“A space for free debate and integral development” – the start of the academic year at Collegium Intermarium

Ordo Iuris

· Collegium Intermarium has started its academic year.

· The inauguration ceremony took the form of an international conference attended by scholars, politicians and commentators from the US, France, Hungary, Croatia and Poland, among other countries.

· The guests included French politician Marion Maréchal, New York Post columnist Sohrab Ahmari, Prof. Adrian Vermuele from Harvard University, and former Speaker of the Sejm Dr Józef Zych.

· The conference is titled “Collegium Intermarium: a space for truth in the era of cancel culture”.

“We want our university, instead of being just another school following the same old patterns and focusing on mass education, to create a space for genuine, open debate, a space for an integral development of students based on classical values,” stressed rector’s representative for international partnerships, Karolina Pawłowska, in her opening speech.

“The rejection of the concept of truth does not only involve its wide-ranging relativisation. At a certain point, it also involves hatred of truth. Currently, the classical understanding of truth is being presented as unconscionable. Many people nowadays would consider it hate speech to claim that objective truth exists,” notes Dr Tymoteusz Zych, rector of Collegium Intermarium, in relation to the subject of the conference.

Deputy Prime Minister Prof. Piotr Gliński, in a letter addressing the attendees, expresses a similar sentiment.

“Modern-day censors no longer make use of official decrees or brute force. Their weapon is the media, disinformation and cancel culture. A deeper analysis of this phenomenon is important and very much needed,” notes the minister of culture.

“It is evident that Western culture, European culture, is being erased. This is why the fundamental role of the academia is to fight for our identity. If we do not act, we will contribute to this mass amnesia,” said Marion Maréchal, founder of the French Institute of Social, Economic and Political Science.

Sohrab Ahmari also commented on the topic.

“In the era of cancel culture, truth is the most pressing issue. We know that truth is under attack – not only the profound moral and metaphysical truths of our classical and Christian heritage, which Collegium Intermarium strives to preserve and cultivate, but even the most fundamental historical and biological facts. For example, today you can be cancelled for stating that man and woman are two immutable biological categories – cancelled even posthumously,” stated the writer and commentator.