Francis Berger

Does Hungary's Pro-Family Agenda Contain a Metaphysical Dimension?

21/2/2019

Eleven days ago Hungary outlined a new seven step program it had created in an effort to halt its demographic decline by offering incentives to young people to marry and start families and by giving lifetime income tax exemptions to women who birth four or more children. The latest program adds to many existing schemes including initiatives such as housing grants, low interest loans, tax credits, and increased workplace family support.

Whether or not these Hungarian initiatives bear fruit remains to be seen, but one thing is certain – at a purely material level, the current Hungarian government understands that the country’s future rests entirely on the stability and fertility of its families. Hungary realizes strong families must be encouraged and supported, and mass immigration from other regions of the world must be discouraged and opposed if the small country Hungarians call home is to be preserved.

Both Orbán and the Global Establishment opposing him are acutely aware of the importance of family and its role in social stability. Both sides also recognize that cultures and societies that do not endorse the primacy of family and child rearing eventually fail and collapse. In his essay, The Patriarchal Family in History, English-Catholic historian Christopher Dawson outlines historical examples of this phenomenon:

A civilization like that of China, in which the patriarchal family remained the cornerstone of society and the foundation of religion and ethics, has preserved its cultural traditions for more than 2,000 years without losing its vitality. In the classical cultures of the Mediterranean world, however, this was not the case.

Here the patriarchal family failed to adapt itself to the urban conditions of the Hellenistic civilization, and consequently the whole culture lost its stability. Conditions of life both in the Greek city state and in the Roman Empire favoured the man without a family who could devote his whole energies to the duties and pleasures of public life.

Late marriages and small families became the rule, and men satisfied their sexual instincts by homosexuality or by relations with slaves and prostitutes. This aversion to marriage and the deliberate restriction of the family by the practice of infanticide and abortion was undoubtedly the main cause of the decline of ancient Greece, as Polybius pointed out in the second century B.C.[5]

And the same factors were equally powerful in the society of the Empire, where the citizen class even in the provinces was extraordinarily sterile and was recruited not by natural increase, but by the constant introduction of alien elements, above all from the servile class. Thus the ancient world lost its roots alike in the family and in the land and became prematurely withered . . .

If, however, questions of population should give rise to war in the future, there can be no doubt that it is nations with wide possessions and a dwindling population who will be most likely to provoke an attack. But it is much more likely that the process will be a peaceful one. The peoples who allow the natural bases of society to be destroyed by the artificial conditions of the new urban civilization will gradually disappear and their place will be taken by those populations which live under simpler conditions and preserve the traditional forms of the family.

Orbán and the Global Establishment both recognize the symptoms of societal collapse Dawson notes above. Orbán and Hungary are working to prevent the manifestation of the physical collapse Dawson describes while the Leftist politicians of the EU and the West are actively endeavoring to bring it about.

As crucial as the material implications of family are for a culture and society, they pale in comparison to the spiritual significance of the family. I am certain the EU Leftists understand this thoroughly, which explains their vehement opposition to Orbán and his initiatives.

How important are the spiritual/metaphysical dimensions of family?

According to William Arkle, family marks the foundation upon which all spiritual growth and learning is built. The following is an excerpt from Letter from a Father, which Arkle writes from God’s viewpoint

One of the most important ways I have chosen for you to learn what is vital for your understanding is to find yourself a part of a family situation on earth, for here you are able to go through the experience in one single lifetime, and with unbroken continuity, the experience of being a child, a mature individual and a parent.

In this situation, if you will only learn to pay close attention to it, are all the mysteries of the universe that matter to you.

If you take the trouble to stand apart and observe closely all the relationships that exist in your family situations, you will be able to observe as completely as you will how the problems of life arise, why they arise and how they are solved.

The family situation is a very special gift to you and one day you will be surprised that you took it so for granted.

Whether Orbán, his government, and other pro-family governments within the EU comprehend the metaphysical dimension of family is debatable, but the actions these governments have taken reveal at least a subconscious understanding that family is about more than just numbers.

