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Hungary’s Orban and government censorship of the academy — 20 Comments

  1. It’s perfectly legitimate for legislatures to define the institutional mission of public universities. And that would include a glossary incorporated into statutory law which defines the quantum of study time in each sort of degree, establishes permissible nomenclature for subject degrees, and provides capsule descriptions of such degrees. What the market doesn’t take care of is status competition and institutional politics among academics. It also cannot confer respectability. Keep in mind that ‘women’s studies’ is omnipresent on American campuses in spite of the fact that students have no interest in it. We award 1.8 million baccalaureate degrees each year in this country, but fewer than 1,500 are in women’s studies. Other victimology programs fare less well. It’s all about taking other peoples money and doling out resources to privileged political interests. Academics fancy they have a right to do that. The law needs to stomp and stomp hard.

    As for private institutions, remove subsidies and add consumer protection law.

  2. Yeah, there’s no ban, merely a decision to stop offering something that has no value and attracts next to no customers.
    The only reason it was on offer at all was to draw the subsidies, and I seriously doubt the courses would even be economically viable to offer for the universities without those subsidies.

    While I’m all for subsidising things like fundamental research into STEM fields, and preserving classical art forms, gender studies are neither, as Orban knows quite well.

    And I’d in this case even favour an outright ban, as gender studies is nothing more or less than a training ground for subversives intent on overthrowing the culture and society they operate in in favour of communist, anti-democratic, autharitarian, one party states, a system with which Hungary has decades of very painful experience.

    These “gender studies” people are no different from KGB moles planted into western society in the 1970s and ’80s to control the “peace movement”, and later including the “green movement”, both of which were always nothing more than operations aimed at destabilising and militarilly and economically weakening western society in preparation for a communist takeover.

  3. Anyone who resists or opposes Islam is immediately called “Far Right” by the Leftist press. This began with Pim Fortuyn in Holland (who was then murdered) and has continued, without exception, to Tommy Robinson in England today.

  4. As I recall, gender/race studies were established in American schools as part of the payoff to stop protesting leftist groups from taking over the college president’s office on a regular basis.

  5. Gulyas said those already enrolled could finish their studies but Budapest would stop financing the courses from the next academic year.
    “Gulyas” rang a bell with me. Goulash? Wiki:Gulyás.

    Gulyás may refer to:

    Gulyás (herdsman), a Hungarian cattle-herdsman
    Goulash, a Hungarian soup or stew
    Gulyásleves, a Hungarian soup

    Yup. Hungarians in my home area, and also knew Hungarian Iron Curtain refugees in Latin America.

    As goulash was a Hungarian cowboy dish, perhaps it could also be called Hungarian Chili.

  6. Or so it would seem. After reading about six articles on this and trying to decipher what might actually be happening,I gave up because the truth was remarkably elusive.

    This is a common problem in Europe. There’s no serious alternative media like, let’s say, unz.com, and that makes finding the truth far more difficult.

    Besides that, internet is more controlled. In Germany or Sweden people have been arrested for posting comments against massive immigration. In general, people are far more careful in Europe than they are in US. You can find the truth, or at least get close enough to it, but it takes more time and effort.

    When it comes to eastern Europe, I’d recommend to give a try to the Russian search site, yandex.com. It’s not a bad engine at all, and it’s far less censored than google.

    I’ve found this:
    https://thehungaryjournal.com/2018/08/10/orban-govt-abolishes-gender-studies-in-hungary/

    And from this sentence “HVG.hu notes that CEU offers both Hungarian and American degrees, the amendment will not affect the latter” it seems that Orban has eliminated the degree. That doesn’t mean gender studies is prohibited. It means that there’s no “gender studies” degree granted by the Hungarian government anymore. That includes private universities too (in Europe, quite often, and no matter the university is private, the title is still granted by the government).

    However, private degrees and foreign degrees are not affected.

  7. Gender studies: male and masculine, female and feminine, and transgendered. Gendered attributes including sexual orientation, have been distorted to progress a social narrative. #TooManyLabels

    Sexual education has deprecated teaching biology, self-moderation, and personal responsibility.

    Diversity has normalized color judgments (e.g. Jew privilege) and denies individual dignity.

    Selective-child (i.e. denying life deemed unworthy) denies human evolution and women’s franchise (i.e. Pro-Choice is two choices too late).

    Oh, and renewed interest in socialism, too. Still, there is a left-right nexus. Americans are social, economically, and logically in the middle. Progressives and liberal to the left. Libertarians and anarchists to the right.

