The captive mind

The best known prose work by the winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right. Examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right. The Captive Mind begins with a discussion of the novel Insatiability by Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz and its plot device of Murti-Bing pills, which are used as a metaphor for dialectical materialism, but also for the deadening of the intellect caused by consumerism in Western society. The second chapter considers the way in which the West was seen at the time by residents of Central and Eastern Europe, while the third outlines the practice of Ketman, the act of paying lip service to authority while concealing personal opposition, describing seven forms applied in the people's democracies of mid-20th century Europe. The four chapters at the heart of the book then follow, each a portrayal of a gifted Polish man who capitulated, in some fashion, to the demands of the Communist state. They are identified only as Alpha, the Moralist; Beta, The Disappointed Lover; Gamma, the Slave of History; and Delta, the Troubadour. However, each of the four portraits were easily identifiable: Alpha is Jerzy Andrzejewski, Beta is Tadeusz Borowski, Gamma is Jerzy Putrament and Delta is Konstanty Ildefons Gaczyski. The book moves toward its climax with an elaboration of "enslavement through consciousness" in the penultimate chapter and closes with a pained and personal assessment of the fate of the Baltic nations in particular. A work of nonfiction by Polish writer, poet, academic and Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz. It was written after the author's defection from Stalinist Poland in 1951. The book catalogs the experiences of Milosz and his colleagues, in pre-war Poland, under the Nazi Occupation, and in the Soviet-dominated People's Republic of Poland. Milosz ponders on the mental gymnastics required for intellectuals to turn against their countrymen and the truth, by turns sympathetical and critical. Preface The Pill of Murti-Bing Looking to the West Ketman Alpha, the Moralist Beta, the Disappointed Lover Gamma, the Slave of History Delta, the Troubadour Man, this Enemy The Lesson of the Baltics About the Author