer resulted in a popular demand for narratives of an "American" nature (10). Before the popular success of the Polish fantasy writer A. Sapkowski with his Witcher novels, Polish writers went as far as to author their novels under American–sounding pseudonyms in order to become published. Such a popular demand for "American" narratives would imply that Polish derivatives of the then–popular cyberpunk sub–genre would enjoy success equal to their Anglo–Saxon counterparts. Indeed, Polish authors (T. Kołodziejczak, R. Ziemkiewicz) attempted to write within the sub–genre, though to little success. A. Mazurkiewicz claims that the novels did not enjoy popularity due to the fact that

Original [American] cyberpunk literature [...] which has been made available in translations, was written better and had more artistic merit and the novels of Polish authors, who followed in the footsteps of Gibson, were considered to be poor in comparison. [...] This resulted in the disappearance of the [Polish] cyberpunk sub–genre within [Polish] science fiction due to diminished potential reader interest. (11)

In fact, Polish cyberpunk derivatives were presented to Polish readers at the same time as the original novels they have been, to a considerable extent, based on. W. Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) was first published in Poland in 1992, at a time when the sociopolitical discourse of American cyberpunk was already being dethroned by the more capitalist and conservative post–cyberpunk. Cyberpunk was introduced into Polish popular consciousness late in the game; its discourse, critical of the threats of technological progress, already outdated. After decades under a communist regime, Poland was eager to embrace such technological progress despite critical discourse.

The aesthetics of American cyberpunk in relation to American life were more of an extrapolation in quantity than in quality. The large megalopolises of cyberpunk narratives were quantitative extrapolations of existing, American cities. Cyberspace itself was nothing more than a quantitative extrapolation of the Internet in its infancy. In contrast, the relationship of cyberpunk to Polish life was not only that of quantity, but also quality. What America extrapolated from reality into its narratives, Poland perhaps did not even possess. The logical assumption would be that the future shock associated with such radical changes after the Polish political transformation would make Polish readers even more eager to embrace cyberpunk as a reaction to the qualitative technological changes around them, but for the most part technological changes have been introduced without the accompanying, critical discourse which cyberpunk embraced. Cyberpunk, therefore, was not expected in Poland to perform as a vehicle for critical discourse: anti–capitalist, anti–scientic, anti–monopolistic or otherwise. R. Ziemkiewicz has therefore stripped his cyberpunk of any distinctively American discourse and instead applied its attributes to serve the Polish discourse of political fiction.

(9) Mazurkiewicz... p. 8.
(10) Mazurkiewicz... p. 8.
(11) Translated from Mazurkiewicz... p. 8.:
Sprawniej napisane i artystycznie wartościowsze wzorce [...], dostępne dla polskich czytelników dzięki tłumaczeniom, przyczyniły się do niższej oceny rodzimej literatury wzorujących się na powieściach Gibsona twórców. [...] Fakt ten zadecydował o wygaśnięciu w obrębie fantastyki naukowej nurtu cyberpunkowego, jako nie spełniającego oczekiwań potencjalnych czytelników.

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17.6.09

Kataryniarz... (Część II)

POKAŻ/UKRYJ SPIS TREŚCI | POKAŻ/UKRYJ TREŚĆ NOTKI

Polish Neo–partitional Politpunk ― a Case Study of The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder (pl. Pieprzony los Kataryniarza) by Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz as an Exemplar of Domestic Cyberpunk

