Against the Nudity in Art: Eliasian Reading of National Conservative Catholic Habitus

3.1 “I Would Invite All the Protesters to the Exhibition:” The Artistic Context

The mere announcement of the Toruń Abramović exhibition provoked a reaction from representatives of the artistic community. On 29 January 2019, artists, curators, academics, and educators wrote an open letter to Marina Abramović. The letter was signed by one hundred fifty-seven people, one gallery, and one artistic collective. The signatories accuse the Head of CCA, Wacław Kuczma, of organising Abramović’s exhibition as an argument in a dispute with the artistic community about the excessively low participation of female artists in CCA exhibitions. Moreover, the signatories mention the restriction of women’s rights inspired by right-wing politicians and influential priests.^[44]

Having learned about the protest against the Abramović exhibition planned by the national conservative Catholic milieu, some signatories of the Open Letter took to the floor again: “We strongly oppose constraining on religious basis artistic and exhibition events. The Rosary Crusade for Fatherland is a menace to the freedom of speech in this country. We condemn such initiatives of imposing extreme conservative, Catholic, and chauvinistic censorship on modern art.”^[45]

During the protest against exhibition, Arek Pasożyt, a performer, visual artist, and one of the inspirers of both letters, showed a painting entitled Populism. He made it part of his series of Striking Paintings.^[46] In 2010, the artist assumed the surname Pasożyt, which is Polish for “parasite.” For the last 10 years, Pasożyt creates what he calls parasitic paintings. He collects old, discarded images and processes them, giving them a new artistic quality and content. In Populism, he used a print of the painting Battle of Grunwald by Jan Matejko from 1872 to 1878. Matejko’s painting contains references to the biblical idea of the victory of humility over pride.^[47] According to Pasożyt, his work based on an old print of Battle of Grunwald is a response to the current cultural battle, the façade cultural policy of CCA and the city of Toruń, which finances commercial and celebrity art, as well as attempts at controlling culture by extremist religious groups. The presentation of Pasożyt’s approach and his work Populism is visible in Marek Krupecki’s photo published on Pasożyt’s websites:^[48] in the background of the photo, one can see the protesters against Abramović’s art and the image of Abramović.^[49]

In the context of the protest of conservative Catholics, I note that the members of the artistic milieux presented their own views on the matter, referring to the protesters in a negative way. In reaction to the protest, Kuczma commented: “Such a reaction comes from ignorance … I would invite all the protesters to the exhibition, and I would gladly offer them a personal guided tour.”^[50] This argument failed to appease the protesters. As I mentioned, they neither abandoned the protest nor visited the exhibition. Moreover, they asked those entering the CCA to not attend the event. This protesters’ approach shows that they were not focused on finding a compromise with Ambramović, signatories of the Open Letter to Abramović, Kuczma, or the exhibition’s audience, but rather on exhibiting their own knowledge, assumptions, convictions and assessing the significance of cultural and religious heritage in Poland.^[51]

3.2 “I Am the Most Peace-Loving Human Being on Earth:” The Doctrinal Context

The protesters alleged that Abramović’s art is satanic and offensive towards traditional Catholic culture in Poland. The protesters did not explain in detail what they meant calling the artist a Satanist and a person who worships Satan.^[52] For this reason, it is impossible for us to theologically evaluate this argument, pointing only to the general fact that the Church in its magisterial teaching condemns satanism as a worship given to Satan,^[53] and shows the equality of man and woman by abandoning the misogynistic interpretation of women as weaker than men in defence against the devil.^[54] Nevertheless, during the press conference that was a part of the exhibition opening, Abramović provided a lengthy explanation of what she perceives as the possible source for the accusation of satanism. As she said, in 1996, she commenced her project called Spirit Cooking, which includes poetic recipes of totally fictitious dishes: “take 13 leaves of green cabbage and mix it with 13.000 grams of envy,” “stand at a wall and eat nine hot chili peppers,” or “cut your left-hand middle-finger skin and consume all the pain.”^[55] Such short phrases appeared in a series of exhibitions until Abramović published her artistic cookbook. She then started to compose entire lunch menus and invite her close friends to them. One of these guests was Tony Podesta, an American art collector, brother of Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff, and a close collaborator of Hilary Clinton, John Podesta. Two years prior to the last US presidential elections, Wikileaks published some e-mails, one of which contained an invitation to one of the artistic lunches served by Abramović. As a result, some right-wing media and conspiration theory proponents started to propagate news about certain American administration officials supposedly participating in an occult conclave.^[56] Moreover, Abramović said in Toruń that everybody can see online how she is cutting a five-pointed star on her stomach during one of her performances. She assumed that a narrow-minded American could view her as a satanist, mentioning that because of that performance, she was later receiving messages with threats. She added that some wanted to cast the devil out of her. However, as she indicated, “the truth is, I am the most peace-loving human being on Earth.”^[57] I recognise this declaration as emphasising Abramović’s peaceful intentions. At the same time, I note the provocative overtones of this declaration in the face of the fact of creating controversial, emotionally stirring art. Moreover, Abramović’s statement potentially could have further strengthened the approach of the protesters, who may have interpreted that she recognised herself as a more “peace-loving human being” than Jesus Christ himself. This kind of remark is merely speculation, as the protesters did not hear Abramović’s statement while outside the CCA.

