WRITERS IN EXILE
503
LESZEK KOLAKOWSKI: Well, I would say, and you would
probably agree with me, that the idea of a clash between two
systems of superstitions, both of which are bound to disappear, is
itself a superstition and an extremely naive world view
to
which I
could never give any serious credence. I am not sure that I could
say why the real function of this ideology is largely ignored. I
am not even sure that it is-I mean, at least there are some people
(perhaps not many) who realize what this ideology is for and what
its social function is. But it is really somewhat difficult for
people educated in what is essentially an ideologically com–
petitive society, an open society where ideological conflicts are
freely expressed, to realize the conditions in a totalitarian one.
This ideology in its ossified, solid form is, apart from other
things, so primitive and so intellectually poor that we normally
don ' t like to pay much attention to its content-it's so unattrac–
tive to people educated in the Western tradition. As several
people yesterday pointed out, there are difficulties for people
educated in the Soviet Union in trying to convey that experience
to their colleagues or friends in this country. This might
be
less so
for Polish emigreS, because Poland has never been as isolated
from Europe and the West as the Soviet Union is, but I under–
stand this difficulty of communication, and I cannot offer any
cure for it, except for a long and patient attempt at mutual
understanding. ,
ERAZIM KOHAK: May I add a footnote to this-which won ' t
be a cure, but perhaps part of the diagnosis. Look around yourself
at your countrymen, at the extent to which they see the sole
purpose of existence as gaining greater affluence. What we all
want is bigger television sets!
Encounters With the West
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: We have amongst us a very distinguished
novelist who is also in exile and who doesn't want his name
mentioned. He said he found it strange that, since many of the
dissidents are Jewish, the words
Jews
or
Jewish
were not men-