II. THE STATE OF SCHOLARSHIP

When attempting to approach Polish cyberpunk from an academic perspective, one finds the field of modern science fiction curiously devoid of previous literary criticism. This is not to say that Polish cyberpunk lacks qualities which would make it worthwhile to be considered from an academic perspective, but rather, the scarce literary criticism on the subject can be traced back to a general reluctance of the Polish academia to embrace popular literature. Until the '80s, the attitude of the Polish academia towards domestic science fiction has been to consider it a variation of Soviet science fiction en masse. In Z. Lekiewicz's academic Philosophy of science fiction (1985), Polish science fiction has been presented on the grounds of showing/lacking sensitivity towards Marxist social discourse (3). The enchanted game (1982), an academic monograph on Polish science fiction authored by A. Smuszkiewicz, focused on domestic social and political SF and attempted to trace science fiction back to its presumed roots in utopias and myths. (4). Another monograph on Polish science fiction in the years 1990–2004 was published in 2007 by A. Mazurkiewicz (5). His monograph is the first to contain a survey chapter on Polish cyberpunk (Polish–ed cyberspace), which attempts to construe a typology of domestic cyberpunk narratives on the basis of how saturated with cyberpunk poetics particular narratives are. Of note is his cyberpunk re–reading of S. Lem's 1981 novel/philosophical treatise GOLEM XIV (6). That said, Mazurkiewicz's chapter remains a preliminary overview of Polish cyberpunk and does not, by any means, do full justice to the subject matter.

For more extensive overviews of Polish cyberpunk, one is forced to search outside the academia, within the realm of semi–academic or popular criticism of the fandom itself. The most fortunate SF writer with a cyberpunk novel and several cyberpunk short stories to his name is J. Dukaj, on whom two non–academic survey papers were written (7). R. Ziemkiewicz, the author of The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder, was featured in just one survey paper (8). In view of the scarce scholarship on Polish cyberpunk, and in view of the fact that the several Polish renditions of cyberpunk hardly constitute a regular sub–genre with its own typology, uniqueness and trends, a case study of a particular domestic cyberpunk novel seems appropriate and will nonetheless shed new light on the Polish sub–genre.

(3) See: Lekiewicz Z., Filozofia Science Fiction, Warszawa 1985.
(4) Mazurkiewicz... p. 129.
See: Smuszkiewicz A., Zaczarowana gra, Poznań 1982; Parowski M./Smuszkiewicz A., "Cały czas w Zaczarowanej grze", Czas Fantastyki nr 1 (2) 2005, p. 3–6.
(5) Mazurkiewicz A., O polskiej literaturze fantastycznonaukowej lat 1990–2004, Łódź 2007.
(6) Mazurkiewicz... p. 220–222.
(7) See: Klementowski R., "Niewolnik wyobraźni", Czas Fantastyki nr 2 (3) 2005, p. 10–15; Rogaczewski G., Odczytywanie światów Jacka Dukaja, 2004.
(8) See: Klementowski R., "Rzucając perły...", Czas Fantastyki nr 4 (9) 2006.

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16.6.09

Kataryniarz... (Część I)

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Chciałbym Wam zaprezentować esej, z którego jestem w miarę zadowolony. Stanowi wynik zarówno mojego osobistego zainteresowania polską fantastyką naukową, jak również mojego uczestnictwa w rewelacyjnym kursie Beyond Cyberpunk na Anglistyce. W mojej analizie usiłowałem połaczyć polską specyfikę gaunku z amerykańską krytyką literacką oraz określić, na ile amerykański gatunek literacki można przeszczepić na polski grunt. Wziąłem na warsztat powieść "Pieprzony los Kataryniarza" znanego mi z konwentów i spotkań autorskich pisarza, Rafała Ziemkiewicza. Zapraszam do lektury.

Polish Neo–partitional Politpunk ― a Case Study of The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder (pl. Pieprzony los Kataryniarza) by Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz as an Exemplar of Domestic Cyberpunk

I. INTRODUCTION

In one of the first Polish critical works on science fiction, Zdzisław Lekiewicz asserts that

science fiction en masse has long ceased reflecting the peculiarities of particular countries. In fact, contrary to opinions presented by some authors, it never has. Its subject matter is universal. (1)

Although some "American–ness" or "other–ness" could be attributed to the diverse discourses of science fiction, it remains true that science fiction in general ensues from the Western tradition of scientism and therefore national literatures within that tradition will find that science fiction is indeed their shared, universal language. What is characteristic of science fiction en masse, however, does not hold true for cyberpunk itself. Cyberpunk as a sub–genre of science fiction is unquestionably American in its context and subject matter. As a cultural movement it can be traced back to a distinct sociopolitical era in American counterculture and as literature, it reinvents American myths and metaphors, notably the topography of the West and the discourse of the frontier.

