Postscriptum Polonistyczne (Jul 2020)
Syreni głos morza. Homera pięć lekcji uczciwości
Abstract
We read The Odyssey as a lesson in “goodwill”. This is an indispensable con-cept, because it allows us to overcome the limitations resulting from the assumptions made by Carl Schmitt when he made the distinction between friends and enemies the original experience of the world. The “Greekness” of the attitude of goodwill, whose deficit has painfully affected us in Europe, consists in a religiousness transformed by the lesson of enlightenment, which in a secular world means the conviction that wisdom and the ability to survive, often granted to Homer’s protagonists by gods who are in conflict, may now be given to us through those who come to us from a world which is not ours. Since it is an alien that allows us to find out what we are like, it is worth cultivating the tradition of “hospitality”, which Derrida gives a new dimension seen from the point of view of contemporary migratory movements.