The spokesman of the Diocesan Curia in Toruń, Fr. Paweł Borowski also commented in this regard. One day before the exhibition opening, he gave an interview in which he mentioned that the Curia knows about the event and the controversial form of Abramović’s art. He suggested that it is difficult to comment on the opening without watching the exhibition and stated that there was no confirmation the vernissage was intended to be a satanic gathering. Moreover, he remarked that the exhibition is only available to adult viewers^[58] and that the Curia neither organises the planned protest nor prohibits anyone from attending the prayer in front of the CCA. Furthermore, he invited the faithful to participate in prayers for the pedophilia sins committed by some clergymen in the Toruń Diocesian Cathedra on the same day as the protest against Abramović’s exhibition.^[59]

One could get the impression that Borowski distanced the Curia from the protests. As a clergyman, spokesman, and diocesan chaplain for social media workers, he had to consider the universal Church’s teachings about art. Allow me to note that imagines sacri were the subjects of five councils in the Church – namely the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Second Council in Trullo in 692, the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, the Fourth Council of Constantinople in 869–870, as well as the Council of Trent in 1545–1563. The Second Vatican Council in 1962–1965 conferred the role of art in the way of sanctification.^[60] I believe that the two recent councils have a special importance in shaping the reception of art in modern Poland. The Council of Trent teaches that the purpose of an artwork is to be a Biblia pauperum – a Bible for the poor – meaning a communicative and simple source of knowledge about the saints and an impulse to increase devotion, develop faith, and promote moral life.^[61] The Tridentine decree encourages the removal of these paintings from sacred spaces that may invoke perverse, disturbing, impious, shameful, or morally disorganised (sinful) behaviour.^[62] Maintaining the above magisterial points is noticeable in historical documents about post-Tridentine apostolic visitations,^[63] as well as theological debates.^[64] The Krakow Synod on Religious Paintings (1621) decreed that the images of naked or immodestly dressed saints must be removed from sacred spaces.^[65] Certainly, the hard position taken by the Toruń protesters in 2019 could be viewed as compatible with the above early modern religious ideas on paintings.

However, my point is that what escaped the protesters’ attention were the post-Vatican II theological currents. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), articles 122–129, for the first time in the Apostolic See’s teaching ex cathedra defines sacred art as an allegorical and symbolical depiction of the higher things.^[66] The conciliar fathers took a critical position against art contradicting Christian faith, morals, and piety. However, they perceived art no longer as a mere illustrative tool for simple folk but instead as a vehicle to communicate the truth about the most sublime realities. The same goes for artistic nudity. If it serves the ultimate goal of artistic expression, it is also instrumental in fulfilling the function attributed to art as such. Thus, the Church recognised no art style as its own but rather noticed the contemporary forms of expression.^[67] The Second Vatican Council ideas appeared towards the wars of the twentieth century, as well as social uncertainties, hope, and spiritual longing at that time which in turn was reflected in iconography – either aesthetically beautiful or painful and scary.^[68] When commenting on the conciliar positions, Janusz Pasierb, a Polish theologian and art historian, remarks that artworks can be neither obvious nor pretty. Modern art has no obligation to be polite because it foresaw and experienced much human suffering in the twentieth century. As a result, art should rather inspire, provoke, and lead people to spiritual cleansing or catharsis, which they so desperately need, also in religious matters. Modern art may be crude and devoid of sentiments, albeit when viewed symbolically, it gives a chance to consider many important theological things.^[69] Hans Urs von Balthasar,^[70] Theodor Bogler,^[71] Yves Congar,^[72] and Karl Rahner^[73] noted analogical points in which even controversial art may be a way to sanctification. Moreover, Pasierb teaches that the artistic moral message is not precluded from using human nudity, and he dismissed the opposite view as naive moralism.^[74]