For all its "American–ness", cyberpunk as aesthetics and/or vehicle for discourse has nevertheless surfaced as a minor sub–genre within Polish science fiction, with examples of literature ranging from works of purely derivative value (J. Cyran, T. Kołodziejczak, M. Protasiuk, M. Przybyłek, J. Sobota) to those which succeeded in creating a syncretic combination of cyberpunk and "Polish–ness" (J. Dukaj, R. A. Ziemkiewicz).

Literary criticism on Polish cyberpunk, though scarce, presents the Polish sub–genre in terms of its presumed failure ― the failure to "liberate" cyberpunk from its distinctly American discourse; the failure to acknowledge that a different construct of the frontier (and no Western tradition) exists within Polish discourse in particular, rendering cyberpunk immune to attempts of "domestication". Adam Mazurkiewicz claims that

It should not go unnoticed that within Polish cyberpunk, the myth of the American frontier has been embraced without much thought. In Polish literature, the historical Polish eastern frontier (Kresy), which might serve as an analogy to the American frontier, does not primarily function as a means of showing the protagonist's active nature, but instead offers a glimpse into the historical past (which is sometimes [...] demystifying, though most often nostalgic). (2)

The aim of this essay is to argue the contrary and provide a case study of The fucked–up fate of an Organ–grinder by Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz to show that not only can cyberpunk aesthetics and discourse be transplanted into Polish literature in a "liberated", un–American variation, but also that cyberpunk itself can serve as a vehicle for culture–specific, refreshing discourses of distinctly Polish nature.

(1) Tanslated from: Lekiewicz Z., Filozofia Science Fiction, Warszawa 1985, p. 7.:
Fantastyka naukowa w swojej masie dawno już przestała obrazować specyfikę jakiegoś konkretnego kraju. Zresztą, wbrew sądom niektórych autorów, nigdy tego nie robiła. Jej problematyka jest uniwersalna.
(2) Translated from: Mazurkiewicz A., O polskiej literaturze fantastycznonaukowej lat 1990–2004, Łódź 2007, p. 228.:
Nie można jednak nie zauważyć, że w rodzimym cyberpunku mit "frontier" został przyjęty bezrefleksyjnie. W polskiej literaturze Kresy, które można byłoby uznać za analogię "frontier", służyły głównie nie tyle ukazaniu aktywności jednostki, co wędrówce w przeszłość (niekiedy ― [...] demistyfikującej, najczęściej jednak nostalgicznej).

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12.6.09

Nominacje...

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Za portalem Creatio Fantastica:

NAGRODA LITERACKA
IM. JERZEGO ŻUŁAWSKIEGO

WYNIKI GŁOSOWANIA ELEKTORSKIEGO
ZA ROK 2008

W głosowaniu 63 Elektorów, przeprowadzonym w okresie 6.03-15.04.2009, zostały wyłonione utwory nominowane do Nagrody. Oto nominowane powieści, wymienione w kolejności wg liczby uzyskanych punktów:

  • Kameleon – Rafał Kosik
  • Miasto dusz – Wojciech Szyda
  • Zadra (1. tom) – Krzysztof Piskorski
  • Fryne hetera – Witold Jabłoński
  • Chwała ogrodów – A. Brzezińska i G. Wiśniewski
  • Ziemia niczyja – Anna Brzezińska

