OVER A YEAR ago changes were introduced into Polish radio consisting mainly of new limits on literary programming, radio plays, serious discussion programs, and features. Channel 1, which has the greatest reach and is listened to by our compatriots abroad, has become almost exclusively the domain of sound—not of the best quality.
It doesn’t come easily to me to talk about television, because I think the medium is not and (unlike radio) will probably never be very appealing to those working in the “creative arts.” In my view theater, poetry, music, painting, and even film shown on a small screen bear the same relation to their originals as does a shoddy reproduction, a reproduction falsifying the original.
I think the greatest achievement of Polish television was the great monologue of General Berling2. It was not only the moving confession of a wise and experienced man, but something with the weight of a historical document. It’s a pity, however, that such rarities are drowned in a flood of mediocrity.
The proper sphere of television is catching reality on the fly, and that’s why I like sports coverage most (I suspect that many television owners pay their fees for four years just to watch the next Olympics), but also authentic “live” reportage. I also predict a great future for programs like High Stakes or On the Record, on the condition that the objects of their ruthless analysis and revelations of fraudulence and mendacity are not only writers, department store managers, and the directors of electric companies.
A separate problem, which the questionnaire does not address, is the matter of the strange language used on television. For a number of years now many people appearing on television not once but regularly, abuse our mother tongue with impunity. If a well-known journalist with a big personality makes excruciating mistakes we should consider whether it might be best to replace him with someone less accomplished, lower down on the ladder, who nevertheless respects the rules of grammar. This is a question of enormous social consequence. Millions of people watch and listen to television. Only a few hundred people voluntarily take up the Handbook of Style. I am not talking about any exaggerated purism. It would be absurd to demand a commentator on a soccer game to speak the language of Father Skarga3 (he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the game), but he should make a special effort not to do worse than a kid who’s been through elementary school—or let’s say secondary school.
Mass culture in Poland is a major question—everyone probably agrees on that—but we don’t know what to do about it. It should therefore be a subject of discussion—exhaustive, concrete discussion, in which we leave aside the interesting and clever analyses of American theorists (for we live in societies that don’t bear much comparison). We should talk about what can and should be done here and now, about concrete proposals, means, people. And also try to answer a fundamental question: how can we give mass culture—which homogenizes, fragments, and diminishes culture and mixes the hopelessly small with the great—a little order, humanism, and a few consciously chosen values?
There is a dangerous tendency to “play off” mass culture against culture in the strict sense, demonstrating the social insignificance of a book of poetry, a serious play, or a difficult piece of music compared to the overwhelming demand for a hummable tune, cheap entertainment, kitsch—which it is said the masses adore. This antagonism exists and has always existed (Seneca “lost” in a contest with gladiatorial spectacles), but I for the life of me can’t understand why we would want to deepen the antagonism.
I am too good a student of Stefan Kisielewski4 to succumb to delusions of a paradise of aesthetes, and I reject the vision of a society listening (under duress) to Dante, Beethoven, and Norwid from dawn to dusk. However, I also know that striving for higher values, in the aesthetic sphere as well, is not the aristocratic privilege of a chosen few but can be shared by many, on the condition that they make the effort to acquire independence, to refine their tastes and minds, and reject what is easy.
The cardinal error of those creating mass culture in Poland is the desire to program and plan, instead of trying to understand the authentic desires, needs, aspirations people have. Those who put together and perform the programs on Polish radio and television could use some humility and an awareness that the people watching them and listening to them are adult, critical, and severe in their judgment.
I realize that to some my remarks may seem onesided and tendentious. I haven’t mentioned the role of television as the Great Soporific for people worn out by hard work. Or the Great Soporific of boisterous children.