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316 Tomasz Kalniuk tive dissonance, being awesome and embarrassing at the same time. This confirms the theory of the ambivalent character of the Other (Benedyktowicz 2000: 134). Affluence and progress, symbolising the ‘far-away Other’, ie. the super-West, question the status quo of our own world, not leading, however, to its disassembly. American progress fascinates, although its constructors are relegated to being merely intriguing geeks (Fig. 130). Thus, Western imaginativeness with its comical aspect makes possible a comparison in which a less affluent country (Poland, in this case) is at a higher level of humanity—its inhabitants are not so strange or comical. Normales, according to Erving Goffman, are those who are positively distinct from ‘strangers’ in their own eyes (Goffman 2007: 36). It is typical that strangers are presented in opposition to ‘normal’ people, and the presentation of America in the Pomeranian press is the exemplification of this rule (Benedyktowicz 2000: 124). The photographs assure us that we are dealing with a country that is close and distant at the same time. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, Americans had lived in a world of wonders. “The United States have risen up high as the world superpower” (Postman 2004: 62). The bravery and ingenuity of New World entrepreneurs superseded initiatives of European capitalists. At the turn of the twentieth century, the atmosphere in the US contradicted the existence of any possible limits. Any hindrances to technological progress were negated and rejected immediately. Modern inventions were making American society comfortable and affluent. Technology, about which Francis Bacon had dreamt, was changing reality into a dream: For each conviction, belief, custom or tradition of the Old World, there was, and still exists, an alternative technological facility. Prayer was replaced by penicillin; family roots replaced by social mobility; reading replaced by television; absolution replaced by psychotherapy (Postman 2004: 71). ‘The civilised West was trying to convince people that even nature was on its side. Post-war economic growth in Poland, as well as intense growth in other areas of life did not seem as interesting as Canadian quintuplets, pictures of whom were widely published in the press (Fig. 131). They seemed to be praised to the same extent as the efficiency of Afro-American ovaries in Huxley’s Brave New World (Huxley 1988: 12). These images of cute babies appeal not only to ‘soft’ emotions, but also make us admire the arête of the American type. The New World, with charming quintuples, appears to be an extraordinary place where better results can be achieved. The West cannot be measured with standard instruments. The measuring line is moved either below or above the average, which is shown by the photographs of giants and dwarfs (Figs 132, 133). Other factors that encouraged exploration of the super-West were natural climate and social conditions in America. While the Baltic Sea was freezing, and people were spending most of the winter at home, sunny California was tempting