In my view, Vatican II and post-Vatican II ideas were not included in the content manifested by the Toruń protesters. Moreover, I conclude that the protesters’ attitude is post-Tridentine yet at odds with the Second Vatican Council; their approach as members of the Church community heavily relies on religious, historical–cultural sources to legitimate their actions, rather than the fully doctrinal sources.^[75]

3.3 “Wake Up Poland and Return to God:” The Religious Practices Context

The demonstrators expected that their action contributed to the end of the cultural war which, in their opinion, is taking place in Poland with foreign influences of leftist culture. Moreover, they were appalled by the fact that the exhibition happened in the CCA, which is an institution financially supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture. The protesters prepared banners with images of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, Our Lady of the Rosary, and Christ the King. The three symbols are important for Polish culture and history. As a result, the criticisms of the exhibition are based on the shared knowledge of religious symbols, prayers, and important religious figures.^[76]

The Black Madonna of Częstochowa image and Holy Rosary prayer have become permanent fixtures of Polish Catholicism. They were especially relevant symbols of saving national and religious identities during such events as repelling the Swedish attack on Poland in 1655, the period of Poland’s partitioning in 1772–1918, the First and Second World Wars, and the communist period in Poland in 1944–1989. The devotion to the Black Madonna was the focal point of a pastoral plan devised and implemented by Primate of Poland Cardinal Stefan Wyszyńki during events such as traditional Marian devotion, the rededication of the nation to the “Queen of Poland” in 1956, the Great Novena in 1957–1966, and the 1966 Millennium celebrations of Polish Christianity. Jasna Góra – with the icon of the Black Madonna as the Mother and Queen – is the sanctuary of the Polish nation.^[77] Moreover, Marta Bucholc argues that the Holy Rosary prayer “is the single most powerful symbol in which Polishness and Catholicism became combined in recent Polish history.”^[78] The important status of the Holy Mary in Polish past and current religiosity comes from her position as a source of relevant emotional load capable of recognising in local surroundings,^[79] probably the single strongest symbol in the Catholic Church, and one recognised literally, militarily, and metaphorically as a weapon in the culture war.^[80] Referring to this context, in May 2019, Elżbieta Podleśna was inspired by the iconic Black Lady and created a feminist and queer protest art piece called Rainbow Mary. Mary and Jesus were given a halo in the colours of the rainbow. Podleśna reworked the mainstream symbol to better serve LGBTQ + people, transforming the meaning of Polishness and being Polish.^[81] Podleśna’s work has provoked opposition from right-wing Catholics in Poland. Thus, we can see that the image of Mary and the Holy Rosary prayer is seen as key complementary correlates of the experience of religiosity and a religious-cultural subject of a “drag-effect” in the competing clashes between Poles with Catholic-traditional and liberalising approaches.^[82]

The next religious symbol used by protesters was the image of Christ the King. The figure has biblical sources,^[83] albeit it has become popular with the enthronement of Jesus Christ as the King and Lord, conveying the reign of Jesus over “Poland and our entire nation, living in the homeland and the world,”^[84] on 19 November 2016, in Krakow on the one thousand and fiftieth anniversary of the Baptism of Poland dated 966. According to Bishop Andrzej Czaja, enthronement also referred to the appeal of Pope Pius XI, who in his 1925 encyclical “Quas primas” encouraged the recognition of Jesus as King in individual and social life against secularisation.^[85] The theological and social discussion preceding the Polish act of enthronement lasted twenty years. According to Czaja, there was also a complex debate in the Polish Episcopal Conference which generally presents traditional conservative social and theological views.^[86] Finally, the enthronement was conducted by Polish bishops in the presence of the President of Poland Andrzej Duda, other prominent politicians, and six thousand people. The Jubilee Act of Acceptance of Jesus Christ as King and Lord was read in churches across Poland.^[87]

Another symbol of the protesters’ religious approach was their costumes.^[88] Some of the participants were members of a Church community of laity called the Knights of Christ the King. They dressed in red capes with the image of Christ the King and the emblem of Poland. Others prepared posters with images of crucified Christ, Christ the King, Holy Mary, and Black Madonna of Częstochowa, as well as sentences reading in Polish and English: “Wake up Poland and return to God.” The members of the Rosary Crusade for Fatherland presented white-red Polish flags with an inscription of their organisation’s name and graphics showing Poland’s borders and with the image of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa.