Conversely, the Establishment is well aware of the metaphysical significance of family, which explains why they work so hard to destroy it.

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Maybe I Have Been Meditating All Along?

20/2/2019

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Last week I began my William Arkle journey by simultaneously reading A Geography of Consciousness and Bruce Charlton’s excellent William Arkle blog. Though I am still only a fraction of the way into Arkle’s book, the experience has been formative one.

Nevertheless, I did come across a short essay on the William Arkle blog that caused me a slight bit of consternation. Taken from a newsletter issued by the Wessex Research Group Network, “The Paradox of Meditation” is a brief and succinct piece of writing in which Arkle articulates the valuable and necessary role meditation plays in spiritual growth. Arkle writes:

We may think of meditation as a deliberate way of turning our attention and our nature to those aspects of our being which are neglected by the materialistic society in which we live.

In a spiritually healthy society this would be done naturally in the way that our attention is drawn to subjects like maths, history and science at school. There is some attention to religion but subjects such as spirituality and holism are generally not backed by serious study or serious attitude, but instead treated with conventional politeness.

When we meditate we are trying to support and nourish the higher frequency aspects of our nature and trying to climb out of the prison of fear, ego, doubt, anger and life denial that materialism brings in its wake.

My heart sank as I read these words. Meditation has never been a strong point of mine. Despite repeated efforts in the past, I have never had any success creating anything even approximating a meditative state. Inevitably, my previous attempts at meditation achieved one of the following results: distraction; frustration; sleep.

Try as I might, I could never get myself into that desired zone. Disheartend, I continued reading Arkle’s little essay on meditation.

Instinctively we seek to do our meditation, contemplation and quiet attention in places which are least distracting for spiritual nourishment. Some environments are not only distracting but can be positively helpful.

Thinking I had come across some sort of typo or grammar mistake, I winced slightly after I had read these lines. A second reading revealed the sentences contained no errors but instead reflected a sharp contrast – a placing of black next to white for effect and emphasis.

In the first sentence, Arkle plainly relays the conventional belief of practicing meditation in quiet places in order to attain maximum spiritual benefit. This was certainly my view. As far as I was concerned, meditation could ONLY take place in locked rooms, or cells within a Franciscan abbeys, or atop a mountain while sitting in the lotus position with a lotus flower pinched gingerly between thumb and forefinger; otherwise, it was not really meditation at all. Needless to say, this narrow belief is probably why my past attempts at meditation had all failed so spectacularly in the past.

The second sentence was the one that had thrown me for a loop. The sentence contains a “not only” phrase. Normally, sentences of this pattern state a quality, which is then followed by a second quality that acts to reinforce and support the first. Arkle, however, breaks this ingrained pattern by creating a sharp contrast between the two qualities expressed. This unexpected and somewhat unorthodox mode of contrast is precisely why I had initially assumed the sentence to be grammatically faulty. Yet there was no error; the contast was intentional. Bucking standard belief, meditating in distracting environments can be “positively helpful” according to Arkle.

The first thing that popped into my mind after I had understood the two sentences above was Ernest Hemingway and his habit of writing in cafés rather than in solitary rooms. (Hey, I am a writer, after all.)

For a few minutes, I nursed a newfound belief that I had, perhaps, discovered the solution to my meditation problems. All I needed to do was go to a café or some other place filled with mild distractions and attempt to do there what I had before only tried in quiet rooms behind closed doors. However, I soon rejected this idea; I knew I would never be able to meditate in any place like a café. It would offer too many distractions and effectively nullify any meditative state I might be able to conjure.

Feeling dispirited, I turned off my computer, stood up from my chair, rubbed my eyes, and informed my wife that I was going out for my usual night walk in the farm fields and meadows surrounding our village.

