The Political Thinking Research Unit aims to actively contribute to universal and Hungarian thinking on the history of ideas and political theory. This includes nurturing the tradition of thought, enforcing forgotten issues and perspectives and formulating or (re)discovering critical remarks against the dominant political ideology.
The Institute aims to raise points of view and issues that break the dominance of the current ideology, which we believe narrows the perspectives of thinking about politics. We believe that the richness of the European and Hungarian tradition of thought frees us from the dogmas of this narrowing and simplistic ideology.
Director
He has been working for the Századvég Foundation as a researcher since 2014. He graduated in Social Sciences (Eötvös Loránd University) and History (Uppsala, MA), and received his PhD at Eötvös Loránd University’s Doctoral School of Political Science. He has published three volumes, Az utópia hegemoniája (The Hegemony of Utopia, NKE Szolgáltató Kft., 2014), A szabadság reakciós harcosai (The Reactionary Warriors of Freedom, Századvég, 2019), and Dac: kézikönyv eretnekek számára (Defiance: A Handbook for Heretics, Századvég, 2020).
Fukuyama’s optimism quickly turned into disillusionment, and the ideology of liberal democracy was challenged. Liberals and the left have lost their former ability to mobilize (which they owed mainly to utopia) and are now characterized by a tenacious defense of the status quo. From which direction does liberalism face challenges, what arguments do they have and what do they offer instead?
Since its birth, one of the major topics of conservative thought has been the criticism of modernity. The promise of modernity was the liberation of humanity and “progress”, but these utopian hopes did not seem to be fulfilled. The criticism of modernity is important because today’s mainstream political trends implicitly formulate their political claims and act on the same premises. Our research will make the drivers and main arguments of these criticisms visible. We hope that our research will reveal how the project of modernity has failed and what its possible alternatives are.
Modern political regimes tend to introduce measures for restricting freedom on the grounds of safety such as “climate catastrophe”, epidemics (COVID), and even political trends (“populism”). The legitimacy of these modern regimes is based on the protection from the “apocalypse”, whatever form it may take.
The Institute aims to slightly reduce the predominance of international topics and authors and to contribute to raising and discussing specifically Hungarian problems and topics in the history of ideas. We are convinced that our political situation cannot be derived merely from “universal” or “global” political insights: there are specifically Hungarian problems, and Hungarian problems can be understood by knowing the Hungarian tradition of the history of thought.
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