SOCIETY REGISTER 2021 / 5(1): 159-172 ISSN 2544–5502 DOI: 10.14746/sr.2021.5.1.09 BETWEEN TRADITIONS AND TECHNOLOGY: POLITICAL RADICALISM AND THE SPECTACLE OF MASCULINITY IN CONTEMPORARY POLAND WOJCIECH ŚMIEJA1 1 University of Silesia in Katowice, Department of Humanities, pl. Sejmu Śląskiego 1, 40-032 Katowice, Poland. ORCID: 0000-0003-3080-0837, Email:
[email protected] ABSTRACT: Radical movements of the Polish far-right consist, as elsewhere, mainly of young men. The strict gender binarism, the exaltation of men’s power, homosociality, brotherhood, physical strength and subordination of women are omnipresent among ‘angry white men’ everywhere, Poland included. However, these general characteris- tics have always its local variants, trajectories, and particularities. This article is an attempt to explain the phenomenon of Polish radical right movements in its local context: cultural, social, economic. The article focuses on ‘The March of Independ- ence’ – a cyclical celebration for radical groups, which proliferates the discourses of far-right radical masculinity. In the first part, the author focuses on the social and economic background, worldview and ‘masculinist’ ideology of Polish’ angry white men’ (Kimmel 2013). The second part focuses on the historical and cultural coding of their ‘aggrieved entitlement’ (Kimmel 2013). The third part of the essay draws on Ste- ve’s Garlick (Garlick 2016: 163−193) concept of ‘spectacular masculinity’. It analyzes how modern technology contributes to the construction of ‘spectacular’ masculinity among the participants of the march/members of radical groups. KEYWORDS: masculinity, political radicalism, far-right movements, technology adical movements of the Polish far-right consist, as elsewhere, mainly of young Rmen.