When white looks like black
Poland is in the middle of a presidential election, and I can’t help but feel a strange sense of déjà vu. The atmosphere reminds me a lot of what recently happened in the United States. This time, though, there were no illusions — at least not in the mainstream American media. I didn’t see overly optimistic forecasts about Kamala Harris. No one tried to bend reality. We managed to avoid the collective shock we all experienced the last time, when the media narrative was so out of sync with the result.
It’s made me wonder — did we all get caught in a bubble? A collective illusion shared by people who think like us? People who couldn’t imagine someone voting for that kind of candidate — the con artist, the chauvinist, the man who didn’t even pretend to follow the rules?
Last time, some corrective mechanisms kicked in. We had this uneasy awareness that many “regular folks” on the other side of the spectrum were willing to overlook the glaring flaws of the Republican candidate. Not only that — we began to suspect that what we found disturbing, they found refreshingly honest. “At least he says what he thinks,” they'd say. “He doesn’t sugarcoat things. He’s real.”
And maybe that was part of the appeal: he’s imperfect, just like the rest of us. And so, America chose someone deeply flawed — and now a small army of advisors is trying to polish his rough ideas into something workable. I suppose we’re meant to believe that the entire academic world is made up of fools, and he alone has the vision. That tariffs are just a tax paid by other countries. That isolating yourself from the world and reversing globalization with sheer willpower will somehow bring back innovation and manufacturing to the land of milk and honey that is the United States.
And now here we are — facing our own version of that mess in Poland.
On one side, we have the mayor of Warsaw — someone visible, someone who’s governed for years, made good and bad decisions like any public official, but who gets things done. Investments, projects, leadership — tangible work. On the other side? A candidate with no comparable track record, but with strong conservative political backing. A candidate who positions himself as a critic, with an arsenal of talking points and little to lose.
Yes, there’s the shadow of a murky past, with allegations that, if true, border on the criminal. But somehow… it doesn’t seem to matter. All signs point to a strong chance that my fellow Poles might elect him anyway.
And no, this isn’t just about comparing someone with a clean record and visible achievements to someone who mostly throws stones from the sidelines. It’s not just about contrasting competence with questionable morals. The unsettling part is that for a large portion of society — none of this matters. These facts don’t register the same way. It’s like we’re living in parallel worlds. Where I see white, they see black. Where I see black, they see white.
That’s what really gets me thinking.
What is it that causes these vast differences in how we see the same reality? And more and more, I’m starting to believe that it’s not about manipulation. It’s about the foundational values — the lenses through which we interpret the world.
Take cultural values, for example. In some cultures, things I might view as negative — pride, a lack of humility, even aggression — are seen as strengths. They’re signs of determination, power, leadership. That’s not my lens, but it’s still valid. And if that’s the foundation people are working from, then no wonder we interpret the same message, or person, in completely different ways.
It’s honestly wild how two people can look at the same candidate and see opposite things. It speaks volumes about how deeply our values shape our thinking — and how culture can silently steer the narrative.
And I can’t shake the feeling that we’re heading toward more of this — more division, more large-scale misunderstanding. Maybe even a fractured reality not unlike the one the U.S. seems to be grappling with.
Part of what’s fueling this, I believe, is how social media works — constantly reinforcing our beliefs, confirming our sense of "rightness" and building up an illusion of moral superiority. The "us versus them" narrative isn’t new, of course. We've seen it before in far darker contexts — where “true citizens” were set against outsiders, Jews against “real Germans,” patriots against enemies within. These old patterns are finding new homes in modern algorithms.
And now, with artificial intelligence entering the picture, there’s a new layer of complexity. If our digital assistants, search engines, or personalized newsfeeds start interpreting the world in ways that echo our values — tailoring reality itself to our preferences — we might find ourselves even deeper in our bubbles. Not just informed differently, but formed differently.
It’s something I’ll be watching closely — not just as a citizen, but as a human trying to stay open in a world where every answer might soon come pre-filtered to match the story I already believe.