The meeting began with a speech of one of the protesters’ leaders. The speech was a planned part of the demonstration. Next, all prayed the Holy Rosary led by a priest. Afterwards, they dispersed. Their action did not make the CCA close the exhibition.^[89] Nevertheless, the presenting of religious symbols and religious-cultural issues from the past indicate their influence in shaping demonstrators’ views of the present. Additionally, historically rich symbols represent cultural codes that can unite Catholics,^[90] and the institutional Church in Poland, which stresses its historical role in building and maintaining national identity and making social opinion.^[91]

4.1 Can Demonstrators in General Have a Habitus?

According to Elias, the term “national habitus” refers to patterns transferring from one generation to another in any given nation. These are patterns of behaviour, feelings, and actions.^[92] In other words, the national habitus conveys patterns of experiences and activities influenced by culture, history, and social relationships in the nation-state. As Miklós Hadas states, “[habitus] governs human praxis at the non-conscious level; being perceptible, these ‘structured, structural structures’ are liable to social classification and differentiation.”^[93] In the wake of Elias and Pierre Bourdieu, Hadas believes that the habitus intends “to grasp structurally conditioned, non-conscious, non-intentional, taken-for-granted, durable dispositional patterns (urges, drives, tastes, feelings, inclinations, emotions, value preferences, etc.) that are manifest in continuous improvisations and can be transferred to diverse areas of practice.”^[94] I identity the same features of habitus in the religious context of the Toruń protesters’ attitudes.

Moreover, according to Andreas Pickel, what can reveal one’s habitus and what happiness or good life means are simple automatic behaviours.^[95] I think that this point expresses the protesters’ goals. They expect a good life with a Catholic, calm, and traditional lifestyle for themselves and other people based on their traditional values and uncontroversial art – taken by them as obvious and the only correct one – so they expected the exhibition to be closed.

Scholarship so far has proposed no idea for grasping habitus in the context of a selected faith or religion. There are characteristics of the national habitus of German,^[96] American,^[97] or Austrian and English nations.^[98] However, there is some research into the protester habitus made by Pickel.^[99] From my point of view, inspired by Elias’ writings, Pickel’s remarks are particularly useful to describe the protests in Toruń. He notices that protesters generally follow an overwhelming trend. As people follow the organisers’ call to meet at the planned venue, “most participants will be familiar with the habitus of such an event while others will be familiarised with the habitus by participating in this particular event.”^[100] Moreover, according to Pickel, protesters take symbolic objects that help to manifest their views.^[101] In Toruń, the objects were posters, rosaries, crosses, and capes with images of Christ and Mary. As Pickel argues,

[protesters] generally respect that the event should be peaceful. They feel concerned enough about what they perceive to be at issue to participate, and they expect to feel good by participating. They may interact with other demonstrators, though anonymity will remain the general condition. The crowd may briefly assemble at some point during the march to listen to speakers, but at the end it will quickly dissolve.^[102]

Applying Pickel’s notion to the Toruń events, I realise that the protesters’ habitus inspired the demonstration and expressed their expectations. These expectations were part of a larger knowledge system that informed demonstration with its content and forms.^[103] I point out that the protesters’ habitus characterises such patterns of behaviour as public prayer, informing about someone’s fault and guilt, expectation of repentance, apology, and change of behaviour of the person who is the addressee of the demonstration. Even if this change does not occur, the fact of participating in the demonstration can provide partial satisfaction. I assume that a probably deeper satisfaction of the protesters comes from their praying in the position of humility, supplication, and special involvement of one’s own body in kneeling and prostrating. At the same time, I believe that humility and supplication paradoxically manifest the Catholics’ pride in defending their values. Such a form both defends protesters against non-traditional, non-Catholic influences and calls for a change in the behaviour of the initiators of the influences. I recognise that the corresponding habitus in the case of the analysed protesters can be recognised as a national conservative Catholic one. A confirmation of this recognition is available in the protested issues.

