Paweł Wroński. Pictured on his social media business card thoughtful, self-reflective, and perhaps slightly confused. He looks non-aggressive. He writes political analyses for Wyborcza. In defence of the world that grew out of the Freedom Union - a party that valued form at least as much as it did the content.

Today he commented on the news that Prof. Elżbieta Chojna-Duch has „found asylum in the NBP”, in other words that she has actually been hired according to her high qualifications. He made the following comment:

“She’s been sucking up, and sucking up, and eventually she’s managed to suck up her way through.”

I beg your pardon for quoting these words literally. Usually I try to avoid it. Replace vulgarities with dots, not to duplicate them, but this time it must be brought up. I mean the essentially pornographic poetics of the „Gazeta Wyborcza” journalist. Because it is a sign of the times. Because it is a painful proof that under the pressure of the opposition’s totalitarianism and in the times of the so-called Women’s Strike everything is falling apart, even the fundamental standards. Those absolutely basic ones, which assume that we do not address women in a certain way. Never. Full stop.

Are they becoming rude so rapidly because they are deeply frustrated? Or is it that when they are not in control of the world; their true, rather than created or studied, reactions are coming out? Is this how they relate to their loved ones? The people on the street?

Does Paweł Wroński, a Jagiellonian University graduate from an era when diplomas were not yet given out for free, think with this kind of language? If he condemns or disagrees with something, couldn’t he express it in a different way?

Yes, I agree, people from the political right sometimes use this kind of language too, although much less frequently and much less drastically. But this does not excuse Wroński. It does not excuse any of us.

We have all been speaking about the need to calm down Polish disputes. It is not easy, and perhaps it is today not even possible. But perhaps we should start with the most simple of matters, namely language? From the simplest matters, such as the principle that a man should not treat a woman like a boor? Like a regular boor.