Based on the ATV interview http:\/\/www.atv.hu\/videok\/video-20140728-tamas-gaspar-miklos , like the interviewer, I too could detect no new content in TGM\u2019s words (though I am not defending interviewer Olga Kalman\u2019s constant wise-guy hectoring.)<\/p>\n
TGM said Orban was declaring his cards. \u2014 Everyone already knew his cards.<\/p>\n
And TGM said that those (like TGM) with critical views should continue to think and speak them. \u2014 Of course they should.<\/p>\n
And that the bottom 4 million were bound to revolt sooner or later. \u2014 Sympathetic as that still sounds to the ears of those (like me) who still believe in social and economic justice, it\u2019s really just rewarmed Marxian hermeneutics. No real content. Nothing practical. No new insight. Just the ideology that TGM faults the illiberal Fidesz gangsters for lacking.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not all that those gangsters lack. They also lack all scruples \u2014 or any know-how for anything but getting and holding power.<\/p>\n
TGM\u2019s heart is probably in the right place. But he has nothing to offer but oratory.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s hope that decent Hungarians don\u2019t have to keep waiting for a revolution, but that Europe will cut the purse-strings and the consequences will at last turn the electorate against Fidesz\/Jobbik and toward the democratic parties that have the EU\u2019s confidence and still share \u201cEuropean\u201d values.<\/p>\n
If an EU cut-off instead propels the Hungarian electorate even deeper into Fidesz\/Jobbik\u2019s thrall, then maybe Orban will fall as F & J duke it out in Round II.<\/p>\n
Once Orban falls, let\u2019s hope the demonic spell will be broken.<\/p>\n
If not, Hungary is lost (and Orban was not even the culprit \u2014 just a creation of Hungary, rather than its destroyer.
\n(Since he did not really say anything new, there\u2019s nothing much to disagree with TGM about. Perhaps only to demur on there being even the slightest sign of intelligence in Orban. His \u201csuccess\u201d has been due exclusively to negative factors: (1) an utter lack of scruples and (2) playing to the populace\u2019s basest delusions. Any psychopath or demagogue could do the same. All democratic opposition is hence handicapped by their possession of scruples. If they too lacked scruples, they could defeat him at his own unfair game \u2014 but in doing so, they would defeat themselves.)<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I think the EU and the rest of the outside world are Hungary\u2019s only hope of recovery.<\/p>\n
Stevan Harnad<\/p>\n
Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Sciences, UQ\u00c0M
\nCanadian-Hungarian Democratic Charter
\nExternal Member, Hungarian Academy of Sciences<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Based on the ATV interview http:\/\/www.atv.hu\/videok\/video-20140728-tamas-gaspar-miklos , like the interviewer, I too could detect no new content in TGM\u2019s words (though I am not defending interviewer Olga Kalman\u2019s constant wise-guy hectoring.) TGM said Orban was declaring his cards. \u2014 Everyone already knew his cards. And TGM said that those (like TGM) with critical views should … <\/p>\n