The following book is a collection of essays which have not previously been included in my major works. These are short texts into which I have put my observations concerning the problems of everyday life from the last ten years, namely from the period from 1994 to 2004. During this time, I managed to collect enough material for a small book. The work consists of two parts. The first presents my thoughts on the Academy and academic education. The second? It is a reflection upon values in social situations. The majority of articles in the first part are the speeches I delivered during subsequent inaugural ceremonies of the academic year at the AHE. The second part of the book also includes texts written on other occasions that are related to the Academy and consists of reflections upon my social and political environment. These articles give voice to the dilemma I experience whenever I go to the polls. The conservative nature of the Polish political stage serves as another point I find curious. It does not result from the fact that Poles themselves are conservative. The 1980s in Poland were years of enormous social and political change. A large part of the European map was transformed at that time, and this happened in a new way. Yet, we lack a sufficient exploration of the events of that period of change and the times that followed.

While it isn?t true that there are no books on the period of Solidarity and the times thereafter, I still believe that an accurate description of the phenomena of these years, as well as contemporary times, demands a new form of conceptualisation, a new way of understanding social changes. What the two parts of the book have in common is the application of the same kind of reflection, the same method of thinking. Historical events do not serve as the subject of description; rather, I focus on the dominating values and the change in their hierarchy which concurred with the social transformations. One may approach reality searching for material changes, but what I find more interesting is thinking according to values. The title of the work intentionally refers to the book by Józef Tischner. The common point my work shares with Tischner?s philosophy is the kind of reality described. Hence, this account focuses on the values dominating in the given historical period and various evaluations made in reference to the issues described. My aim was to change not so much the reality as the way we assess it. This change in assessment involves transforming one?s behaviour, and this is the goal I wish to reach by delivering my book into the hands of the Reader.