János Csák put it this way: the balance has apparently been upset in Western civilization, individual freedom prevails over the order and freedom of the community.
Mária Schmidt said that during the years of communism, Hungarians did not have the freedoms enjoyed by Western civilization. “Then we became free, we regained our freedom, and it seems that Western civilization has completely lost it,” he pointed out. He put it like that
in Western civilization, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and academic freedom are restricted.
That is, all the freedoms “necessary to be able to discuss our common issues together, freely – he noted.
“The lack of freedom is beginning to deteriorate in an extreme direction, academic life has fallen in the Western world, the media has fallen,” he declared, noting that according to his experience, “small circles of freedom” remained in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Speaking about the Russian-Ukrainian war, Mária Schmidt drew attention to the fact that it is also a topic that cannot be debated in Western civilization, and the elite cannot be forced to discuss it. He recalled that
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has repeatedly demanded that European leaders “have a plan B”.
“They don’t hear, they don’t even understand what the B-plan is, because they tolerate only one solution in everything,” he emphasized.
János Csák said that one often hears opinions that those Asian countries that have been able to preserve Confucian traditions to a certain extent are more inclined towards harmony and balance. He added that he had not experienced this during his travels, neither in Korea, nor in Japan, nor in Singapore.
The biggest problem is that we have “emptied the sky”, Mária Schmidt reflected, noting that instead of it there are sanctuaries and orientation points that do not actually offer a handhold. In his opinion
the rushing life, “sacred consumption”, the pressure to perform are typical; the majority are “chasing the minute matters of influenza”, meanwhile the real meaning of life, the family, is pushed into the background.
“The absence of God led to the appreciation of the individual, egos took over, everyone is on an ego trip and thinks that the world is about him,” declared the historian. As he said, “every day we see self-inflating individuals who take over the public space, but do not give” a handhold or hope. They pop out – remarked János Csák.
The minister also mentioned that
the old politico-theological question of whether a person can live without transcendent guidance has now receded into the background.
As he said, American professor Patrick Deneen explains in his book Regime Change that the elite has become deaf, they cannot hear what the people are saying. He assessed that the elite in the Western world “have a false self-image, they even deny that they are elite”.
According to Mária Schmidt’s opinion
a part of the elite both in the United States of America and in Western Europe consists of “grey, featureless, gerontocratic, idealess, visionless, alibi politicians” who are afraid to say anything.
The other part of the elite is on an ego trip; he invents things that people don’t care about, he said, noting that it is the elite to look down on people.
