Leszek Kolakowski Quotes on Time
Leszek Kolakowski, the Polish philosopher and historian of Marxism, thought deeply about history and the human relation to the past, and the quotes gathered here express it. For Kolakowski the value of studying history is not practical but self-constituting: we learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are. He reversed the common assumption that the past belongs to us, insisting instead that we are its property, since we cannot alter the past while it fills the whole of our existence. This conviction shaped his great history of Marxism, which refused to dismiss communism as mere stupidity, treating it rather as a real, very real part of the history of the twentieth century that must be understood. Drawn from his essays and Main Currents of Marxism, these passages present the past as something that defines us more than we possess it.
Quotes
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Attributed to Leszek Kolakowski:
“Marxism is the greatest fantasy of the twentieth century.”
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Attributed to Leszek Kolakowski:
“Modernity is the culture of permanent self-criticism.”
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“We learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are.”
The Idolatry of Politics", U.S. Jefferson Lecture speech (1986) -
“Communism was not the crazy fantasy of a few fanatics, nor the result of human stupidity and baseness; it was a real, very real part of the history of the twentieth century , and we cannot understand this history of ours without understanding communism. We cannot get rid of this specter by saying it was just “human stupidity,” or “human corruptibility.” The specter is stronger than the spells we cast on it. It might come back to life.”
Introduction to My Correct Views on Everything -
“The history of utopias is no less fascinating than the history of metallurgy or of chemical engineering.”
Main Currents Of Marxism(1978) | New Preface, p. vi -
“It seems to us that the past is our property. Well, on the contrary — we are its property, because we are not able to make changes in it, while it fills the whole of our existence.”
Original: "Otóż przeciwnie – to my jesteśmy jej własnością, ponieważ nie jesteśmy w stanie dokonać w niej zmian, ona natomiast wypełnia całość naszego istnienia." Klucz niebieski albo opowieści biblijne zebrane ku pouczeniu i przestrodze -
“The cultural atmosphere of Russia in those years had an adolescent quality, common to all periods of revolution: the belief that life is just beginning, that the future is unlimited, and that mankind is no longer bound by the shackles of history. (pg. 47)”
Three Volume edition