Bilewicz: historical traumas may intensify polarization in Poland

The trauma of war has shaped a type of political culture in which - having learned from tragic history - we are unable to trust others. Additionally, the tendency to think conspiratorially makes us see others as a threat, which increases social polarization - Dr. Michał Bilewicz, professor at the University of Warsaw, told PAP.

Intergenerational trauma dating back to World War II causes about 19 percent of Poles - almost one in five of us - to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, as shown by recent research by the University of Warsaw. This is much more than the global average (about 5-10 percent). This type of "national trauma" affects not only individuals, but also social behavior and political life.

"This applies to Poland, but also to Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic countries and western Russia, i.e. areas that in a very short period of time experienced a huge scale of trauma resulting from genocide, mass crimes and a very bloody occupation. All this fundamentally changed the psyche of Poles," Dr. Michał Bilewicz from the Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw told PAP.

Changes in mentality and the human psyche were already included in the analyses of psychologists and educators who studied Polish youth immediately after the end of the war. "Young Poles after the war were very anxious, they had a strong sense of injustice or wrong that they were experiencing. They were very sensitive to the fact that other people could hurt them, have bad intentions towards them," the PAP interviewee described.

All these experiences, passed on to subsequent generations - as he said - shaped a certain type of political culture, resulting from old strategies of "adapting to trauma", that is, adapting to life in extreme occupation conditions. These old adaptation mechanisms have survived to this day and "constitute a ball and chain" to Polish society.

The first phenomenon that is associated with the traumatization of society is therefore distrust, lack of trust in institutions, in the state, in the police, in the courts, in other people. This trust among Poles is at a very low level. In many comparative studies, Poland comes out very badly in this respect against the background of Europe.

"This then translates into political polarization also in the sense that supporters of parties that lose elections are full of distrust towards those who won the elections. Generally, when we think about politicians, we are convinced that they are not acting in our interest, that they are not guided by good intentions, that their goal is not the raison d'état, but particular interests," stated Michał Bilewicz.

If the government is not trusted by the public, it also feels that it has no obligation to be guided by the public interest. Politicians who are deprived of trust begin to behave in such a way that they do not rebuild that trust.

"This is a deadlock resulting from the fact that we have a society that experienced a traumatic situation in which trust was very risky. After all, during the war you couldn't trust anyone. People adapted to this. The post-war years, the period of Stalinism, did not rebuild this trust either, because we had a state imposed from outside. Only now is this trust emerging, but political polarization makes it difficult for us to create relationships based on trust," the researcher described.

On the basis of the felt sense of injustice, something grows that is called in psychology a "conspiracy mentality". When we think about politics, social issues, we then have the impression that everything is a set-up, everywhere we can see the evil intentions of groups or forces that work to our disadvantage.

Prof. Michał Bilewicz explains that such a "conspiracy mentality" occurs among people with strong political beliefs, but it is not unique to right-wing views. However, it fuels political polarization, because if distrust of our political opponents is high, then taking away their power becomes the highest priority, even a raison d'état.

"We are starting to transfer this way of thinking from politicians to the whole of society. We are starting to treat people with whom we disagree politically as enemies, or rather traitors. The rhetoric of national treason is very common in Poland. Law and Justice often presents the Civic Platform as a party of German interests, which is controlled from the outside. In turn, when the democratic coalition was in opposition, it was commonly said that behind the rule of Law and Justice there was Russia, the interests of the Kremlin. The fact that we so quickly enter the framework of conspiratorial thinking, with suspicions of others of treason - this is also the result of our traumatic history," explained Prof. Bilewicz.

Studies conducted by, among others, Prof. Bilewicz have also shown that people who experience transgenerational trauma symptoms the most are much more likely to accept conspiratorial explanations of the political present. In turn, studies conducted during the Smolensk disaster, also by his team, have shown that those people whose attention was particularly drawn to history and who had read a lot about Polish martyrdom were much quicker to accept that there had been a conspiracy and betrayal in Smolensk; that the Smolensk disaster was an attack on the Polish president and political elites.

Conspiracy theories are on the rise and are determining political behavior, especially during the election period. "We can see this now, too, when we have an almost fifty-fifty result in the presidential election. You can see how quickly various theories are emerging that the elections were rigged. Based on the fact that mistakes were made in several electoral commissions, which of course happens and requires thorough verification, suggestions immediately appeared that these mistakes were organized. I am surprised when I see that educated people who think rationally about politics suddenly fall into a conspiratorial mindset and mentality in the face of an election defeat," the PAP interviewee said.

As he explained, in order to slowly change this attitude, it will be helpful to change the way history is taught, to tell about it. It is important not to focus on martyrdom and tragedies, but at the same time to show the achievements of science and culture. Show history in all its diversity. Point out that even in these tragic situations Poles also coped with adversities.

"This kind of story about history will increase the sense of agency, the sense of control over reality. We know that the lack of this factor pushes people most into conspiratorial thinking and polarization. Sometimes we say that conspiracy theories are the domain of losers. And indeed, in our study of over twenty countries, which was published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, we showed that voters of losing parties are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories - regardless of whether they are left-wing or right-wing parties. Losing an election often causes a sense of helplessness. And conspiracy theories spread when people feel helpless. Our history contributes to this - it only gives people a lesson that people are constantly under threat, that others are against us," he emphasized.

Ewelina Krajczyńska-Wujec (PAP)

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