W kategorii opowiadania żaden utwór nie uzyskał nominacji (nie otrzymał 20% ważnych głosów, co było regulaminowym wymogiem), natomiast 5 utworów z początku listy otrzymało rekomendację consideratus do dalszych etapów procedury. Oto wskazane utwory, wymienione w kolejności alfabetycznej wg autorów:

  • Wesele dusz – Marek Baraniecki
  • Światy Dantego – Anna Kańtoch
  • Ekumenizm – Jakub Nowak
  • Podworzec – Wit Szostak
  • Maniera tenebrosa – Szczepan Twardoch

Nagroda Żuławskiego"Kameleon" wyszedł na prowadzenie na samym początku głosowania i już nie oddał pierwszego miejsca. Zdecydowanie odbija od reszty uzyskaną liczbą punktów (95 pkt., 30% możliwych). Kolejne trzy utwory, "Miasto dusz" (68 pkt., 22%), "Zadra" (67 pkt., 21%) i "Fryne hetera" (59 pkt., 19%) plasują się w jednej grupie blisko siebie. Nieco dalej, ale wciąż w czołówce znajdują się "Chwała ogrodów" (39 pkt., 12%) oraz "Ziemia niczyja" (37 pkt., 12%). Pecha miał "Pies i klecha. Tancerz" (36 pkt.), któremu zabrakło 1 punktu do oficjalnej nominacji elektorskiej, lecz wciąż ma szansę na nominację jurorską.

Nie zamierzam zdradzać, jak dokładnie głosowałem jako elektor, ale cieszę się, że wśród nominowanych pisarzy znaleźli się również moi faworyci. Zapraszam Was na oficjalne ogłoszenie zwyciężców nagrody, które odbędzie się w Warszawie w październiku.

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10.6.09

Redaktor...

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Czasopismo Science Fiction czytam regularnie od pierwszego numeru z 2001 roku, zarówno dla przyjemności, jak i z powodu pełnienia funkcji elektora nagrody im. Żuławskiego. Od tamtego czasu, chociaż pismo zmieniało format, nazwę, wydawcę i drukarnię, to pod względem merytorycznym zmieniało się w bardzo niewielkim stopniu (in plus), podczas gdy przez "Nową Fantastykę", zanim na dobre stanęła na nogi, przewijał się tłum redaktorów naczelnych (in minus) i mniej lub bardziej chybionych pomysłów.

Science FictionOd samego początku Robert J. Szmidt stawiał na publikowanie zarówno opowiadań obiecujących debiutantów, jak i sprawdzonych, polskich pisarzy. Chociaż w porównaniu z "Nową Fantastyką" czasopismo Szmidta ma opinię "mniej ambitnego" i otwarcie stawia na rozrywkę, a nie wysublimowane, intelektualne zmagania, to jednak na jego łamach zagościło wiele dobrych opowiadań. Dało kiedyś szansę na debiut wielu obiecującym pisarzom, którzy obecnie cieszą się niekwestionowaną popularnością. Z tym większym zdziwieniem przyjąłem zatem decyzję redaktora naczelnego, Roberta J. Szmidta, by przekazać czasopismo w ręce znanego mi pisarza Rafała Dębskiego. Ze zmianą redaktora naczelnego związana jest również zmiana wydawcy. Czasopismo przejmie "Fabryka Słów".

Chociaż osobiście nie przepadam za filozofią wydawniczą "Fabryki Słów", to jednak darzę zaufaniem samego Rafała Dębskiego. Mam nadzieję, że jako redaktor naczelny utrzyma poziom pisma i nie pozwoli, by "Science Fiction" stało się tubą propagandową jednego wydawcy. Gdy "Science Fiction" było w rękach Roberta Szmidta, to mogło bez ograniczeń reklamować książki wielu wydawców i promować pisarzy z różnych środowisk. Obecnie zachodzi taka możliwość, że "Fabryka Słów" będzie promować jedynie swoich pisarzy i swoje powieści. Ponieważ jednak Rafał Dębski jest silną, zdecydowaną osobistością, to mam nadzieję, że zręcznie poprowadzi pismo i będzie je rozwijał w ciekawych kierunkach, czego mu życzę z całego serca, a Robertowi Szmidtowi dziękuję za osiem lat czytelniczych wrażeń.

