Introduction
Liberalism did not die on the barricades; it "came apart at the seams." Its foundations—individualism, universalism, and faith in progress—have proven to be half-truths that now paralyze the West. According to John Gray, liberalism has ceased to be a civilizational project, becoming merely a therapy against the fear of the dark. This article analyzes the twilight of liberal illusions and the birth of digital feudalism, while proposing a model of a "modest Leviathan" for Poland—a state that protects its citizens instead of trying to save them.
New Leviathans and the Dogmas of Secular Religion
On the ruins of the old order, "new Leviathans" have emerged. Russia is a kleptotheocracy that has found tools of control in terror and the sacralization of violence. China, meanwhile, is building a digital despotism, realizing the Panopticon project through its social credit system. These are "artificial states of nature" where power produces fear to manage society more effectively.
The West, meanwhile, is sliding into the soft despotism of woke ideology. Gray exposes it as a secular parody of Christianity. It possesses its own original sin (prejudice), priests (DEI activists), and an inquisition hunting for heretics on social media. Victim status has become a career currency for "surplus elites," allowing them to ignore real problems: class inequality and the collapse of public services. This is a regression into a war over language, where the fear of making a mistake paralyzes public debate.
New Feudalism and the Fear of Death
The contemporary socio-economic landscape is a new feudalism. Data has become the new land, and citizens feed corporate algorithms like serfs. At the root of this submissiveness lies an anthropological fear of death (Thanatos). People flee from nothingness into the embrace of "ghost-words" and radical ideas, which governments exploit to build surveillance systems. Technology is becoming a new instrumentarium of power, requiring the state to exert firm control over data localization, algorithmic transparency, and the right to audit digital systems.
The Modest Leviathan: A Polish Model of the State
Poland is caught between three vectors of threat: Russian cynicism, Chinese surveillance, and Western neurosis. The solution is the demetaphysicalization of the state and the construction of a "modest Leviathan." The state cannot be a church; its task is to maintain a truce between feuding tribes, not to impose a single vision of the meaning of life.
An effective state apparatus must be based on short chains of responsibility and modern administration. The author advocates for real-time transparency of decisions, efficient administrative courts, and a culture of permissible heresy within institutions. Only the toleration of views contrary to the official narrative protects universities and the media from stagnation. State efficiency should be measured by boring but hard indicators: response time to stimuli, unit cost of services, and a pluralism index.
Summary
True order is the recognition that humans carry a drive for destruction within them, and history guarantees no happy endings. We must learn the difficult art of tolerating heresy before every moral dispute ends in the prosecutor's office. Poland needs a Leviathan without a halo—an efficient guardian that, instead of promising salvation, provides citizens with the space to live their own way. Can we reject grand phrases in favor of diligent institutional craftsmanship before unlimited freedom ultimately transforms into unlimited despotism?
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