Subsydiarność, paternalizm, edukacja .......... 73

SUBSIDIARITY, PATERNALISM, EDUCATION

The article presents a narrow and a broad understandings of the principle of subsidiarity. In the narrow sense, this principle would be a version of the effectiveness principle in regard to the functioning of diverse hierarchical structures. The broader concept refers to personalistic roots of the philosophy of man and of social philosophy and therefore places the principle in a significantly wider perspective. The broader idea of the subsidiarity principle is opposed by what Kant called paternalism. When paternalism is adopted as a stance of the government, it turns into „the greatest despotism imaginable”, as Kant puts it. The final part of the article is devoted to contemporary examples of „paternalistic” and „despotic” tendencies in political life, mass-culture, and education.