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5.6.09

Teorie... (Część IV)

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"Theories hitherto unknown..." — Continuity and Change in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America

CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

During his travels across America in 1831 with his friend Gustav de Beaumont, Tocqueville adopted the attitude of a distanced observer of the American project as both a direct continuity of the Enlightenment project and an obvious, political and historical novelty opposed to the old regimes of Europe. America had been to him an inconcieveable paradox — combining aristocratic values with an egalitarian government; combining a new democratic form of government with powerful, federal potential; combining populist ideas with greatness. The United States witnessed a peaceful domestic "revolution" and managed to avoid the atrocities of the French Revolution. America was undoubtedly a new "project", and at the same time it had managed to salvage across the Pacific more traditional, European values than post–revolutionary Europe has kept itself. S. Wolin writes:

Although he was acutely aware of living in an era of discontinuity, his theoria would maintain that in France one archetypal disruption, the revolution of 1789, was being replayed in the several revolutions over the next half century: disruption was the continuity. (11)

What is true of France is also true of the United States. Although in the popular consciousness America is understood to be a discontinuity — a clear detachment from the European project — Tocqueville's Democracy in America proves that democracy could develop on the new continent precisely because of the values brought from ante–revolutionary Europe.

WORKS CITED

  • Choi D., "Unprophetic Tocqueville. How Democracy in America Got the Modern World Completely Wrong", The Independent Review, v. XII, n. 2, Fall 2007
  • de Tocqueville A., Democracy in America, Volumes I & II
  • Mayer J. P. et al., Œuvres complètes, Paris: Gallimard, 1951
  • Pierson G.W., Tocqueville in America, 2nd ed., JHU Press 1996
  • Wolin S. S., Tocqueville. Between Two Worlds. The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001

(11) Tocqueville. Between Two Worlds..., p. 3.

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4.6.09

Teorie... (Część III)

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"Theories hitherto unknown..." — Continuity and Change in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America

METHODOLOGY OF SCHOLARSHIP

Because of his scientific approach to his subject matter, Tocqueville has been lauded as the first modern sociologist. The value of his scholarship can be attributed to his constant effort to examine and eliminate his preconceptions and biases. Tocqueville has been both a theorist and a politician and as the latter he shared the strong convictions and biases of his social class. In his posthumous work Recollections, which was never intended for publication, he allowed himself to make condescending comments and personal remarks. Nevertheless, in his scientific research for Democracy in America, as a theorist conscious of his subjective approach, he wished to distance himself as a person from the subject matter and to enter into God's point of view, and to consider and judge human affairs from that detached perspective. For contemporary readers of Democracy in America, Tocqueville's God's point of view might seem the pretentious, presumptuous perspective of an all–knowing sage. The 19th century has seen, after all, the formation and development of grand, totalizing ideologies, both theoretical and applied in practice. Tocqueville, however, is far from making claims of grandeur. A further annotation to Democracy in America invites readers to better understand his methodology of research:

I must attempt to get away from particular points of view in order to take a position, if possible, among the general points of view which depend neither on time nor place.

Apart from objectiveness being his scientific creed, Tocqueville is also the first political scientist to consider democracy a valid research topic. (7) Contrary to the title of his treatise, Democracy in America is not first and foremost, as the title might suggest, about democracy in the United States, but rather, about the general mechanisms of democracy as an abstraction, to be detached from its sociopolitical context of America and applied in France. In one of his letters, Tocqueville wrote:

In America I saw more than America: I sought the image of democracy itself, its inclinations, character, prejudices and passions.

