Hungarian Conservative

‘First, cannabis was licensed for medical use, then legalization became more widespread. It is the typical slippery slope. In fact, there are doors that, once opened, cannot be closed. Society-shaping (disruptive) philanthropists like George Soros, who have been at the forefront of making drug use easier for decades, know this all too well.’

‘Today, we are faced with the fact that in our pluralistic societies, it seems to pose an insurmountable challenge to agree on a generally accepted moral standard, with values that provide common foundations.’

‘Many Christians who hold modernity culpable for the demise of the church and dispersion of the Christian flock join forces with political conservatism, seeing in it their natural political ally and representative, while conservative politicians look upon these groups—and many of their institutional leaders, bishops, evangelists, theologians—as reliable, strong, and loyal supporters.’

Whatever the original plan or idea behind promoting, supporting, and organizing uncontrolled migration to Europe (and to the United States) was, social engineering has miserably failed again just as in the case of communism. For once again it failed to take into account nothing less than human nature.

In Scruton’s philosophy…the social practice of legislation and jurisdiction could not be realized outside the national framework, because—regardless to their origins—the interpretation and the enforcement of the set of legal rules and moral duties, even human rights, are bound to nation states…

‘Only the West killed God, and they did it twice for good measure: once on the cross, and more recently via the Enlightenment project to transform the world through progress, secularism, and science, rendering religion either rational or irrelevant.’

Generation Z women and men are becoming increasingly different in terms of political preferences. The continuation of this global trend, in which LGBTQ and gender ideology plays a significant role, could have serious consequences.

Nanos gigantum humeris insidentes, or dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, is a phrase first used by the twelfth-century French philosopher Bernard de Chartres. It has been chosen as the motto of the Barna Horváth Hungary Law and Liberty Circle, calling for a balance between healthy ambition and intellectual humility and respect for previous generations.

Rarely has a single year carried such profound implications for global security and the future as the one that lies ahead. With conflicts erupting across the globe, the foundations of the international order are being relentlessly tested. Compounding
these challenges, 2024 is marked by the impending presidential elections in two formidable and opposing powers, the United States and Russia. Similar gravity can be attributed to the European Parliament elections scheduled for the same year, where a realistic opportunity exists for the reinforcement of right-leaning forces.

‘The term “liberal” was undoubtedly originally associated with the aristocratic spirit of freedom and generosity (in Latin: liberalitas), which, recognizing a natural hierarchy among individual beings, finds diversity welcome and does not desire to make things equal in all circumstances. Since many of the theoreticians of liberalism did not take this principle into account, it can be derived that most liberals strongly oppose the principle of authority.’

‘It is one of history’s great ironies that Budapest, from which hundreds of thousands of European Jews were shipped to their deaths by the Nazis and their Hungarian collaborators, Jews can walk the streets this dreadful autumn without fear. This is an achievement for which Hungarians can and should be proud. Don’t expect European leaders to give Orbán credit. In fact, they will probably increase their public odium directed at him.’

It takes courage to see which situations and expectations the conservative should reject. And it takes courage to say ‘no’. The dilemma of when courage is appropriate and when moderation is needed is not logically insolvable. In the words of Winston Churchill: ‘It is better to be both right and consistent. But if you have to choose—you must choose to be right.’

Count István Tisza is still blamed by liberal and left-wing historiographers for Hungary entering WWI, despite clear evidence of his anti-war stance. It is rather anachronistic to hold Tisza to democratic standards that did not exist at the time and with the wisdom of hindsight: the knowledge of how the war ended.

Hyper-democracy is already here, it will grow stronger, and we are only starting to understand its profound effects. Some of them will be detrimental, others will open up new opportunities. This might appear overwhelming and unprecedented to some, but in truth, that was the case with all great technological or political upheavals…

The lack of humility, modesty, the lack of deference to one’s superiors, the lack of discipline and respect are the main causes of most of the political and sociological problems of modernity. After all, according to the blind believers of progress, sailing never ends. However, according to conservatives, there is no such thing as an island of Utopia. Their problem in politics is not the search for an island that doesn’t exist, but: ‘[h]ow to get the disgruntled crew to help keep the ship of the state afloat, to keep it from capsizing and being shipwrecked?’

‘Liberalism demands we remain open to hearing differences of opinions and the ability to mediate them through democratic institutions. Openness, however, does not equate to acceptance, especially if the opinions are incompatible with the truths of the natural law, as John Locke had forewarned.’

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the work is that its author is brave enough to challenge completely the established thinking and vision that takes historical progress and the associated rise of liberalism for granted.

Despite the left-wing’s denunciation of Orbán as a despot because of his censorship, or for that matter that of Abdullah II, the one-sided free speech absolutism that is being promoted by the same left is nothing more than a capitulation to moral nihilism, a reason why Facebook has been removing Hungarian conservatives from its platform.

Gerő sees classical liberalism as the idea of a constitutionally limited state and individual liberties, based on natural law. According to Gerő, classical liberalism professes the principles of government being accountable to parliament, the separation of powers, and popular rule by suffrage. In that sense, Gerő sees the reform era of Hungary (1825–1848) as the beginning of the equality of civil rights.

During the last decade, an increasing academic and intellectual effort has emerged to define and redefine Hungarian conservatism. Better understanding 19th-century conservatives is crucial to this process, as these movements are where the roots of Hungarian conservatism lie.

‘Szekfű described “capitalism” as “having grown in size over time, becoming a more and more fearsome monster, creating factories and cramming hundreds of thousands and millions of people into the unhealthy, immoral air of smoky cities. And the longer the unrestricted freedom proclaimed by liberalism lasts, the more freely the capitalist big business devours the little ones, the more freely it exploits the economic weaklings, especially the workers.” Szekfű’s book Three Generations, in which he also called for extensive worker protection and the regulation of industrialists by law, bears a striking resemblance to the basic tenets of socialism.’

Standing on the ground of inexorable social progress, Prohászka views social transformation positively, and even despite his harsh criticism of socialism, he acknowledges its necessity. After all, social democracy serves to achieve social progress that ‘excludes the phraseology of delusive emotions and disturbing social passions,’[vi] which is otherwise so problematic in revolutionary change.

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.’