Night walks have become something of a ritual for me. Three of four nights a week, I make my way along the bank of the narrow river near our house and walk to the stand of towering poplar trees about three kilometers away where I usually turn around and trace my way back to the village. Fitted with a headlamp that illuminates the small patch of ground before me, I walk for the better part of an hour on most nights. For the first five or ten minutes, I think about the day’s events or some petty concern or other, but as I make my deeper into the fields and deeper into the night, these thoughts tend to melt away, and deeper thoughts tend to surface.

As I ventured into the fields last night, I was greeted by a nearly full moon that hung low on the horizon. The recent winter thaw had released the earthy smells of the previous autumn into the air; in the distance I could make out the darkened forms of two red deer bounding over the harvested remains of a corn field.

All I could think about during the first ten minutes of my walk was Arkle and meditation, but these thoughts dissolved as I rounded the bend in the river, and I started thinking instead about the world and my place in it and how glorious the moon was in the sky and how magnificent it was to just be walking in that field at that moment and how meaningful all of this was.

The sight of the church steeple in my village was what drew me back to everyday awareness. I stopped walking and realized I was a mere hundred meters from my house. I had been walking for more than hour, but I had only been mildly conscious of the walk itself. As happens every time I go out into the fields at night, I had spent the vast majority of the time in state of deep contemplation. I suddenly wondered if that was what Arkle had meant by concentrated attention.

When I got back into the house, I turned the computer on again and reread Arkle’s essay:

Meditation can also be used as a word to define the extraction of our own significance and purpose from life but is also the concentrated attention required to know the significance of life itself.

I paused for a moment and reflected on whether or not I was actually doing this during my walks, nighttime or otherwise. I continued reading:

But, from the initial purpose of balancing out materialism, meditation should become an intrinsic part of our own individual nature, so that it would be a different thing to different people and something that changes for them continually as they grow and move within themselves.

I leaned back in my chair and smiled. Could it be that my walks were my own idiosyncratic form of meditation? Could it be that I have been meditating this whole time without even realizing it?

Yes.

Yes, I think it could.

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Demons and Their Turning Games

19/2/2019

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Most Men consider Latin a dead language, but for demons, Latin words remain rich in meaning and full of life. I imagine most demons to be fluent Latin speakers, which implies a knowledge of the origins, nuances, and subtleties of English words with Latin roots.

Ask the average English speaker what vert means and they will offer one of the following as answers:

1. French for the color green.
2. American slang for an automobile with a retractable roof.
3. I dunno!

Ask the average demon, and it will immediately identify vert as the Latin root for turn. The answer will come quickly, without a second’s hesitation. Most demons will point out the root vers also means the same because demons welcome every chance to prove how clever they are.

Demons are old hands in the realm of vert/vers. They have crafted turning into a devilish art - it's a finely tuned skill they have mastered over the ages. At a fundamental level, it forms the foundation of their existence, and is the ultimate expression of their being. Even the most cursory glance at how demons employ the trick of the turn reveals this to be true.

The overarching demonic goal is to pervert; to cause Men to turn away from Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Virtue. One tactic inherent in this objective is to pervert Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Virtue through corruption, debasement, or improper use.

Should demons fail to debase the transcendentals, they eagerly work to invert them by depicting Truth as lies, Beauty as ugliness, Goodness as evil, and Virtue as vice. This inversion often succeeds, and whenever it does, demons happily welcome converts into the fold.

Demons utilize these persuaded, induced, and changed individuals to subvert the vestiges of proper authority. The converted are supplied shovels and pickaxes, and they are persuaded to dig up the foundations of Reality, firm in the conviction that the fabric of Reality itself can indeed be undermined. The converts go on to establish massive bureaucracies whose sole purpose is to imprison bodies while the demons continue the effort to corrupt and damn souls.

Being narcissistic in nature, demons seek eyes to advert. They desire all attention be turned to vice. Consequently, they create and maintain an enormous yet oddly formless media network to advertise and amplify corruption. If advertisements prove ineffective, demons will use the media to divert and distract through endless parades of amusements and entertainments.

Should stronger measures be required, demons will ceremoniously use the media to controvert and openly voice opposition against all who dare to question or refuse to submit. The demons lash out most harshly at those who avert their eyes and turn away because nothing in this world is more insulting to a demon than open aversion to the demonic.

