THE VALUES AND INTERESTS. SOME NOTES ON THE IDENTITY OF THE LEFT
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adiunkt w Instytucie Nauk Politycznych Uniwersytetu
Warszawskiego
Publication date: 2020-01-27
Studia Politologiczne 2009;14
ABSTRACT
An identity of a political group is a multidimensional phenomenon and cannot be
reduced to axiological declarations. The Left is going through a crisis of identity, not
only in Poland. The symptoms are, among others, the ideological and intellectual
surrender in face of the neoliberal narrative or accepting the one-sided, negative
interpretation of the history of the Left, including the experience of socialism. The
identity of a political group on the one hand requires permanent reconstruction,
but on the other it needs to be defended. In the case of the Left what is visibly
lacking is the defense of its traditional values, which are positively verified by
the current crisis of capitalism. The values are not separate from the social and
political practice or social interests. They can be interpreted as a generalization,
an essential synthesis of social interests on various levels of the organization of
social life. Values and interests are not merely the motivational side of politics.
They also form an analytic category, allowing for unveiling the functional aspect of
social phenomena. Similarly, leftism is not only a moral stand or a type of social
sensitivity. It is a cognitive disposition too. The debate about the identity of the
Left, just like the analysis carried out in the field of political sciences, should not
refrain from the class paradigm in explaining various phenomena. Especially today
it seems that the usefulness of class-related explications of social and political
contradictions is growing, even more so, if we consider their global context.