  8. “After reading about six articles on this and trying to decipher what might actually be happening,I gave up because the truth was remarkably elusive.”

    The only reason why the truth is elusive is because Western Europe’s mass media is only interested in subjective truths that advance the narrative. Any truth counter to the narrative is ignored and repressed. Post modernism rejects the concept of objective truth, stating that all truth is subjective. That assertion allows advocates of postmodernism to reject subjective truth (that’s your opinion) with which they disagree.

    In order to believe that claptrap one must reject reality. Objective truth is easily proven but very few advocates of post modernism possess the courage to test their suppositions.

    This couple did test it with predictable results; “American couple that believed “evil is a make-believe concept” murdered by ISIS in Tajikistan”

  9. Neo,

    In the post above and now this one I’m getting a message “405 – not allowed”
    So I hit the back button and hit the post comment link and it goes through but no preview or edit function available. Using chrome.

  10. I applaud Hungary’s decision, even if their stated reason is bullshit.
    The true purpose of gender studies (indeed, all grievance studies) programs is to sow Marxist social agitation. As far as slippery slopes go, I’ve long been a believer that some things shouldn’t be tolerated. It is the pretense of having an open mind that leads to all sorts of mischief.

  11. It’s “Gramscian” after Antonio Gramsci, an Italian communist.

    Sorry.

    Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also through ideology. The bourgeoisie developed a hegemonic culture, which propagated its own values and norms so that they became the “common sense” values of all. People in the working-class (and other classes) identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.

  12. to sow Marxist social agitation.

    People need to stop yapping about Marxism. It’s not influential in the American academy.

  13. Hungary was in on a lot of the games played and do not want the stuff they helped with to blow back and do to them what its done elsewhere… they like other satellites have resisted what was promoted elsewhere and normalized

    those who refuse to learn from other nations history…
    a kind of variation on the more basic theme of the original…

  14. People need to stop yapping about Marxism. It’s not influential in the American academy.

    The entirety of the grievance studies programs are built upon a backbone of Communism. This is why you see so many Antifa people with the hammer and sickle.
    The only difference is, they replaced “class” with “gender” and “race.”

    This also explains their fetish for power and power relationships.

  15. Great post, Neo. I appreciate it on many levels.
    First, the problems you encountered in your efforts to discern a fact from news articles. Rotten media. The darn media lies so much and sometimes just produces sloppy, lazy work. Even when not agenda politics. My brother was a diver with the state troopers and once, a high profile case, the media questioned him. He told me that every single factual detail he gave them they got wrong. Height of the bridge, depth of the water and so on. Media, a necessary but untrustworthy apparatus.

    Second, well, I am insanely over the moon crazy about Orban, so there is that.

    Third, that your piece showed me that Hungary is not only using common sense in their refugee policy, but that the country is proceeding apace with the Gramscian march through the institutions albeit in reverse. Heh. That I like.

  16. The entirety of the grievance studies programs are built upon a backbone of Communism.

    They have nothing to do with Marxism, bar that the sort of bourgeois personality which might have been attracted to Marxism in 1948 or 1968 is now invested in truculent identity politics.

  17. The left constantly uses phrases like “deny access” and “ban”, when the reality is that the someone’s benefits is not being paid for by someone else. I’m not denying you anything when I refuse to provide it.
    On the other hand, if you’re a collectivist ideology where everything (as the Santa Barbara councilman said recently) is under the control of the state, then, yes, not funding your things is equivalent to denying you something.

  18. These “studies” are about bringing down capitalism and replacing it with … guess what?
    As a recent conference asked, “can there be capitalism without racism”. It all comes back to an indictment of capitalism, in the end, just one more weapon in their panoply.

    As for Hungary, if there are two universities that offer a gender studies major and one of them stops and the other one is prevented from granting degrees in Hungary altogether, then this degree will no longer be offered in Hungary. Who is going to risk the government’s anger in the future to offer an unapproved degree, at the risk of being shut down. More generally, there is no other private university of CEU’s caliber in Hungary (and maybe in all of Eastern Europe). If it’s closed then the government will have a monopoly on serious higher education (I think). No laws will be needed, administrative decisions will suffice.

    “Studies” degrees are poisonous nonsense, but the precedent being set now can be used in many different ways. Is this a needed correction or only a first step? Can book burnings and degenerate art burnings be far behind? Orban is, hopefully, smarter than that, but who knows if he is smart enough.

  19. All you need to know about gender studies is…
    Men have penises
    Women have vaginas

    Anything else, then that person needs psychological treatment for mental health issues!!!

    Oh do not forget the hermaphrodite, rare as unicorns though??

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