The constant and relentless turning and churning of demonic bureaucracies and media is purposefully vertiginous. A mere hour or two spent in the grips of either or both is enough to dizzy even the most levelheaded among us. Demons invest a considerable amount of time and energy into making vertigo the default psychological state of the world.

Sadly, most people end up welcoming and, eventually, embracing this dazed, distracted, dumb existence. Oddly enough, few of them will experience any sense of loss, for the demons shall praise them for their moral versatility and claim the acceptance of all diversions as the new religion of diversity.

Yet, the turning tactics demons employ occasionally fail. Some of the converted reconvert and return to their former states. Others attempt to revert, to go back to Tradition, only to discover the Tradition they seek no longer exists. Those who have never converted at all stand as defiant examples. They attempt to show the world that the demons’ rise is merely the obverse of Man’s fall, and that there is nothing accidental or inadvertent about the turning games that demons play.

This raises a question. How should we live if we choose to resist demons and their turning games? To challenge the demons, I propose the following - we must learn to play a few turning games ourselves.

The first requirement is a strong line of vertebrae; a strengthening of the backbone. Turning games are difficult. They are filled with adversity, and for the spineless, they offer little reprieve.

Once we have found our spines, we must reject the demonic claim that all is controvertible and make our way back to the realm of the incontrovertible. We must recognize and sing praises to the unassailable, incontestable, and undeniable existence of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Virtue.

The re-establishment of the incontrovertible opens the possibility to turn our attention back toward higher things and establish thinking that emenates from the vertex of Being.

Once this has occurred, we may begin to converse with God again. And when we address the world, we must animadvert against the demons and all the evil they unleash upon the world through their relentless turning games.

Note: I welcome the addition of any demonic vert/vers turning games I may have overlooked.

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Writing Fiction - An Unpredictable Journey

18/2/2019

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In the next week or two I am going to begin working on a new novel. Over the past couple of months, I have been sketching some plot outlines and making notes, and the rough form of a cohesive narrative is slowly emerging from the mists. Nearly seven years have passed since I completed my only published novel, and as I stand at the edge of beginning on a new one, I find myself thinking quite a bit about the first one, the process that went into creating it, and how it was very much akin to embarking on a journey.

To be honest, I don’t know how I managed to write my first book or what the exact source of inspiration for its characters, plot, and ideas may have been. To paraphrase Colin Wilson’s idea, I simply began the project as a sort of thought experiment, unsure of where it would go and how it would end. I am in a similar place now. A general premise exists, but I cannot predict where this story will go. For me, fiction writing has always been like setting about on a journey inspired by a general sense of destination but lacking any sense of itinerary.

The City of Earthly Desire was difficult to write at first. At its most basic level, I wanted the book to be a polemic against the ugly rise and proliferation of the pornography industry in Budapest following the collapse of the Iron Curtain. At a deeper level, I approached the book as an act of repentance for my own unfortunate engagement with pornography in the past. My aim was to write a novel about the harmful and dangerous allure of hedonism and the Beauty of Sodom, and juxtapose these with real Beauty. Thus, I began working on the novel in 2009 armed with little more than these general notions.

In retrospect, these aims did not give me much with which to work. To be frank, I found the prospect of writing about the porn industry rather unappealing in itself, and it was not my ambition to pen any kind of sex novel similar to the ones that saturate bestseller lists today. It also became clear that I would never finish the narrative if it became nothing more than a rant against pornography disguised as fiction. As a consequence, I gave my imagination free rein in the first draft in an effort to see where the story could take me.

As the months passed, the narrative flowed into places I never could have imagined – unexpected landscapes emerged and a geography I could not have predicted revealed itself to me. The journey ventured into unforeseen territories – Hungarian history and mythology, communism, Danube Swabian culture, painting and fine art, emigration and the American Dream, liberalism and its discontents, and Christianity and spiritual seeking to name but a few.

