Double identity in Czesław Miłosz's The Captive Mind

In: Relacje międzykulturowe: kulturoznawcze czasopismo naukowe, Band 7, Heft 2(12), S. 86-96

Abstract

In The Captive Mind, Czesław Miłosz describes two mechanisms of intellectual enslavement, namely Murti-Bing pills and Ketman. Although these mechanisms are similar, in reality they function somewhat differently. I believe that the former, Murti-Bing pills, leads to more significant enslavement than the latter, namely Ketman. This is because the former blurs the distinction between fiction and reality, while the latter can coexist with the awareness of the deceitful nature of communist propaganda and even with a cynical attitude. Both mechanisms generate a double identity, albeit each in a different way. It seems, moreover, that while Miłosz describes universal phenomena occurring in different societies and at different times, these are particularly intense precisely in the communist totalitarian state.