The normative system of Bogusław Wolniewicz (1927–2017) can be subsumed under three categories: (1) pessimism (fatalism, or ‘tychism’ in Wolniewicz’s terms), (2) moral determinism (‘non-meliorism’), (3) conservatism (‘right-hand orientation’). Ad (1) Wolniewicz was pessimistic in two ways: he believed human life to be tragic (fatalism) and was also convinced that most people are guided by bad instincts (dualism). Ad (2) Wolniewicz believed that moral character was biologically determined and immutable. But his strong position on this subject ignores the classical view of Aristotle or the Stoics for whom moral character (or conscience) was acquired by habit and shaped deliberately. Ad (3) I suggest that a good historical example of conservative tendency was Critias of Athens. His famous fragment of the Sisyphus contains the idea of a supremacy of laws over human passions, and reduces religion to a supportive role with respect to ethics and politics. Wolniewicz’s dualism of right-hand and left-hand orientation encourages me to distinguish between a right-wing and a left-wing perception of value. For a leftist, value is intensity of a chosen feature (progressive value), whereas for a rightist, value is an area of freedom between inacceptable extremities (modular value). On these premises I propose a simple model of axiological conflict between left-wing and right-wing citizens.
This article presents a profile of the satirical weekly Szopka (A Puppet Show) published in Warsaw between 1922 and 1925 under the auspices of the National Democracy (ND). Committed to a nationalist ideology, Szopka published cartoons and satirical texts lampooning the alleged enemies of Poland and the Poles. Its favoured technique was to caricature and ridicule its targets, both individuals and institutions. Among them were Józef Piłsudski, his policies and his political associates, the Bolsheviks, the Germans and the Jews. To propagate their nationalist worldview the editors made use of a broad range of persuasion techniques.