By the time I finished the first draft, my anti-pornography book had blossomed into something far more complex than I had originally envisioned. As the characters came to life on paper, they invariably infused their presence into the narrative, and wove their personal stories seamlessly into the fabric of the larger story. In the end, the subject of pornography still dominated some aspects of the story, but it was no longer the only story, nor the REAL story.

As I currently prepare to write a new novel, I am filled with tremendous enthusiasm and anticipation. I don’t know where this latest fiction-writing journey will ultimately take me, but I have no doubt the journey will be an exhilarating one filled with unexpected destinations and unforeseen soujorns ultimately culminating in a place I cannot even imagine today.

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What Scares My Kid More Than Anything?

17/2/2019

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Raising young children inevitably involves a phase or phases during which parents do their best to comfort their kids about the monsters under the bed, the ghosts in the closet, and the things that go bump in the night. Delicate attempts are made to convince young sons and daughters of the unreality of these things, followed by explanations that assure the monster under the bed is just a pair of slippers; the closet ghosts, merely hanging clothes; and the bump in the night, simply the furnace clicking on. When children are very young, parents also strive to shield them from disturbing images and scenes on television and the internet. If our kids happen to inadvertently catch a glimpse of Freddy Krueger or Godzilla, we, as parents, tell them about actors and masks and computer animation in the hope that this dissolves some of the shock.

Fortunately, bogeymen and night monsters have never really frightened my son. In fact, I cannot recall a single instance where I had to console him regarding these things. Though my boy seems immune to the conventional creatures that terrify children, he is not immune to fear. So what scares my seven-year-old these days? Colliding galaxies, that’s what.

While other parents rush to switch the television channel or close a web browser after some scary monster or violent scene inadvertently appears on the screen, I feel the urge to jump out of my chair every time an astronomy or space program comes on. My son’s fascination with space-related themes began innocently enough with cartoon songs about the sun and the solar system, but after he turned four, he moved up to watching full-length documentaries about space and the universe. I know for certain he did not understand the content of these shows, but he seemed to find the visuals engaging, so I let him watch them with me whenever they happen to pop up on T.V. or online.

After my son turned five, I noticed he was beginning to comprehend the content of these documentaries. One day we watched a program about asteroids and meteor collisions. My son spent the next two months asking about the possibility of a meteor obliterating Earth, and whenever he stepped out of the house, I noticed he cast apprehensive glances up at the sky.

Following the viewing of a program describing black holes, my son became convinced one would materialize in the corner of his bedroom and suck him over its event horizon where he would then be ruthlessly spaghettified. Recently, we happen to view a program that focused on the eventual collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies 3.75 billion years from now. His reaction to this news was one of defiant disbelief and existential indignation. “That will never happen,” he still grumbles occasionally whenever he ponders the matter. Inevitably, he looks at me and adds, “Why would God let that happen?”

I must admit, coming up with reassuring and meaningful answers to some of his questions regarding the mysteries of the universe stretches my cognitive abilities to their absolute limits. Sadly, I have learned that lightly dismissing my son's concerns by citing the time frame involved in events like galaxy collisions does little to assuage him, and I am left scrambling to find answers for things that are, quite frankly, beyond my own limited scope of comprehension.

I am almost certain my son’s current fixation on planetary collisions, supernovas, black holes, asteroid impacts, and wormholes is merely a phase. If not, I comfort myself with the notion that I may have a budding astrophysicist in the house. Regardless, I must confess there are moments I wish some imaginary monster did lurk under my son's bed. That sort of thing would be much simpler to address than the stellar phenomena that strike wonder, dread, and awe in him now.

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Recognizing the Difference Between Helpful and Harmful Hindsight

16/2/2019

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I recently experienced a sort of hindsight is 20/20 moment after I began engaging with the work of William Arkle. This experience started me thinking about missed opportunities and their implications. I came to the conclusion that even though missed opportunities of the past are generally bad, there are certain circumstances where not doing or engaging with something in an earlier time should not inspire regret. In other words, there may be reasons behind missed opportunities or actions not taken in the past, and we should consider these reasons to be Good. I will make an attempt to outline the thinking that brought me to this conclusion in the following.

