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Symbolic Migration to the Super-West in the Polish Pomeranian Press of the 19305
European readers with the shapely silhouettes of sunbathers. Most photographs
show people smiling and fit. Life there seems to be better, brighter, easier
(Figs 134, 135), even in prison, which is exemplified by an image of a prisoner,
dressed neatly, with a radio in his cell (Fig. 137). In comparison, a polish prisoner
seems to look like a dull, savage, human being of a second category (Fig. 138).
America triumphs because it can make even evil look better. A civilised man has no
need to bear what is really unpleasant (Huxley 1988: 245).
The superiority of Americans was also manifesting itself in architecture. The
dominance of church towers in the urban milieu was now supplanted by that
of skyscrapers. Not only was the height of modern buildings astonishing, their
creators’ imagination were too, for example some were installing swimming pools
on their roofs (Fig. 136). Heaven seemed closer to people in the West, and God was
blessing them all the time. Thus, there was no need of looking for Him in temples,
as technological progress was the place of his residence. Photographs show people
getting married on running tracks or in roadside shrines.
The New World was in constant, multidirectional motion in all areas of life.
The American dream was a total negation of all the limits that the rest of the world
had to put up with. A birdman, thanks to technology, managed to tame the law of
gravity, unlike ordinary people. In traditional understanding, man was elevated by
his erect posture and ability to walk. The alliance of homo sapiens with technology
had given him new abilities.
The concept of America as a paradise materialised, as well as a myth, inclines to¬
wards excessive self-justification. Mythical excess, in the case of twentieth-century
America, is the omnipotence of man and technology, which leads to the prelimi¬
nary stage of robotisation (Bostrom 2007). This phenomenon, accompanied by
the development of film and television, results in images of numerous superheroes,
admired by Europeans. The way they dress, their behaviour and abilities are the
intersection of the human world, the animal world and new technologies. Hybrid
superheroes are rescuers from social or cosmic catastrophes.
The Other for Personal Use
The self-image is only a reflection of these contrasts,
on the basis of which some ethnic groups
define the distinctiveness of other groups
(Obrebski 1936: 187)
In socio-cultural life, nationalism, affirmation and self-manifestation, resonate with
the adaptation of the espied external patterns. This phenomenon is well illustrated
by the example of folk culture in Polish territory from the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Peasant conservatism, focusing the group on a positive
valuation of own image (which took the form of megalomania (Bystron 1995; Ro¬
317