This article critically addresses the contemporary study of what is called 'defensive emotions' such as fear and nostalgia among a number of social theorists. While it may be true that the collective emotions of fear and nostalgia (here framed by the phrase of 'retrotopia') may indeed be on the rise in Western liberal democracies, it is also important to be wary of taking the literature on the matter as a sign that fear and nostalgia actually permeate all levels of culture and everyday life. The article starts out with some reflections on the sociology of emotions and shows how the early interest in emotions (theoretical and empirical) among a small group of sociologists is today supplemented with the rise of a critical social theory using collective emotions as a lens for conducting a critical analysis of the times. Then the article in turn deals with the contemporary interest within varuious quarters of the social sciences with describing, analysing and diagnosing the rise of what is here called 'defensive emotions' – emotions that express and symbolize a society under attack and emotions that are mostly interpreted as negative signs of the times. This is followed by some reflections on the collective emotions of fear and nostalgia/retrotopia respectively. The article is concluded with a discussion of how we may understand and assess this relatively new interest in defensive emotions.

This article discusses changes in emotionality throughout the consumer revolution in urban contexts in Poland. There are two types of emotionality: emotionality imbedded in discourse of progress; and modern hedonism. Drawing upon ethnographic data, emotions towards domesticated technologies were analyzed. Discourse of progress dominates among informants from older historical generations, modern hedonism dominates among the generation of transformation. The changes in emotionality: increase in emotionality, which means more often expression of emotions and larger number and diversity in expressed emotions; expressing the emotion of desire; engaging in practices with the goal of raising emotions through these practices.

This paper looks at mourning and melancholia, and their ethical implications through the work of Sigmund Freud and mostly Jacques Derrida. The attempt here is to read through Derrida’s auto thanatological oeuvre through questions of fidelity, interminability, impossibility and ethics. In our perpetual struggle as scholars dealing with questions of meaning, existence, loss, life and death this paper tries to navigate the discursive traditions of looking at mourning and melancholia and what their radical potential is or can be where the mourning; melancholic; haunted; living subjects bear an impossible task unto the dead.

Modernity have any impact on military identity. It was proved that traditions of historical military formations serve as a factor that facilitates building identity of modern Special Forces soldiers. Referring to historical traditions gives them a sense of “nobility” and strengthen their “military backbone”. Tradition, however, should not be perceived with regard to history only. It’s possible to build identity effectively basing on values such as elitism or a community of extreme experiences. Invented tradition, which precipitates and facilitates building identity of the group, can also play a key role. The Individual In-depth Interview technique was used to examine seven soldiers of different generations. They served in the army during World War II, afterwards (over the communist period) and contemporarily. The last ones are experts with extensive combat and command experience. Concurrently, Polish Special Forces were characterized through the prism of identity building and their history, inherited traditions, origin of the name and symbols were described.

The main objective of this article is to familiarize the reader with the history and differences between dancehall music and culture in Jamaica and Poland. An additional task is to determine the identity of Polish dancehall artists. The article compares the available research distinguishing the main lyrical themes of the Jamaican dancehall with the analysis of Polish lyrics of this genre. The analysis shows that there are significant differences between practicing dancehall in Poland and in Jamaica. A particular difference can be seen in the lyrics of the songs. The identity of the Polish dancehall creator seems to be unclear and difficult to define.

This paper crisscrosses and binds two remarkable biographies of renowned sociologist and social philosopher Zygmunt Bauman: that by Izabela Wagner and Artur Domosławski, juxtaposing their messages against the background of Polish postwar political and cultural history.

Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum is a unique book for at least two reasons. Firstly, thanks to the artistry of synthesis, the narrative structure used by the author perfectly exhibits the ideological core of the contemporary discourse of (neo)liberal opposition. At the same time, thanks to her eristic talent, the very persuasive load of the text is worth recognition and in-depth insight. This publication aims to reconstruct the narrative base of the Twilight of Democracy and to reveal its persuasive apparatus. Then this case study is used to identify the more widely functioning ideological patterns associated with political actions, which are based on resentment, bitterness and the longing of (neo)liberals who were left out of power.

The reviewed book is available at: https://www.civitas.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/modelowanie-percepcjitransformacji-politycznej-podejscie-systemowe.pdf. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.13235369