Hindsight is 20/20 is an expression used to express the acknowledgement of an error, misstep, or missed opportunity in the past, and the recocognition of what the right course of action should have been once the dust has settled. The expression is frequently preceded or followed by some statement in the mixed conditional, which describes the present results of an unreal condition in the past. Grammatically, it follows this construction:

If + Past Perfect - would + infinitive

A basic and common example could be a missed investment opportunity in the form of the following:

If I had invested in Apple when it went public in 1980, I would be a rich man today.

This example provides an action not taken and the result that would have manifested in the present if the action had been taken in the past. Knowing what we know today, an investment in Apple in 1980 would have indeed created immense wealth for the investor today. Thus, purely from the perspective of wealth accumulation, an investment in Apple in 1980 would have been a wise action to take.

In essence, this is a perfect example of hindsight being 20/20, and this kind of thinking is both useful and helpful at times. In many ways it is an essential tool in the learning process; a way of identifying past errors, missteps, and missed opportunities, and laying the groundwork for the avoidance of similar errors, missteps, and missed opportunities in the present and future. It can also make us more keenly aware of missed possibilities in the past and perhaps help us identify similar possibilities if and when they manifest later.

This type of thinking works best in concrete situations in both the past and present, and for statements that do not wade into the realm of value – be it moral, ethical, political, social, or aesthetic.

In this sense, the investment example above works. In many ways it merely states the obvious result of an unreal action based on known, that is, real knowledge. There is little speculation at play and no attempt is made to add any additional value to the result that would have manifested had the action been taken.

In other words, the statement reveals a fact based on what we know to be true (you would be rich), but it does not attempt to assign additional value to that fact (like being happier, more content, a better person, etc.) These values may be implied through connotations of the word rich, but the fact remains – explicit value has not been stated.

The hindsight is 20/20 framework and the mixed conditional construction used to describe present results of an unreal condition in the past are useful in concrete, non-value situations, but it tends to run into problems once notions of value seep into the equation.

Consider the following:

If I had married Susan, I would be a happy man today.

Unlike the Apple investment example, there is really no concrete knowledge in the present or the past that can support the result stated in the example above. In other words, there is no guarantee the man in question would truly be happy had he married Susan because there is no concrete evidence in the real world to support this declared result.

Let’s imagine Susan ended up marrying one of the man’s friends, and the man bases his declaration upon the evidence he detects in the marriage between Susan and his friend (it is a solid marriage, they are happy, Susan is a good wife, etc.). Though this evidence may be true, it is only true for the concrete marriage between Susan and the friend, not the theoretical, unreal marriage between Susan and the man who made the mixed conditional declaration. While evidence for the former exists, evidence to support the latter does not. Simply put, there is no guarantee of similar results had the man married Susan because his marriage to Susan would not be the same as the existing marriage between Susan and his friend.

The same could not be said of the Apple example. If I invested money in the company in 1980 and you did the same, we would both be rich because ample evidence to support this notion exists in the real world for both of us.

The man in the marriage example is, essentially, making an unreal, fantasy statement that has the potential to be both harmful and hindering as he moves forward in life. Unlike the Apple example, the poor man cannot even state something as simple as “If I had married Susan, I would be married” with perfect certainty because there is no evidence in the external word to support this result either and the result would not have been up to him alone (they could have divorced the next day, for example). Thus, his declaration remains speculation here as well.

Why am I going on about all of this?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I experienced a hindsight 20/20 moment yesterday when I began reading about William Arkle. After thirty minutes of reading, I experienced the following thought:

“If I had discovered William Arkle earlier, I would be so much wiser today.”

It is immediately apparent that this thought expresses a value statement. What is also immediately apparent is the tinge of regret the thought exudes.

It took me about ten minutes to recover from this thought and begin to examine it objectively. The conclusions I reached after having dissected the thought helped me understand much about hindsight, mixed conditionals, and what I have learned about Arkle’s own ideas concerning the difference between Will Power and The Will.

Firstly, I had to accept the following – for reasons unbeknownst to me, I was not meant to discover, I mean truly discover, William Arkle until now. As regrettable as it might seem, there was a reason why I had not engaged with Arkle’s work earlier. Perhaps I had not been ready to do so before. Perhaps I had to engage with other thinkers and their works first.

Secondly, there is no guarantee that I would have liked or even been drawn to Arkle’s ideas had I encountered them earlier in life. I was a different person back then and reading Arkle’s writings in the past may have put me off Arkle entirely.

Thirdly, I cannot say with certainty that I would be a wiser person today had I engaged with William Arkle’s work previously because I could have rejected his wisdom outright, or misunderstood it, or misinterpreted it.

To conclude, I had to accept the following – I had not engaged with William Arkle because I had not been ready to do until now. As much as I would like to regret not discovering Arkle sooner, I must realize I have nothing to regret, and that engaging with him now rather than earlier in my life indicates good luck rather than bad luck. In essence, I had to understand that I have basically lost nothing and stand to gain much by not discovering William Arkle until now.

Thus, I had to recognize the fantasy contained in my original thought regarding Arkle, and reformulate the thought in the following manner:

“If I had read William Arkle earlier, I would have read William Arkle earlier.”

This is the only true hindsight 20/20 statement I can make about not discovering William Arkle earlier in my life. Notice how it lacks any description of value; and I am almost certain that is exactly what I would have received in value terms had I encountered the man’s ideas in the past.

Thankfully, I have found an amazing amount of value in reading Arkle now, which supports the notion that I was, perhaps, not meant to discover William Arkle until this moment in time.

If I have it right, this is what William Arkle himself would have referred to as The Will at work.

The regret I experienced for not reading Arkle sooner might be considered an example of my Will Power trying to exert itself in the world – on an unreal situation to create an unprovable present, no less!

Lesson learned? Renouncing Will Power and embracing the Will truly is crucial in life; even, it appears, in matters of hindsight.

Note added: I would like to express a word of gratitude to Professor Bruce G. Charlton whose incessant and inspired writing about William Arkle over the past four or five years finally motivated me to begin studying William Arkle myself. What a gift that is proving to be. Thanks, Bruce.

On a side note, Bruce Charlton also describes how it took him many years and many "missed opportunities" before he felt ready and compelled to begin studying William Arkle - seems like Arkle is one of those rare individuals who becomes engaging to a person at exactly the right time in life, if the person in question allows it.

Bruce Charlton's superb William Arkle blog is an excellent place to begin the William Arkle journey if you feel so inclined. Who knows? It might also be your time to do so.

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Hungary’s Seemingly Eternal Tightrope Walk; Will It Succeed This Time, or Will There Be Another Tumble into the Abyss?

15/2/2019

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The bulk of Hungary’s 1100 year existence as a nation in various forms could be summarized as a tightrope walk. Situated in the heart of Central Europe, the Magyar homeland has often served as a sort of crossroads and dividing line, and much of the nation’s history could be summarized as little more than a precarious balancing act punctuated by tragic missteps and misfortunes that resulted in rather spectacular falls into an unforgiving abyss. Though the country recovered from these falls in the past, the recoveries usually amounted to nothing more than being put back on the tightrope again. In many ways, that is where Hungary finds itself again today – out on the line, its eyes firmly on the rope stretched before it as it tightly grips its balancing pole and cautiously, yet defiantly, takes careful steps forward in the hope of reaching the other side.

I usually do not delve too deeply into the world of politics, but my four years of living in Hungary has inspired me to consider the spiritual/cultural/metaphysical implications of the actions this small country in the heart of Europe has taken to openly oppose the sacred pillars of the Global Establishment, and whether these actions truly do reflect deeper spiritual/cultural/metaphysical forces at play or not.

