I Sympozjum Falzmannowskie, Jachranka 1994

Mirosław Dakowski

Summary of
Dispersive Potentials and the Instinct of Self-Preservation of Nation.
(Civilizations according to Feliks Koneczny)

The purpose of this paper is to discover the origins of dispersive potentials as well as proposing sources of attractive potentials in the context of that which is both stable and universal to enable us to effectively negate and overcome the dispersive potentials which have been forced on us, as I believe, from the outside.

Dispersive potentials cause the formation of forces which repulse bodies from one another,
pulverizing social movements. Attractive potentials cause bodies to be attracted to one another. In a societal context this causes the formation of integration of structures and currents whose characteristic virtue is not uniformity but the cooperation in diversity.
In countries which have formally freed themselves from communism, such words as "trends,
movements, unions, and parties" are constantly being used and overused; at the same time,
structures and works fall apart, people begin to suspect from one another everything that is the worst. What follows is the deterioration of social ties, of know-how, and the will towards
cooperative work. With this deterioration also comes lethargy and passiveness.
With an ever greater conviction, one is forced to the conclusion that nations of this kind have
lost the instinct of self-preservation. Perhaps this instinct was amputated? This happens both at the level of movements within the nation and in small groups of only a few people who one might even state have similar views and approximately the same aims.
Dispersive potentials have a universal character; that forces generated by them operate on
processes on every scale; this means on both processes of a physical and social nature.
In the long run, the results of those phenomena of repulsion can only be catastrophic:
Deisions concerning the future are either not made at all or are made by people who are short sighted, amoral and gather together not in social structures but in gangs.
In this insanity, the concept of a plan or conspiracy has occured to many people. This idea has been effectively ridiculed, for instance, in the form of the slogan:-- "I don't believe in the conspiracy theory of history"-+. People have learned not to even utter this statement when they come upon evidence which makes themselves uncomfortable and disturbs their peace of mind or they see FACTS which indicate some smaller or greater conspiracy, robbery or planned slaughter. How comfortable it is to place these painful Facts into the category of a "theory" in which one can "believe" or "not believe".
I believe that the most general and still actually current diagnosis was created over a half
century ago by one of the greatest mind in Europe, a historian from Kraków named Feliks
Koneczny. His study of civilizations is, I believe, the key to understanding the present situation in the world today. It also provides a way out of this present situation.
Koneczny showed that the greatest organizations of people are not nations but civilizations.
Civilizations in the sociological sense are not racial, lingual, or religious. Civilization according to Koneczny is a method of a system of community life.
Koneczny's most important achievement for our times is the following statement: Nations or
peoples belonging to the same civilization have a similar relationship to five fundamental
categories of human life (quincuxa). The relationship may vary but it is never in conflict. Nations of the same civilization, therefore, create cultures commensurate with each other, making it possible to permeate and supplement each other. Among them synthesis is possible.
It is however impossible to have a synthesis among cultures having contrasting views about the five elemental categories. As to the internal or spiritual side, this is made up of the concept of the Good (morality) and Truth (natural and supernatural). As for the bodily or external side this is composed of such affairs as health and prosperity. Above all them exists a bridge between the internal and external, the concept of Beauty, common to both body and soul.
Is a discussion possible on the role of personality in the thought of Goethe between an
European and a representative of a civilization in which children are considered the property of the head of the household, where the killing of daughters is equally natural like the drowning of unwanted kittens?
Similarly a leader of a tribe from a civilization of central Asia, even if he were dressed in one of the most fashionable suits by Armani, would treat "talks on disarmament" as merely spending time wisely in tricking the gullible while he bides his time and grows in strength. Of course he would not sign an agreement with any intention of keeping his word. This would not be any indication of his breach of faith or immorality. Simply his moral criteria are different from that of Latin civilization.
The proverbial in Poland saying of Kali (in Africa): "Good deed is when Kali steals cows" simply attests to the fact that Kali lives in another civilization. It is only when Kali's mentiality is transported to a nation living in the Latin civilization, for example, to the ministry of "independent" Poland that the crunch occurs and a crime committed. A multiple value system is a terrible social disease. One cannot be civilized in two different ways at the same time, Koneczny repeats. Therefore syntheses of civilizations are unsuccessful. There can merely be a mixture of civilizations. For societies that are stricken with such civilizations there is only failure, this state of affairs ALWAYS leads to the compromising of a civilization.
The conclussion that can be made from the whole history of humanity is unambiquous: the
mixing of civilizations results in the compromising of civilization.
That is the basic source of opposite potentials in the area of human contacts, as well as in the attempts at organizing community life.
At this time, it is necessary that a conscious and clear articulation of decisions of the real elite of the country, as well as of the whole nation must be made as to which civilization this given nation must belong. Only countries which uniquivocally belong to a given civilization have a chance to be independent and prosperous.
The publishing of Koneczny's book "On the Plurality of Civilisations" in London in 1962 did not receive a sufficient response from the intellectuals of the West. At that time the West was dominated by left-wing intelectuals whose outstanding characteristic was hypocrisy and deceit.
50 years of suppression and silencing of this work took nothing away from the freshness of his ideas and made for a good test of his ideas' worth.