Victor Orban on the open society.

Once upon a time, when the European democracies were at the apogee of their orbit. But since then the era of open societies dawned upon the Western part of Europe and over the great ocean, too, and gave birth to their thought police: political correctness.

Some years ago democracy was based on debate, precise measurements of pro and con arguments, open expression, free thoughts and associations, vibrant, encouraging innovative solutions, a lively intellectual life. That is why was so attractive to our gladly-visiting neighbors, pub-loving, café-gossiping Hungarian folk, too.

The new political system, the so-called “open society”, liquidated all of this. Instead of a debate-based democracy, a correctness-based democracy arrived. In the terrain of ideology, that meant the liberal intellectual trend turned against the ideal of democracy, that is, the majority-based ideal, against the will of the cohesive majority community.

In the political realm, the open society meant that the true power, decisions and influence, instead of residing with elected parliamentary representatives and governments, were put into the hands of unelected global network of people, to media gurus and the unelected international organizations, for whom nobody voted, and they outsourced it to their local offices.^[1]

I always have wondered what Soros meant by his Open Society. It sounded nice but floated aimlessly like a balloon with no antecedents and nothing familiar to it. Western nations with traditions of free speech and intellectual inquiry seemed already to provide all that is deceptively hinted at in Soros's phrase but they, to him, are not only inadequate but must be uprooted completely. "Open Society" thus signifies total destruction of the familiar in favor of some vague new thing that nonetheless involves repression and national suicide. Progressivism.

It has been a comforting thought of most of my life that modern Western nations all involved at their core a rational, often incremental improvement in the lives of their citizens, notwithstanding periods of great folly and actors entering the stage offering instead insanity and great evil. Inevitably, the ship would find its correct course even though no human society can insulate itself from decadence, corruption, or evil.

Needless to say, not much can be said in defense of such a view. Western nations have, even in times of great prosperity and relative peace, been blind to the plain evidence of treason and subversion, and devoted to a leadership class and geist that are simply lunatic.

Notes
^[1] Victor Orban quoted in "Viktor Orbán: Soros Organizations Bring 100,000s of Migrants to Europe." Gates of Vienna, 2/17/17 (paragraphing added).