“The term +idiot+ (derived from the Greek +idiotes+) referred to a man who is not interested in politics, in public affairs, who closes himself exclusively in the circle of his private pleasures and is thereby unable to realise his full humanity,” writes Professor Andrzej Nowak.
„ – Let’s be honest: literature is not for idiots, – said Olga Tokarczuk during the Góry Literatury Festival and unleashed a storm. This statement is difficult to accept, but I understand why such words were uttered by the Nobel Prize winner.” (W. Szot, wyborcza.pl).
And how much emotion a writer can evoke, even at the very moment when a heatwave collides with a wall of hailstones! It is comforting to know that literature continues to arouse interest in the midst of such mayhem.
If these words had not been spoken, there would be no harm done, but since they have been heard in so many places, it is worth to throw in our two cents to this national fundraiser.
It was probably only Prof. Przemysław Czapliński (UAM), when asked to comment, who started with reminding us that an idiot in it’s original meaning, set in the realities of the Roman-Greek world, was a word describing someone who did not show the slightest interest in public issues. Literature, indeed, is of no use to such individuals.
It is not as simple as the Professor has outlined. Idiot, ῐ̓δῐώτης is the term used to describe quite respectable and privately nice citizens who do not (and do not intend to) perform any public functions (secular and religious, as res publicae included both).
How many pretty smart characters would have to be called that! Both the singer Doda and the talented football player Robert, although they probably read a lot, would be cut off from literature with such an antique interpretation of the Nobel Prize winner’s words. On the other hand, Archbishop M. Jędraszewski and the increasingly popular male and female influencers probably would not, as they perform distinctly religious functions. And in private life they probably also read a lot.
It’s not advisable to treat literature as a divisive criterion. It is impossible to transform any art into a social status attribute (although many cultural institutions have been working tirelessly since the 19th century to treat art as such).
Literature is essentially ridiculous because it exposes (often, as they say in the East: za durno) what is most private.
And it’ s worth reminding the very offended what “cultural texts” were entertaining in the 1980s, in the eve of our common as literature freedom. Apparently we are mentally approaching that uninteresting era faster and faster. The catalogue of the Warsaw Gruppa for an exhibition of paintings at Poznań’s Wielka 19 gallery during the winter of 1986 was titled in such a way as to reach a mass audience: Your hero, you scum, is boredom bringing misery.
Over the years we can see that it was not the worst title in literary terms.
If only it hadn’t pupated into a multi-season series for those no longer seeing.
Pandemic will certainly change us.
The 20th century can most briefly be described as a time dominated by homo faber. Both the literal meaning (man that produces) and the metaphorical one, which has gained popularity with Max Frisch’s book Homo faber. Ein Bericht, published in 1956, accurately describes the character of Everyman. The homo ludens community (identified and named as early as 1938 in Johan Huizinga’s book entitled exactly likewise) lived somewhere by itself pretty much. The development of the Internet and the relocation of culture to the web may have increased the importance of homo ludens in the late 20th or early 21st century. However, everyday life is still subordinated to production, to “making things”.
What will be the name of the next tribe to dominate the others? Judging by the amount of time we spend day and night facing screens, probably homo spectator – the man who looks, or the man who stares.
Unfortunately, the chances that it will be a man who sees (a little further and wider) are poor.