4.2 In View of What Did the Protesters Display Their Habitus?

According to the protesters, they presented their viewpoint as a form of participation in a cultural war happening in Poland. As Marta Bucholc describes, a cultural war is a metaphor for the rivalry between different orientations in the creation of a national habitus. Especially since 2015, the right-wing party in Poland supported the intense reworking of national memory and history. This work resides in the use of emotionally charged historiography, as well as historical and religious symbols that are created or restored and further emotionally charged by their use as arguments in current debates. According to Bucholc, such historiography and symbols provide material for politically mobilising collective identity.^[104] Thus, in my opinion, the histioriographic capital and symbols used by the protesters bear a relevant weight. On the one hand, the protesters employ traditional symbols from Polish history: the Black Madonna of Częstochowa and Our Lady of the Rosary. On the other hand, they unite the resources common to universal Catholicism with those of Polish national memory resources (like Jesus Christ as the King of Poland), thus binding Catholicism and Polishness.^[105]

Furthermore, I believe that the protesters’ habitus cooperates with their attitude towards art based on Tridentine documents. Although the Vatican II and post-Vatican II ideas might be viewed as articulated by the magisterium of the Church, in my view, the protesters did not include it in their attitude to art. There are no sources that would suggest the protesters became acquainted with all the Church teachings on art and then consciously decided which documents to accept or not. It seems much more probable that they received their attitude towards art and religious symbols from those who shaped their views based on pre-Vatican II Catholic tradition, meaning parents, grandparents, teachers, and some priests. Thus, they forget historical content about the art or sift through them by considering some and not others, and retrospectively invent new ones that they believe took place in the past or give their own interpretations.^[106] As Lahire^[107] and Hadas^[108] claim, the external forces to which individuals are subjected since their birth determine their behaviour and attitudes. The state, the Church, family, school, society, and culture all have institutionalised strategies for effectively inculcating habitus.^[109] The more intense and the longer the socialisation process in the Church – as well as in family, school, workplace, or another environment – the more durable the instilled dispositional patterns.^[110] Thus, it is possible to reconstruct the protesters’ habitus from the patterns of their protectors with a traditional Catholic worldview. In this approach, I include a specific type of protesters’ behaviours, feelings, and actions transferred from one generation to another.^[111]

According to my observations, the protesters’ national conservative Catholic habitus shaped their ideas and behavioural patterns towards Abramović’s exhibition. If the protesters used historical and religious symbols, they would recognise Abramović’s art as a symbol of values opposite to those espoused by the protesters.^[112] I assume that the protesters did not know Abramović’s biography or art well because they did not see some common ground between her works and the traditional patriotic worldview. The common ground refers to the communist past of both the Polish and Yugoslav societies, which were ruled by leaders dependent on Soviet Russia. Moreover, in materials of the CCA exhibition, Abramović explains that the difficult history of her country affected her family and education, so it appears as a recurring theme in her artistic and personal journey.^[113] Thus, the protesters did not interpret the five-pointed star on Abramović’s body as related to communist Yugoslavia. They only wanted to read into the star’s satanic connotations combined with nudity as something that – according to them – should remain hidden. The protesters’ ideas affected their view of art as an element of culture. They believed art ought to display images rooted in tradition compatible with post-Tridentine Catholic theology, meaning they should not scandalise, shock, or arouse negative emotions. To ironically quote the title of one of Abramović’s works, the protesters suggested that Art Must Be Beautiful (2010), and its beauty was to be obvious, safe, and sanctioned by tradition. The protesters rejected art that is ugly, repulsive, controversial, nuanced, provoking, full of nudity, sexuality, or corporeality, including limbs, bones, muscles, blood, and bodily organs. Using Bourdieu's observations, I mention that when faced with legitimate artworks such as Abramović’s, people most lacking the specific competence apply to them the perceptual schemes of their own mentality and worldview, the very ones that structure their everyday perception of everyday existence. “These schemes, giving rise to products of an unwilled, unselfconscious systematicity, are opposed to the more or less fully stated principles of an aesthetic.”^[114] It explains why the protest was criticised by the members of artistic society and why the protesters did not recognise the artistic content of Abramović works as significant in a positive way. Bourdieu brilliantly captures what I notice in the protesters’ approach to art in the context of their habitus. Following him, the protesters’ taste (i.e. manifested preference) was manifested by identifying differences between their ideas and supporters of Abramović’s art. The demonstrators’ taste was asserted purely negatively by the exclusion of other tastes, namely negation, distastes, disgust, and intolerance. The protesters' taste seemed to be natural and the only right, and therefore, their aesthetic intolerance is so strong. In other words, aversion to different life-styles (including interpretations of art) led the protesters to create a crucial barrier between them and art supporters.^[115] Bourdieu theoretical observations explain the protesters' approach: “The most intolerable thing for those who regard themselves as the possessors of legitimate culture is the sacrilegious reuniting of tastes which taste dictates shall be separated. This means that the games of artists and aesthetes and their struggles for the monopoly of artistic legitimacy are less innocent than they seem.”^[116]

