The misery of the human condition and religion

The present essay is devoted to various aspects of the misery of the human condition and their references to religion, as conceived of by Leszek Kołakowski and Józef Tischner. After a preliminary presentation of the two thinkers, the author discusses example aspects of the misery in question, showing at what points Kołakowski’s thinking differed from that of Tischner. However, the author finds that the key issue is the evolution that took place in the views on this subject in each one of them. This evolution shows that Kołakowski’s and Tischner’s hopes for overcoming that which each one of them, in his own manner, understood as the misery of the human condition in the Polish localness were not fulfilled. Thus, Poles did not manage to attain universalism, as perceived by both the thinkers in the context of the Western European culture. This finding, however, involves a question about what in the contemporary culture, and particularly ­religion is ­local, and what is universal.