Polityczność, tożsamość i humanistyczna produkcja znaczeń
The Political, Identity, and the Humanistic Production of Meaning

Summary/Abstract: In this essay, I aim at identifying the dangers inherent in the language of the humanities engaged in the construction of political identities. The notions of “society” and “the nation” are in focus here. My approach is based on Hegel’s dialectic of identity, on its postcolonial critique, and on Ernesto Laclau’s conception of the rhetorical construction of society, where semantic emptiness is the condition of particular notions being applicable in collective identity construction. The engagement of the language of the humanities in such constructions means that proponents of such categories in public discourse should assume ethical responsibility for their use in the formation of social totalities, and for exclusions and violence implied in such a use of proposed signifiers. In this context, the possibility of moral evaluation of potential exclusions inherent in the concepts of “society” and “the nation” is tested on the examples taken from the current political discourse in Poland.

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