Construction of Otherness in the Discourse Around Mining in the Upper Silesia Region
text and graphics: Ela Zdebel,
student at the Facutly of Urbanism, Technische Universiteit Delft
tutor: Dr.ir. G. Bracken MPhil
reading time: around 15 min
text and graphics: Ela Zdebel,
student at the Facutly of Urbanism, Technische Universiteit Delft
tutor: Dr.ir. G. Bracken MPhil
reading time: around 15 min
"- (...) you must be ... either the one or the other.
- Not at all, not at all, sir! No, for myself I am ... whoever you choose to have me.
- Well, and there, my friends, you have the truth.”
Pirandello, Right You Are (If You Think So) 1
2. Frog. (2020). Otherworlding: Othering Places and Spaces through Mythologization.Signs and Society, 8(3), 454-471.
3. Lotman, Yuri M. 1990. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press., 58
4. Irvine, Judith T., and Susan Gal. 2000. “Language Ideology and Linguistic Differentiation.” In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities, edited by Paul V. Kroskrity, 35–83. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.
5. Frog. (2020). Otherworlding: Othering Places and Spaces through Mythologization.Signs and Society, 8(3), 454-471.
6. Harari, Y. N., Purcell, J., & Watzman, H. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Penguin Random House Company.
Introduction
Already for centuries, people have been capturing their cultural environment in an intuitive way, reconstructing parts of it from memory, but also relying on perception, emotions and cognitive mechanisms. Sometimes a cultural phenomenon was too complex to be assessed, hence it would turn towards imaginative language to tell its essence. An image would then constitute an idealized projection of reality rather than its purely objective state. Such interpretation of matters was discussed by an author of the essay on “Othering Places and Spaces through Mythologization”, 2 who explained it in a way that “perception and interpretation become simplified so that emblems of otherness come into focus while features that are not other provide their context, remain invisible, 3 or maybe erased from consideration. 4 Such approach to selective cognition gives an insight on why some elements of a story, mainly related to uniqueness, speak stronger than common features, eventually creating a manipulated realm. In fact, around 1200 AD, the concept of invented realities was already known in old Indo-European mythologies under a notion of other worlds, and its formation was referred to as otherworlding. 5 In a process of familiarization of a phenomenon, an imagined realm (otherness) could grow and embed in a collective memory, eventually becoming a part of a broader discourse, while projecting its imagined character onto a real-world canvas. Collective agreement on fictional imagination is thus particularly interesting, as it is able to shape narratives and social attitudes. According to Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, 6 societies are able to accept any order, if only a particular group of people agreed on same views around it. Such order could refer to beliefs, even if their rationale was built on idealized assumptions. Harari’s concept of imagined order in this sense is aligning with Pirandello’s view on what the truth is and how much the world we live in is built upon designated meanings.
In the Upper Silesia region, such idealized cultural phenomenon, constructed on basis of religion, traditions, working ethos and cultural landscape, has always been concentrated around mining industry, which currently is undergoing slow transition. The art of mining, remaining in the underground sphere accessible only to a few, has been a focal point of industrial identity of the region already for a few centuries. People used to identify with a toil of underground environment and expressed a particular fascination in the mining ethos being told through stories and legends. Yet, for the majority of inhabitants, the main (and only) sources of knowledge about the mining culture were namely: the oral transfer (stories), written word (literature, newspapers), art and some of the adapted rituals. The only perceived evidence of the mining environment laid in the overground infrastructures and buildings which were shaping the cultural landscape of the region. Hence, the full empirical cognition of the culture was mainly reserved to miners who were allowed to enter the underground sphere. In fact, they were the very creators and transmitters of this inner culture, bringing it ‘to the surface’ each time when returning from a shift. They also gained control over how they wanted to tell their story. This way, many aspects of the mining art became mythologized, and passed between generations under a notion of an established belief. This essay is focusing on still remaining fascination in the underground mining activity figuring as one of such other worlds amongst a very physical and cognitive overground world. The construction of this otherness, despite rather collective engagement in the society, is not meant to represent a major position, but rather sensibly look into formation of the discourse by those, who actively participate in a debate, operating both with an individual and collective understanding of the mining culture.
