The dilemma of our present

Can a damaged, harmful and dehumanized world still be repaired? The Magyar Nemzet column titled “The Dilemma of Our Present” asks whether dialogue, goodwill and intelligent ideas can awaken a world sunk in apathy.

The writer says such a possibility is difficult to see because there appears to be no intention to pursue it. People know that every person has the right to live from income earned through decent work, the column argues, but rights must also be linked to obligations. When someone cannot behave normally or live with others, moral questions should come to the fore. Instead, the writer says, public life is marked by conditional language and a shortage of morality.

The column points to several events as evidence. On June 14, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump said during a telephone conversation that they wanted to bring the situation in Ukraine to an early close, but the conversation did not address how that would happen, leaving the issue unresolved in the writer’s view.

On June 16, a stormy legislative amendment with retroactive effect barred Viktor Orbán from obtaining the post of prime minister in the future, the writer says. An effort to find precedents for such a move was unsuccessful. The column also refers to Austria’s foreign minister taking a prominent part in Vienna Pride as an example of the “brave new world.”

In Hungary, meanwhile, new chapters continue to emerge in the so-called Szőlő Street affair, while the picture remains unclear despite the long wait for answers. The writer concludes that everyday life is decorated by “the flowers of decay” and that watching public life in Hungary and around the world often prompts the thought that words must regain their honor, meaning and strength.

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the flowers of decay