Polish scientists against manipulations in the media

The scientific environments are mustering their energies to defend the truth. A group of scientists from Warsaw University published an article entitled, ‘University’s mission – present aspect’ (WU periodical, issue 1 (51), February 2011), which was also published in ‘Niedziela’ (issue 8, pp. 20-21). The scholars from Warsaw University state that some participants of public debates are excluded from discussions because of their political labels that the media had given them. The professors of Warsaw University write about a specific fear of the truth, including the references to the late President Lech Kaczynski. We can read, ‘The ultimate way of defence against the Truth is the method of public derision, biting remarks about appearances, names, slips of the tongue, mimes, etc., which draw attention away from the crux of the matter and substantial arguments towards boorish farce and fun and these can be heated up endlessly (according to the manipulators). This method was used against the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski. The caricatures, «funny photos», sarcastic remarks, as a rule on an embarrassing level.’ Furthermore, the scientists of the Poznan institutions of higher education, associated in the University Citizens’ Club named after Lech Kaczynski in Poznan (AKO), which embraces mainly professors from the Poznan universities and the Polish Academy of Sciences, write about the barbarity of the language of debate and unjustified verbal aggression towards those who have different views, most often the supporters of the Law and Justice Party. ‘We agree with the opinion about the barbarity of the language of debate, the verbal aggression, which is justified nowhere, especially at such places as universities, towards those who have different views, most often the supporters of the Law and Justice Party and all those who uncompromisingly seek the truth about the Smolensk plane crash. We agree with the diagnosis that it is the aversion towards the truth or the fear of the truth that eliminates the main, and many other, issues from the space of open discussion’, the scientists from Poznan wrote in their statement.

(Editorial board)

"Niedziela" 8/2011

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl