The liberal faction of the Hungarian Psychiatric Association engaged in a power game against editor-in-chief at Psychiatria Hungarica Tamás Tényi, who wanted to publish an essay critical of gender theory written by a right-wing author. The piece was never published, and the chief editor resigned in protest.

‘Those who oppose the Woke tide must recognize that the revolution they face is a many-headed hydra, driven and enabled by a multitude of factors beyond the political. Ultimately its deepest roots are in the social atomization, cultural breakdown, and the void of spiritual meaninglessness produced by the nihilism of Western modernity.’

A new populism is appearing, based on real participatory federalism oriented towards tradition and community, with the Nomos being grounded in the ethnic divisions of states and regions.

‘Conservatives and conservatism have featured in American political life from the beginning. The problem is that the history of American conservatism does not map onto contemporary ideological templates.’

If liberalism is to survive, it has to renavigate its ship from a universalistic, moralizing, abstract and therefore anti-political concept-world into the polis. Escaping its own totalist and hegemonic aspirations, it must become a part of politics: the constant formation and affirmation of who we are.

Re-reading Bloom’s book, we must acknowledge that there indeed existed a thorough and fierce analysis drawing attention to the decline of university life already decades ago. Unfortunately, this appeal was ignored.

‘Conservatism is Progressivism driving the speed limit,’ Mark Granza, founder and editor of IM-1776 reminds, adding that so far, the conservative movement has failed to reach out to the younger generations.

‘A major theme of the classical law is that the law should be stable over time and protect traditional expectations about how human life is arranged and how society is conducted. Liberalism by contrast is a doctrine of perpetual disruption and instability, constantly trying to find new frontiers by which traditional societies, and traditional morality can be disrupted.’

Ever since the Revolution in France split politics into left and right, the two polarities have been cast as those ‘in favour of change’ and those ‘against change’. The picture of conservative politics found in this discourse has typically favoured the left, which portrays conservatism as an undynamic preservation of the existing order.

Conservatives are those who uphold tradition, the nation, and the values of the Bible. If we take care to uphold those principles consistently, it will become increasingly difficult, and eventually impossible, for those who advocate other principles, to present themselves as conservatives.

‘We have to realize that no matter how smart and powerful we think we are, we will not get very far without the Almighty.’

Illiberal democracy
is a set-up, such as Hungary, in which democracy prevails, but without the stultifying carapace of liberal (or “liberal”) pieties and prejudices.