Then, Bourdieu continues his theoretical observations, which I read as an explanation for the attitude of the protesters in Toruń:

At stake in every struggle over art there is also the imposition of an art of living, that is, the transmutation of an arbitrary way of living into the legitimate way of life which casts every other way of living into arbitrariness. The artist’s life-style is always a challenge thrown at the bourgeois life-style, which it seeks to condemn as unreal and even absurd, by a sort of practical demonstration of the emptiness of the values and powers it pursues. … Like the visibly ethical judgements of those who lack the means to make art the basis of their art of living, to see the world and other people through literary reminiscences and pictorial references, the ‘pure’ and purely aesthetic judgements of the artist and the aesthete spring from the dispositions of an ethos; but because of the legitimacy which they command so long as their relationship to the dispositions and interests of a group defined by strong cultural capital and weak economic capital remains unrecognized, they provide a sort of absolute reference point in the necessarily endless play of mutually self-relativizing tastes.^[117]

Moreover, as Bourdieu shows “habitus as a system of dispositions to be and to do is a potentiality, a desire to be which, in a certain way, seeks to create the conditions of its fulfilment, and therefore to create the conditions most favourable to what it is.”^[118] Describing the chosen protest as one revealing the national conservative Catholic habitus, the above notion explains why protesters tried to dissuade visitors from partaking in the exhibition and expected its closing. Their aim was to create favourable conditions for saving traditional culture in Poland. Because they recognised Abramović’s art as opposing the Catholic tradition, they considered it obvious to dissuade others from viewing her exhibition.

Therefore, we should consider why were the protesters so selective in their approach to the teachings of the universal Catholic Church about art, and the aesthetic value of Abramović’s artworks.

4.3 Why So Selective?

The analysed case shows that habitus in general came from top-down but also bottom-up influences, thus communal and individual. The habitus is a social phenomenon as it can be indicated in specific social systems, power, economics, institutions, cultures, and languages. However, on the individual level, the habitus of the protesters was connected with their neural networks and brain processes, feelings, thoughts, actions, and the range of psychological dispositions.^[119] The notion of habitus is applicable across all the bio-psychological and sociosemiotic systems that shape personality.^[120] Therefore, the set of norms and worldview interpretations of the protesters imposed on the individual by such entities as the Church and the nation matters, but it does not determine what one exactly accepts or rejects. On the contrary, each individual is responsible for its own attitude.

The habitus processes happen in both directions: ascending and descending.^[121] One specific systemic habitus can impact individual members of the protest like the descending impulse called the magisterium in the Catholic Church. The magisterium promotes certain patterns of desires, emotions, thinking, actions, and interactions, which reach individual human beings through social experiences (inter alia being part of the Church) and undergo mental processes. As I see in the case of the protesters in Toruń, as intra-ecclesial groups and inculcating institutions, right-wing Catholic communities in Poland apply strategies aimed at incorporating not only cognitive knowledge according to their own worldview but also dispositional drives. Dispositions are reactions or products of sociohistorical circumstances.

On the other hand, one’s neural activities lead to decisions that influence the personal profile, and then the social systems are part of the ascending impulse. In other words, the way the protesters desire, feel, think, act, and interact shapes the social systems in which they participate. The systems impact their “internal plurality of individuals” as simultaneous members of several environments, such as the universal Church, the parish, the intra-ecclesial community like the Rosary Crusade for Fatherland, family, or workplace.^[122] Social norms and customs do not have a determining power. Thanks to free will and individual choices, the demonstrators could select the things they accept or not in the social systems to which they belong. Moreover, Church members typically simultaneously identify with other groups, which leads to individual choices between (competing) ideas. Environmental factors influence how this selection of social norms occurs. For example, populations that occupy specific ecological niches or experience adverse conditions such as wars, poverty, or plagues tend to be more rigorist. On the other hand, people who live in conditions that satisfy their diverse needs are more likely to lean towards tolerance and innovation.^[123] Notably, during twenty-five years after 1989, the Polish society increasingly experienced satisfaction in life economy- and culture-wise.^[124] The narration about reality has changed since 2015 when the discourse about cultural war with traditional values became more pronounced. The narration has convinced a relevant part of the Polish society that they live in a cultural (Catholic) niche in the European context, and so the narration has reinforced rigorism. Using Lahire's theoretical reflection about habitus,^[125] we may conclude that the narration about Polish society as a cultural and religious niche makes the right-wing Catholics’ attitude grow ever stronger, because the approach is actualised with a significant frequency by the state and Church’s authors of discourse about the defence of Polish culture against foreign non-traditional influence. The actualisation establishes the Catholics’ habitus firmly in their reactions, feelings, and emotions that appear in their bodies.^[126]