In another, he succintly paraphrased himself:

America was only my framework, democracy was the subject. (8)

This is pehaps the reason why some critics of Democracy in America are wrong in judging its author on the accusation of failing to provide a detailed enough account of the United States. In his article Unprophetic Tocqueville. How "Democracy in America" Got the Modern World Completely Wrong, D. Choi provides a criticism of Tocqueville's methodology on the grounds of the author's bold assumptions and predictions about America's future:

One may be surprised therefore to hear that "Democracy in America"'s predictions about modern civilization’s future were wrong on nearly all essential points because Tocqueville incorporated into the definition of modern democracy the concrete social and economic features of early-nineteenth–century democratic societies. (9)

The claim that many of Tocquevile's predictions about the United States have turned out wrong with time is, indeed, correct. However, it was not Tocqueville's intention to extrapolate the future of the democratic system in America. Instead, his concern was to create an abstraction of democracy to apply in the France of his contemporaries. He was well aware of the fact that democracy does not exist in limbo — it was, after all, on the forefront of political and social change, and Tocqueville has defined change as being the only stable, continuous aspect of the modern world. Since democracy is always rooted in reality, Tocqueville described enough of America to build a functioning model of democracy upon his description. S. Wolin agrees that Tocqueville's methodology sacrificed a detailed account of America in favor of an abstraction of democracy:

The emphasis on clarity is the accompaniment to the modern assimilation of theory to a mode of "construction" that depends of "conceptual rigor" to produce the interlocking building blocks of which a theory is allegedly made. Tocqueville's theory, in contrast, would be panoramic rather than architectonic. He often described himself as attempting to "paint" a "general condition". (10)

(7) Tocqueville was the first political theorist to treat democracy as a theoretical subject in its own right and the first to contend that democracy was capable of achieving a genuine, if modest, political life–form.
Wolin S. S., Tocqueville. Betwen Two Worlds. The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 59.
(8) Pierson G.W., Tocqueville in America, 2nd ed., JHU Press 1996, p. 151.
(9) Choi D., "Unprophetic Tocqueville. How Democracy in America Got the Modern World Completely Wrong", The Independent Review, v. XII, n. 2, Fall 2007, pp. 165–178.
(10) Wolin S. S., Tocqueville. Between Two Worlds. The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 96.

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3.6.09

Teorie... (Część II)

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"Theories hitherto unknown..." — Continuity and Change in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America

HISTORICAL & IDEOLOGICAL CONTEXTS

Alexis Charles Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was born on the 29th of August, 1805 in Paris to a Norman aristocratic lineage of Tocquevilles, which had historical affiliations with the monarchic House of Bourbon. Although his grandfather had been killed during the French Revolution; his father had been persecuted under the Jacobian regime; and his mother had remained a staunch supporter of the Ancien Régime, in his youth the inexperienced Tocqueville has disassociated himself from his historical class and their ideological sentiments, or rather — shared those sentiments only to the extent he still believed to be rational after the Revolution (only to realize the contrary and become a conservative in his mature years). Having graduated from the philosophical Collège Royal in Metz and having received a Bachelor of Arts degree in law in Paris, Alexis de Tocqueville has completed an education in the traditional, aristocratic ethos. Of note is his knowledge of classical political thinkers from Plato onwards, although despite such interests Tocqueville believed the Western civilization is ready for a new, modern theory of politics and would pursue a career which would enable him to be the one to formulate it. In 1827 he became an assistant in the Versailles Tribunal. The Revolution of 1830 and the fall of the House of Bourbon has launched France on a long process of democratization and Tocqueville has begun to see in the government of United States a model possible to be implemented under the House of Orléans in France. In subsequent years he would pursue a political path which would result in his journey to the United States to witness true democracy in its infancy.

