Freedom in Truth
Tadeusz STYCZEŃ, SDS
Abstract
The drama of Socrates, who rejected the opportunity to escape from prison, thus choosing imprisonment and death in order to witness to the truth he held, was a shock to his student Plato. In the present article, Tadeusz Styczeń puts forward the idea that Plato’s Academy was in fact «born» in Socrates’s prison cell. The drama Socrates experienced is shared by numerous prisoners of conscience, up to the present day. The current article was written in the Poland of the 1980’s, when many Poles (the proverbial Kowalskis) were put in prison due to their opposition to the oppressive government. The Kowalski of that time would be offered freedom if he agreed to sign a declaration of loyalty to the regime. Yet he would realize that he must not accept the freedom he was thus being offered, as the price for it was abandonment of the truth he had himself recognized and for the sake of which he was imprisoned. Moreover, he would realize that if he left prison for that price, he would actually lose his freedom. The only way to save it was to remain faithful to the truth he cherished. He would realize that no other freedom deserved its name. To Styczeń, the Kowalski of the Poland of the 1980’s is a Polish Socrates (no wonder Styczeń puts him in one line with prisoners of conscience such as Thomas More or Card. Stefan Wyszyński), who owing to his steadfastness succeeded in saving the «humanity» in himself, and who, by his rejection to leave prison for the price of his abandonment of truth was striving to save the humanity in those who had imprisoned him. Thus he was a «proof by demonstration,» confirming the existence of the significant, inseparable bond between freedom and truth. Just as centuries ago Socrates’s firm stance inspired Plato’s Academy, today’s Kowalski may well become an inspiration for the modern academia, whose task is service to truth and thus service to human freedom and human subjectivity.
Summarized by Cezary Ritter
Translated by Dorota Chabrajska
