Czesławas Miłoszas - prievarta ir stilius

Abstract

In this thoughtful and subtle analysis of the totalitarian system of brainwashing and manipulative exchanges, Csesław Miłosz offers a new interpretation of Ketman, which, in his able hands, is transformed into a trans-ideological and trans-civilizational idiom that operates equally well within religious and secular ideocracies. Miłosz's provocative and thought-stimulating interpretation of Ketman enabled him to reveal different literary devices and interpretive techniques concealing one's true political, moral, aesthetic, and religious views. These devices and techniques appear to have been invented or perfected by Central and East European intellectuals who were desperately trying to survive and act decently in a world of cynical lies and severe censorship. The acceptance of an alien dogma while practicing one's religion secretly or keeping fidelity to one's values, Ketman appears to have originated as trans-civilizational phenomenon, instead of something easly reducible to Islam or the Stalinist phase of Communism. By and large, the history of philosophy is a history of Ketman as far as the pre-modern forms monotheism are concerned [...]