Tocqueville's political upbringing took place when France was undergoing changes launched by the Revolution of 1789 and the subsequent period of Napoleonian Restoration. In his lifetime he would witness the political revolution of the bourgeoisie and the birth of the social revolution of the proletariat with its egalitarian postulates. In his scholarship Tocqueville will reveal an evolving approach towards the Revolution, revolutions in general and the underlying changes reflecting the social and political Zeitgeist of the 19th century. Despite being witness to the world changing around him, he believed this change to be constant — he believed change to be the continuous, stable process of social history. Tocqueville's tendency to generalize will ultimately lead him to the conclusion that both revolutions — of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat — are just natural acts in one, continuous revolution, or, as Marx would later have it, acts of a continuous process of class struggle.

Nevertheless, studies on revolutions — both the American Revolution and the French Revolution; as well as abstract mechanisms of revolutions in general — never lead Tocqueville to share his sentiments with one side of the conflict, one particular class. Due to his aristocratic upbringing he did believe in the leading role the aristoi should play in governing a society, yet he remained distanced and objective enough to realize that the aristoi are no longer the aristocracy and that the core of modern societies shifted to the middle class. In other words, Tocqueville connected the welfare of a country to its bourgeoisie:

It is no doubt of importance to the welfare of nations that they should be governed by men of talents and virtue; but it is perhaps still more important that the interests of those men should not differ from the interests of the community at large; for, if such were the case, virtues of a high order might become useless, and talents might be turned to a bad account. I say that it is important that the interests of the persons in authority should not conflict with or oppose the interests of the community at large; but I do not insist upon their having the same interests as the whole population, because I am not aware that such a state of things ever existed in any country. (5)

From Democracy in America emerges a Tocqueville who believed in egalitarian values, although at the time of writing his later scholarship — The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856) and Recollections (1893) — he had matured as a conservative politician and theorist. In the aforementioned writings he defended aristocracy not as a class with its particular interests, but as a vehicle of values which Tocqueville believed to be of utmost importance in a society, and which were diminishing in societies with the bourgeoisie or the proletariat at the core. Despite such political inclinations and biases, Tocqueville would most rather avoid ideological extremes altogether and instead see himself as an individual shaped by moderate ideas. His identity is best characterized in a letter:

Others ascribe to me alternately democratic or aristocratic prejudices; perhaps I might have had one or the other if I had been born in another century and in another country. But as it happened, my birth made it very easy for me to guard against both. I came into the world at the end of a long revolution which, after having destroyed the old order, created nothing that could last. When I began my life, aristocracy was already dead, and democracy was still unborn. Therefore, my instinct could not lead me blindly toward one or the other. I have lived in a country which for forty years had tried a little of everything and settled nothing definitively. It was not easy for me, therefore, to have any political illusions... I had no natural hatred or jealously of the aristocracy and, since that aristocracy had been destroyed, I had no natural affection for it, for one can only be strongly attached to the living. I was near enough to know it intimately, and far enough to judge it dispassionately. I may say as much for the democratic element... In a word, I was so nicely balanced between the past and the future that I did not feel instinctively drawn toward one or the other. It required no great effort to contemplate quietly both sides. (6)

Tocqueville therefore could be best described as a man of moderation. Suspended between an old European world diminishing and a new American world being born, Tocqueville had found and enjoyed the perfect perspective to observe the crossroads of continuity and change in the American and European projects of the 19th century.

(5) de Tocqueville A., Democracy in America, Volume II, Chapter XIV.
(6) To Reeve, 22 Mar. 1837, Cited in Mayer J.P. et al., Œuvres complètes, Paris: Gallimard, 1951, VI (1), pp. 37–38.