8. Szczepański Marek S., Tyrybon Małgorzata. (2000). Zagrożona egzystencja : górnicza zbiorowość lokalna wobec restrukturyzacji kopalni. [eng. Existence in danger: the local mining community in the face of the restructuring of the mine.].Studia Regionalne i Lokalne, 51-69.
The Upper Silesia region has always been particular in a sense of pride built upon a multi-threaded identity and geopolitical status. Any debate that tried to address the region, whether it was a historical or socioeconomic one, usually triggered a construction of an argument of either a superposition, exceptional circumstances or generally perceived otherness of Silesia. This otherness, at times very literal and physical, was rooted in historical recordings of political divisions between Poland and Germany. By then, the region's identity had always been arriving at a cost of a war, occupation or uprising. Thus, its ambiguous status, becoming even more complicated due to the pressure coming from the coal discovery, helped to create a narration of an industrial Promised Land, on one hand belonging to many cultures and none of them in the same time. The uncertain political underpinning was partially the answer why the region had always been insecure and resistant to political powers that tried to sculpt it. The need of self-determination and autonomy has been resonating in Silesia until nowadays - in fact, particularly nowadays, as the Green Deal agenda 7 is pressuring the mining industry in Europe, trying to reshuffle the well-established, socially accepted and cultivated order of things. Because of the historical underpinning, but also territorial and political fluctuations of the past, the only entity which could withstand destabilization at a time, was the region itself. To maintain the unity, it developed a strong, inner and hermetic mining culture, resilient to the changing borders, patrons and administrations, anchored in industry which tended to organize everyday life of the people by means of social structures, religion, language, culture and rituals. Yet, because of the deindustrialization process, 8 the loss of the only order which, in this microcosm of uncertainties, used to be taken for granted up until now, brings polarization, resistance and fear of oppression which resonates in slow and forsaken transition.
11. Linek, B. (2016). Narracje górnicze z terenu Zabrza: kopalnia to je do mnie wszystko. (eng. Mining narratives from the Zabrze area: the mine is everything for me). Muzeum Górnictwa Węglowego., 74
12. Linek, B. (2016). Narracje górnicze z terenu Zabrza: kopalnia to je do mnie wszystko. (eng. Mining narratives from the Zabrze area: the mine is everything for me). Muzeum Górnictwa Węglowego., 43
13.Ibid.
14. Linek, B. (2016). Narracje górnicze z terenu Zabrza: kopalnia to je do mnie wszystko. (eng. Mining narratives from the Zabrze area: the mine is everything for me). Muzeum Górnictwa Węglowego., 58
The cognitive world
The fascinating underground sphere was not only a background for culture in making, but an actual canvas for projection. In order to read the mining culture properly, a man needed to associate with space, so to say - be-in-place “co-created by systems of signs, symbols, cultural behaviors and feelings. This is because the symbolic culture of a community is built of messages that allow the reconstruction of its collective identity”. 14 If, then, a physical sphere was necessary to introduce the culture, then how other inhabitants of the region would ever able to familiarize with this corporate phenomenon on their own?
The fascinating underground sphere was not only a background for culture in making, but an actual canvas for projection. In order to read the mining culture properly, a man needed to associate with space, so to say - be-in-place “co-created by systems of signs, symbols, cultural behaviors and feelings. This is because the symbolic culture of a community is built of messages that allow the reconstruction of its collective identity”. 14 If, then, a physical sphere was necessary to introduce the culture, then how other inhabitants of the region would ever able to familiarize with this corporate phenomenon on their own?
16. Ibid.
17. Slaskie.pl. (n.d.). Struktura demograficzna - Serwis Województwa Śląskiego [eng. Demographic structure - Service of the Silesian Voivodeship]. https://www.slaskie.pl/content/struktura-demograficzna. [Online] Accessed: 11 May, 2021.
