Changes in Morality in the Polish Society between the Myth and Reality. Within the Range of Janusz Mariański’s Sociology

Abstract

Janusz Mariański formulates four scenarios for changes in morality in the Polish society – secularization, individualization, reconstruction and revitalization of morality. The results of sociological research show that at present the most intensively realized scenario is secularization, understood as autonomization of religiousness and morality. It may be assumed that in the future processes of transformation of morality will be intensified also as far as the other scenarios are concerned. It is pointed to by Ronald Inglehart’s scarcity and socialization hypotheses. The present generation of young people grows up in completely different conditions of material security than representatives of older birth cohorts whose young years fell on the period of the Polish People’s Republic. A blunted sense of physical or material security is connected with a stronger moral rigorism, as indisputability of moral rules makes the world more predictable, and hence safer, despite the threats for physical and material lives. Growing up in conditions of physical and material safety produces the opposite effect – relativization of values is easier. According to Ingelehart’s conception a more intensive stage of transformations of morality caused by generation exchange awaits the Polish society. A comparison of the results of Mariański’s research on the moral condition of young people with the results of research on the whole society does not entitle one to draw the conclusion that the changes will have a violent character. It is true that young people to a greater degree than adults are in favor of relativization of morality. However, in the area of autonomization of morality, in the issues connected with morals and social trust as the bond of moral order the differences between young people and adults do not have the character of the generation gap.