Polish Culture — Dry or Wet?

Abstract

The author argues against Harry Levine's “somewhat up-setting” classification of societies into temperance and non-temperance oriented cultures. This classification, he argues, does not apply to Poland as it is neither “dry” nor “wet”, which he illustrates by describing the development of sobriety movements in Polish territory in the 19th and 20th centuries. An important concept was the virtue of sobriety in Catholicism, which is not too distant from the Protestant doctrine. The temperance movement was significantly influential in contributing to the brisk decline of alcohol consumption during the second half of the 1800s. During the mid-war period consumption in Poland was among the lowest in Europe.

Today there are two conflicting systems of convictions as regards alcohol: the older one relates to common sense (in which some situations are wet and some are dry) and the newer one (moral option) finds support from a scientific approach. In the deep layers of consciousness the old system is still resident, while on the surface, the new ethical and rational system is evident in current debate. This situation leads to a conflict of values on the family level.