Developmental psychologist Evgenii Sokolov (1963) was evaluating a question of familiar and unfamiliar stimuli in order to understand classification and perception of both of them. He then claimed that unfamiliar phenomena are more likely to be stored in conscious awareness. 15 “According to Sokolov, each stimulus encountered by the brain is subjected to a rapid matching process; it is quickly compared to those acquired during past experience. If the brain fails to match an incoming stimulus to previously acquired data, an ‘orienting reflex’ ensues, thus focusing the brain on the new stimulus at hand.” 16 To find use of his conclusion in a sociological field, we could link the unfamiliar patterns of the mining corporate code to the rest of society trying to familiarize this strong phenomenon, yet having little experience with the encountered mining environment. If it is true that people generally need to make more effort to acknowledge an unfamiliar image and store it in their memory, then we could partially understand why the focus on unfamiliar stimuli is also sharper. The mining underground sphere, due to the lack of references to other contexts of that kind, could either claim its otherness entirely, or would try to ‘help’ the brain and look for similar experiences (for instance a visit in a cave or a tunnel) – comparisons which could partially cover the knowledge gap recognized by the brain.
19. Cerulo, K.A.. (2001). Culture in Mind: Toward a Sociology of Culture and Cognition (1st ed.). Routledge.,173
At this point, a question of false memory occurs. One thing, indeed, is to acknowledge each of the individual memories as part of a valuable set of imaginations, having accepted the imagined order as a primary concept, in which the layer of emotion-laden identity associated with mining culture is more important than actual facts. On the other hand, such disobliging attitude towards a culture-in-making would easily turn it into a cultural myth, mitigating its very rich, although inaccessible physical sphere. Karen A. Cerulo, 18 an American sociologist operating in the field of culture, communication and cognition, was analyzing false memory within his book “Culture in Mind: Toward a Sociology of Culture and Cognition”. He wrote, that “research on distortion and false memory best illustrates the importance of organizational constructs such as schemata in the retrieval process. As noted earlier (…), schemata are metaconcepts that summarize patterns of experience. They are highly generalized knowledge structures, abstract guidelines and rules that help human beings infer meaning. When encountering new information about which we have prior experience, we tend to acquire and store in memory those data which coincide with the schemata we hold. This process tends to homogenize our experience, allowing contradictory data to be blended out of a scenario and buried in the deep recesses of the brain. Thus, in retrieving memories, previously stored schemata can shape that which we remember. Schematically linked information is the first and easiest to retrieve. In contrast, nonschematically linked information may fail to be located, thus forcing us to ‘fill in the blanks’ with data from an active schema.” Such characteristics of a brain could justify why people tend to memorize phenomena differently and then retrieve memories about them as if they were objectively true. Individuals, gradually storing more and more experience about a certain matter, by the time update their inner frameworks (schemata). Later, when retrieving old memories to facilitate a newly encountered phenomenon, they trigger a process of infilling knowledge gaps. If we assume that this process is natural for a brain and happening beyond one’s intentions, would it then mean that the way people tend to familiarize and memorize things is less associated with their cognitive need to be in control of knowledge, but rather with automatic functions of a brain to constantly update and evaluate frameworks?
21. Ibid.
Despite rather collective understanding of the mining corporate culture, the polarization of discourses leads to a question about consequences of the way in which people tend to memorize things. According to “Memory in mind and culture”, 20 individuals strive towards a stable self, whereas communities reflect an emotionally laden identity. This observation again explains why, on one hand, people urge to construct individual frameworks from familiar (or familiarized) elements in order to position themselves in a well-established context to feel comfortable and assured. On the other hand, they also aim for emotional bonds within a community, with whom they can form a coalition. Boyer and Wertsch 21 further argue that a society is only able to “understand the effects of memories if we focus on cognitive capacities and dispositions other than memory itself - the development of self-representations in the first case [an individual one – author’s note] and coalitional psychology in the other [a group one - author’s note].”