Andreas Pickel^[127] and Miklós Hadas argue that most people belong to several social systems simultaneously:

As a result of not being socialised homogeneously, individuals are generally carriers of contradictory dispositions: Depending on the context, the same individual can be simultaneously schoolboy, son, father, boyfriend, lover, goalkeeper, altar boy, client, director, activist, etc. Each actor can thus incorporate a multiplicity of schemes of action or habits, which are activated according to the situation. It may easily happen that an individual is embedded in networks and institutions that are in radical opposition to each other, and if an actor is socialised in a plurality of non-homogeneous social contexts, s/he will have heterogeneous or contradictory dispositions that are not necessarily harmonious with those of the family.^[128]

As a result, social norms overlap and mix. Some social systems overlap hierarchically while others horizontally. The power, authority, and appeal of any social system come from its political, economic, and cultural influence. The more powerful the system becomes, the more impact it exerts (functionally and/or symbolically) on its members compared to other overlapping systems. In the case of more numerous social systems, the dominant habitus is usually confronted with competing ones.^[129] Furthermore, various areas of social existence are interconnected in religious life, art, and sexual relations.^[130] Moreover, taking into account that the socialisation process is more or less heterogeneous – and sometimes even contradictory – individuals pass through different contexts (in the case of the protesters: artistic, doctrinal, and religious practices). Thus, the protesters’ dispositional plurality opposes the “singleness” and homogeneity of their habitus.^[131]

Applying the above point to the case of Toruń protesters, we may observe that the national and Catholic habitus overlaps hierarchically with other systems to which the protesters belong such as workplaces or families. The fact is that the protesters are multi-socialised and multi-determined.^[132] After all, their own original national conservative Catholic habitus led them to protest in public. The habitus’s origins can be traced to some full or major habitus present in the Catholic Church in Poland, and next the patriotic vein of Polish Catholicism represented by the Militia of Christ the King or the National Rosary Crusade. The protesters’ habitus and the perception of a good life were partly shaped by external structures such as right-wing patriotic groups while partly by their individual choices. The formation proved so powerful both symbolically and functionally that it led the protesters to confront their ideological adversaries.^[133] Thus, I evaluate the overwhelming habitus of the Catholic Church in Poland and the patriotically oriented associations in Poland as “meta-habituses” that dominate the overlapping habitus on the individual level.^[134]

The above complies with the views of Elias and Scotson about habitus as not a pure self-projection but a relational quality.^[135] The relation relies on the identification of the group with an individual member of the group, as well as the group with external subjects. This conception includes the figure of conceptualising individuals as biopsychosocial systems that partake in habitus. This image of individuals as biopsychosocial systems circumvents the dualism of “individual” and “society” without resorting to either sociological or biopsychological reductions, so it agrees with Elias’ idea of creating narratives without dichotomous interpretations of reality.^[136]

The case of the Toruń protesters and their selective approach to the teachings of the universal Catholic Church about art, or the aesthetic value Abramović’s artworks draws attention to habitus inculcation. Hadas enumerates three types of habitus inculcation – coercion, reinforcement, and enticement – arguing that the Catholic hierarchy practiced the strategy of coercion.^[137] I believe that this point cannot be applied to the protesters because they did not manifest the universal Church approach to art. Thus, their full habitus was only partly shaped by the universal Church. Instead, according to my observation, the protesters revealed the third type of inculcation: enticement. The authors of the online announcement about the planned protest – and the protesters – offered the promise of use value for the products they created.^[138] The product was the saving of traditional values of the Polish-Catholic culture, while in the supernatural order – the salvation of souls.