We Shall Never Be Ready

Piotr Fereński

Abstract

 An attempt at answering a question about the accessibility of events from a past in which researchers did not participate. The author ponders whether such events are in any possible way given by experience, and whether one can become prepared for such an experience. He writes about remembrance sites and the role played by objects-testimonies acting as sui generis depositories and transmitters of the suffering of others. In this context he also considers the philosophical ideas formulated by Edith Stein, who was of the opinion that Einfühlung permits a direct and eye-witness experience of the ordeal of another subject. This is possible due to access to the world of values, including historical and cultural conditions within whose range people feel, think, and act. Although the author does not trust phenomenology to the very end he argues that researchers dealing with the past are often totally unprepared for ruins, traces, and remnants of catastrophes. A confrontation with spaces and objects marked with tragedy produces astonishment, disbelief, shock, and incapacitation. The presented text poses questions about universal values, including dignity and liberty.