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Hungary is often being depicted in the international media as a monobloc of national-sovereigntist forces. Finding informed opinion in the international media able to correctly identify existing fault lines between liberal and conservative, progressive or traditionalist in Hungary, is nigh impossible. As inconvenient a truth it is for some, the Hungarian left and centrist opposition forces are in reality a fairly average clone of the globalist political mould, a chip off the old block of the culturally neutered, ahistoric pseudo governance that has turned the bastions of European democracy into semi-failed states. Hence the real struggle for a Hungarian future goes on between true civic conservatism on the one side, and a populist mainstream on the other.
It seems national-sovereigntist politicians have tried to take the wind out of their ideological opponents’ sails when they were accused of populism – instead of defending themselves again this labeling, they cunningly adopted the concept as their own. This approach, however, is starting to backfire. The concept of populism, that is often incorrectly used interchangeably with conservatism, has now established itself in the minds, mission statements, political programs of conservative political forces. It has started to reshape them in a direction that is no more than a mere antithesis to the very politics that they despise and fight against. The problem with transforming one’s political profile into a mere antithesis is that one is eventually condemned to never being able to take the initiative, becoming an agent of a defensive and reactive power. In the short term, it could be a recipe for winning elections, in the long run, losing the soul of a nation.
Populism has been described by liberal ideologues as racist, homophobic, colonial, supremacist, etc. It is none of that, therefore the left’s entirely flawed critique of the term cannot and will not be a starting point of our discussion. Just like disinformation, the invention of which some mistakenly date back to recent years, populism is also thousands of years old: as old as politics and governance itself. Among the myriad of different interpretations though we must stick with one that has, to some extent correctly, been implied in the left’s criticism of nationalist and sovereigntist policy. In this, populism appears as a political short-termism that is carried on a wave of popular sentiment. It is an answer to what the masses call for, what they want –
populism is the myth of a leadership obedient to the will of the majority.
It’s overused slogan, repeated ad nauseam by leaders of the Hungarian and European conservative family, is: vox populi, vox dei. A populism that draws its mandate from the sacrosanct Vox populi has even become synonymous patriotism. Except few realize that this well liked slogan is a fragment from a quote by the 8th century theologian, Alcuin of York, that reads: “those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.” And this leads us directly to Conservatism.
While populism is a concept conceived in secular governance, conservatism is not. What is conservatism, then? Do not worship things that are not God; do not justify your all too human goals with a reference to divine authority; remember to lay your trust solely in your Creator, rather than your own merit; accept and carry the truth and meaning that your predecessors have past down to you; do not murder; do not sink into perversion; do not steal; do not lie; do not be envious and learn to take joy in your neighbor’s success. This is of course the Ten Commandments, albeit in a reinterpreted form. This becomes conservatism when both on a communal and individual level people transfuse it into what we refer to as “civic values”. A society built on civic values is a civil society, and its governing value system is called conservatism.
In contrast to populism, conservatism is not rooted in a secular concept – it derives its origin from the transcendent. It can under no circumstances identify the voice of the people with the voice of God.
On the contrary, the fundamental conservative position is: vox populi non est vox dei; sola vox dei est vox dei.
Beware of politicians who derive their mission from a higher authority, but missing the transcendent element in conservatism would be a fundamental mistake. To be a populist is to bow to the will of the populus; to be a conservative is first and foremost a desire to be obedient to the will of God.
On our way to Easter, let us describe this dialectical tension in a thematic manner, through the example of the historic Jesus. Choosing populism over conservatism is choosing Pontius Pilate over Jesus of Nazareth. Pilate’s is a type of pragmatic populism that aims to maintain peace by bowing to the wishes of the loudest and most numerous part of society, and also by maintaining the establishment. It may be a valid option for today, but this kind of populism is fraught with dangers. Perhaps the most immediate one is that such governance, even if it occupies the top executive, is almost always manipulated by another type of populism, that of the demagogues. In the New Testament this is best manifested in the person of the high priest, Caiphas, who betrays all ten commandments at once with a seemingly logical and statemanly approach: “it is better for one man to die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.” That old Aristotelian devil of the principle of lesser evil has no doubt been sweeping the Hellenistic debating circles of 1st century Judea just as much as it finds favor in populist circles today.
Populism can thus formally adopt the goals and methods of conservatism, but in its content it will remain very different, even contrary to the latter’s essence. This is because populism is about power, conservatism about the fear of God and salvation. Conservatism can certainly never set one on the road to salvation, but if it is traced back to its founding impulse, it is the preferred set of rules and values of those who, one way or another, want to be saved. Populism is for the masses, conservatism for the very few willing to offer their personal sacrifice in order to elevate their community to a new level. It can never become a mass movement, but it is not a utopia either, such as Marxism. Populism is the most effective answer to the “now,” but only conservatism can bear the seeds of a future worthy of our hopes and our sacrifice.
Europe was for a millennium a civilization made up of Christian societies, intuitively balancing between the practical might of Roman Law, the law of Pilate, one the one hand, and its faith in the eternal validity of the Ten Commandments on the other. Only a couple of hundred years ago or so was our continent able to reach a glimpse of the prototype of what we call conservatism today, when in the name of the right to individual dignity, it started to organize itself around civic values and form civil societies. This, to a large extent, coincided with the birth of nations, hence the constant insistence of current conservative opinion-makers on the need to preserve national communities as the most effective safeguard for a European way of life.
The arguments brought up by Pilate and Caiphas on the one side, and Jesus of Nazareth on the other, are still very much alive and well within the current Hungarian political discourse. As he did back then, Pilate will still win the debate today, just as Caiphas will have his will too.
While populism is democracy, conservatism is freedom.
Populism does have its place in politics and society, it is a manifestation of human nature that drives us to acquire and maintain power. But it should never become a governing principle in a society. Populism is intuitive because it appeals to our survival instincts, while conservatism is counter-intuitive, and as such the latter becomes the only space where individual human dignity can flourish. Accepting populism is accepting the fact that we coexist with demagogues and propaganda. At the same time a conservative’s natural instinct will drive him to subject populism to a razor-sharp criticism whether with unrelenting passion.
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