24. Cerulo, K.A.. (2001). Culture in Mind: Toward a Sociology of Culture and Cognition (1st ed.). Routledge.,130
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Haidt, J. (2013). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon Books, New York.,55
28. Haidt, J. (2013). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon Books, New York.,60
29. Haidt, J. (2013). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon Books, New York.,12
Objectively speaking, relativism is one of the characteristics of many questionable discourses. It advocates that there is no single position which could be applied to a matter. This philosophical view aligns with Pirandello’s thought on the relative truth. According to Cerulo, 25 it is within the human nature to 1) retrieve and construct the past, 2) commemorate it, 3) agree and disagree on it, 4) recognize it as a framework shaping and reflecting reality and 5) appreciate past’s changing character. “To understand these matters is to know how images of the past are ignored, distorted, revised, transmitted, and received in specific cultural contexts.” 26 And yet, to understand diverse positions around the mining environment, we need to sensibly look into the gradient of perception amongst different groups of people, and to understand not only their attitude, but also the way they individually construct the mining otherness in order to formulate frameworks.
In relation to the previous thought about morality embedded in the cultural discourse, Jonathan Haidt, an American social psychologist, takes a position on morality in the context of cognitive processes. In his book “The Righteous Mind” 27 he makes a distinction between intuition and reasoning, representing consequently emotions and brain. For the author, morality is in a way a part of moral intuition but kept on a low emotional level. In his conclusion, he states that not all phenomena are being judged based on educated and engaged reasoning. Some are formulated based on emotional reactions. “Intuition is the best word to describe the dozens or hundreds of rapid, effortless moral judgments and decisions that we all make every day. Only a few of these intuitions come to us embedded in full-blown emotions.”28Looking at the cultural discourse around mining, it could likely be assumed that some of its elements are indeed judged based on reasoning, while others based on emotions. To be capable of doing so, brains evaluate instantly and constantly. Each experience which is stored in a person’s memory, carries emotions being embedded in it. Hence, the way people tend to judge a stimulus relies on emotional charge that arrives together with matching experiences of a similar kind. But having looked at the mechanism the other way around, we could tell that people use moral reasoning to convince others to support their views by simply challenging their emotions. This is why Haidt concludes that “Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning.” 29 The discourse around the future of mining and reevaluation of the regional identity is currently indeed very much emotion-laden. For the mining culture as such, it is a particularly sensitive moment, as the mining culture faces a relative reluctance amongst the society. In order to maintain its relevance and value outside the mining environment, this unique culture will have to turn towards other forms of cultural transfer.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
The gap between the mining environment and the remaining otherness is becoming sharper, as the coal transition is proceeding. The very last generation, which used to remember the prosperous years of the mining industry in the region, is now retired. Miners who worked in the coal extraction field in the second half of the XX-century, have witnessed a dramatic social turn. They still remember working in a coal mine as a highly respected profession. Also, in the ‘golden era’ of coal extraction, the mining culture was able to shape social life in many aspects – religious, cultural, or ritual. From the time perspective, not only did the social life change significantly, but also the atmosphere in a mine became less favorable. The younger generation of still active miners entered the mining corporate culture in its withdrawing phase when some of the elements of the unique mining code were already abandoned or would figure in a collective memory as historical corporate heritage. But the undergoing dynamics in the mining field were not the only ones being captured amongst the XX-century society. Some broader social development was also recognized in the essay “Myth as a Means of Ordering and Organizing Social Reality”- a paper reflecting on the role of myths in a facet of changing reality. The authors 30 observed that “when the abrupt shift of social dynamics occurred, leading to progressive increase in the number of (…) social development, irrelevance of linear formal-logical understanding of social world became evident. At first sight, that is what led to a paradox situation of expanding the functional field of mythological consciousness that has always existed beyond any contradictions and expectations of social metamorphoses.” The authors further continue that the XX-century rationality crisis have developed some signs of irrationality in every human being who was able to address an urgent need for stability and meaningfulness for the upcoming future. In fact, despite the scientific progression of the society, “myth did not vanish from social life with the change of sociality type and with the growth in the degree of society modernization. Both in traditional and in industrial society myth is the most important part of representing social being and consciousness that to a large extent influence the formation of perception of the world.” 31