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2.6.09

Teorie... (Część I)

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Dzięki zajęciom socjologicznym o Stanach Zjednoczonych w ostatnim semestrze miałem okazję powrócić, po ponad dwóch latach, do studiowania twórczości jednego z moich najbardziej cenionych myślicieli, Alexisa de Tocqueville. Ponieważ jednak zawsze podchodzę do moich zainteresowań zbyt ambitnie i zaczytałem się sześciusetstronicową monografią o życiu i twórczości Tocqueville'a, to jak zwykle pozostało mi bardzo mało czasu na napisanie samego eseju i na ostatnią chwilę wyprodukowałem, niestety, pracę wprawdzie bardzo kwiecistą stylistycznie i przekonującą, ale jednocześnie mało merytoryczną. Nikt się jednak na tym nie spostrzegł i dostałem dobrą ocenę. Esej zamieszczam poniżej dla formalności, ale też dlatego, że moim zdaniem właśnie z racji jego oględnego charakteru dobrze się go czyta. Zapraszam do lektury.

"Theories hitherto unknown..." — Continuity and Change in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America

INTRODUCTION

Alexis de Tocqueville's seminal sociopolitical treatise — Democracy in America (De la démocratie en Amérique) — has been first published to roaring success in France in two volumes in 1835 and 1840 as an afterthought to Tocqueville's illuminating travels across the United States, which had taken place half a decade earlier in 1831. It was already during the expedition itself that the author realized the significance of his undertaking. As Tocqueville confided in his brother in a letter from America:

We are assembling some magnificent materials and if we should discover in ourselves the talent to put them to use, we shall without question create something new. (1)

Indeed, despite his work having been intended for a French reception (2) and despite its considerable historical distance from modern times, Democracy in America has outlived its own sociopolitical context to no diminished interest and went on to become one of the most often cited milestones of political science, regardless of one's political affiliations. As S. Wolin, a Tocqueville scholar, asserts:

Interpreters have created a certain Tocqueville, one who slips easily into the main dialogue of American politics between self–designated liberals and conservatives. To one he is a "liberal conservative" who values freedom as well as property rights; to the other he is a "conservative liberal" who is alert to the dangers of "too much democracy" (...) (3)

Tocqueville's body of work is not easily identified as belonging to a single ideological system and therefore multiple readings of his writings can exist at the same time. The more conservative reader will focus on those aspects of his writings which praise the Ancien Régime and will look for parallels to the European tradition in the American project. The more progressive reader, however, could as well read into Tocqueville's intentions as favoring (although somewhat critical of) a modern, democratic society with its emphasis on liberté, égalité and fraternité. In other words, his political ideas have been professed both by supporters of continuity and by supporters of change.

Democracy in America has become the essential resource on both democracy and America, perhaps because it has always been a masterpiece of moderation. It is just historical enough to serve as a viable and valuable record on antebellum Jacksonian America and just general enough to also serve as a perfect textbook on both democracy as an ideological abstraction and democracy as applied in its infancy in the United States.

The first of its kind, Democracy in America secured Tocqueville's place as the first sociologist of modern times. Not only is he thus honored by contemporary scholars of political science, but he himself had been aware of creating a new science at the time of writing his seminal treatise. In Chapter I of Democracy in America, Tocqueville points to the groundbreaking significance of his research:

In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized men, of the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it was there, for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not been prepared by the history of the past. (4)

The aim of this paper is to showcase Tocqueville's theories hitherto unknown in Democracy in America and to present their author as a distant observer of both continuity and change in the American project, as contrasted with and compared to the European Enlightenment project of which Tocqueville himself was an active, political member.

(1) Pierson G.W., Tocqueville in America, 2nd ed., JHU Press 1996, p. 131.
(2) What I have sought particularly to highlight in the United States and to have it well understood is less a complete portrait of that foreign society than its contrasts or resemblances with ours... That continual return to France, which I did without calling attention to it was, in my view, one of the principal reasons for the success of the book.
Cited in Mayer J. P. et al., Œuvres complètes, Paris: Gallimard, 1951, I (1) p. 9.
(3) Wolin S. S., Tocqueville. Betwen Two Worlds. The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 3.
(4) de Tocqueville A., Democracy in America, Volume I, Chapter I.

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