A cultural myth has a clear, imaginary facet, although it is built upon factual elements. In the Upper Silesian culture, some myths related to the underground other world were circulating in society due to their literary and cultural values. They would depict mythological creatures standing on guard at the entrance to a mining tunnel, or accompany miners home from a shift. Such stories had a clear fantastic element, so their validation was not a matter of question. Yet, many of the everyday stories ‘from the other world’ would gain enough power of persuasion, and thus, could easily embed in the cultural framework. At this point, we could ask why mythology is even relevant for the cultural discourse? One reason for such link is mythology’s cognitive value, which cannot be ignored when analyzing any culture. Secondly, cultural myth, due to its selective and inventive character, has necessary tools to shape a cultural discourse in a favorable way, considering societal and cultural benefits. And thus, if in the past a cultural myth in the Upper Silesia was meant to build identity amongst the society and bring livability to the regenerating post-war region, then now its role would be to commemorate the transient mining culture which will likely struggle to remain in the collective memory in a transforming and deindustrializing society.
In a way, the mining myth could fall within the functional myth theory whose role is to provide a certain social control and stability. In relation to the vulnerable status of the mining culture, choosing mythology as a way of telling history would be an interesting take from a cognitive point of view. To conclude this section, Baklanov et al. 33 point out that “myth is considered not only as an object, but also as a method of investigating itself.”
34. Harari, Y. N., Purcell, J., & Watzman, H. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Penguin Random House Company.,34
The mining culture in the Upper Silesia region is one of the most unique non-material heritages in Poland related to a regional identity. The otherness of the region would never have a ground for cultivation without its essential relation to the mining industry. In fact, it's been preserved until this day because of the hesitated transition. Yet, this shrinking culture will have to face the biggest challenge since it was established on the industrial ground around the XIX century. The inevitable coal transformation, forecasted to be completed by 2050, 33 will likely lead to the ceasing of all the mines remaining in operation, meaning also that the profession of a miner will somehow come to an end. Yet, in the actual cultural discourse, there is not much space left for divagation around the future of the mining culture outside its environment. Moreover, the ongoing debate, full of tension and uncertainties, is blinding the clear differentiation between the mining activity and the mining non-material heritage.
This paper tried to look into formation of a cultural discourse from a sociological and cognitive point of view, avoiding detailed descriptions but rather indicating why people perceive same matters differently, and hence give them varied meanings. As it was demonstrated in a few sociological reference books, individuals tend to formulate opinions based on the attitude they developed towards a phenomenon (in this case the mining culture). The essay tried to understand the way in which a human mind is acknowledging particular phenomena and further processes them, having attached a meaning and emotional charge to it. In a general way, the essay refers to cognitive science to understand why individuals think differently and what mechanisms do they involve in order to memorize encountered stimuli. On one hand, an aspect of opinion making was taken into account, but the more interesting thread was referring to memory construction and the way people tend to facilitate encountered concepts. The latter thread is opening multiple doors to explore the regional culture on an individual level. From the sociological point of view, it is a fascinating complexity of a brain being able to produce abstract thoughts and link ideas in order to come up with a collage of memories and experiences. If we could also agree, that the concept of the Harari’s imagined order is the one that legitimizes undergoing phenomena, we could then see a ground for facilitating the culture outside its physical matter with means of societal agreement and will. Individual and collective reinvention of this unique mining environment, also called the otherness, along with cultural mythology, could constitute an interesting cognitive ground for a culture, that should maybe acknowledge its unique dynamics rather than factual recording.
To conclude the essay with Yuval Noah Harari’s words: „Over the years, people have woven an incredibly complex network of stories. (…) The kinds of things that people create through this network of stories are known in academic circles as ‘fictions’, ‘social constructs’, or ‘imagined realities. An imagined reality is not a lie. (…) Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world.” 34