The attitudes and actions of Hungary’s current government led by Viktor Orbán clearly oppose the many objectives and aims the Global Establishment has set and is implementing around the world. This is most apparent in Hungary’s resistance to many of the key Establishment tenets such as mass immigration, diversity, anti-Christianity, gender politics, the toppling of the so-called patriarchy, and so forth.

Conversely, the Orbán government has not displayed its resistance solely by declaring what it is against, but by also declaring what it supports. Chief among these are the desire to preserve a homogeneous culture and people, the desire to support and strengthen families, the desire to tackle demographic decline through an increased fertility rate rather than mass migration, and the desire to maintain Christian values as the bedrock of European civilization and culture. It goes without saying that all of this has made Orbán and, by extension, Hungary, a pariah in the eyes of the Global Establishment.

Here is a brief and rather limited list of some of the actions Hungary has taken in opposition to some Global Establishment goals:

Mass migration: Orbán has, on countless occasions, explicitly declared that he will not allow Hungary to become a nation of immigrants. He has warned of the dangers of establishing what he terms parallel societies within a country’s borders. He ordered the construction of a fence on Hungary’s southern border, an action which has helped stem the flow of migrants arriving into Europe by land. Recently, the government has imposed taxes and restrictions on foreign and domestic NGOs that aid and assist the cause of illegal mass migration.
Gender politics: A few months ago, the Hungarian government declared it would no longer fund gender studies programs operating in Hungarian universities. Citing a lack of utility in the education these programs offered, the Hungarian government also stated, quite frankly, that gender studies and similar university programs were, in fact, poisonous to society and culture. Central European University, an eminent Citadel of Darkness founded and funded by none other than George Soros himself, recently announced it would close shop and leave the country due to unrelenting government pressure.
Demographic decline: Rejecting the Global Establishment’s call to offset demographic decline with mass migration, Hungary has begun heavily investing in social schemes and programs designed to increase the domestic fertility rate. Orbán has clearly stated he wishes to solve Hungary’s demographic decline through increased domestic births rather than increased immigration from other nations. Some incentives the government has implemented include grants and accessible low-interest housing loans for couples who commit to having three or more children, and lifetime income tax exemptions for women who bear more than four children.
Family: Hungary does not recognize same sex marriages and supports the traditional family model. As in the case of child birth, the government has begun providing financial incentives to encourage young people to marry and start families.
Christianity: The Hungarian government openly supports Christianity and the maintenance of Christian culture, which is under terminal threat in Europe from the twin forces of liberalism and Muslim migration. Hungary has also openly supported the plight of persecuted Christians around the world.
Media: The Orbán government has taken measures against what it deems subversive media channels and outlets that do little more than spout toxic, politically-correct diatribes. This has rendered much of what constitutes domestic media firmly within the government’s sphere of control.

Orbán’s government has taken many other actions in the four years I have lived here, but for all intents and purposes, the list above is sufficient to prove my point that Hungary is clearly not abiding by the dictates the Global Establishment has issued for countries in the West.

The response of the Establishment has thus far been both clearly predictable and surprisingly muted. In addition to the usual media tar-and-feathering smear campaigns that cite Orbán and Hungary as xenophobic, fascist, dictatorial, undemocratic, totalitarian, regressive, racist, sexist, and oppressive, the only other tangible steps the Establishment has taken against Hungary thus far is the triggering of Article 7 in the European Union, a motion which decidedly contains much more bark than bite.

And this is where we get back to the eternal tightrope walk. Unlike Great Britain, which will likely detach itself from the EU in some manner or other in the near future, there have been no notable calls to leave the EU within Hungary. Personally, I find this troubling, but I can understand why the majority of my fellow citizens and the government see no benefit to leaving the EU at the moment. The benefits Hungary enjoys are almost exclusively material in nature, but after having deprived of material benefits for more than half-a-century, I cannot be too quick to condemn those who wish to continue to reap the financial benefits the EU apparently brings to the country even though I know material benefits often come with a metaphysical price tag.

Orbán is confident that he will somehow be able to alter the face of the EU and bring about meaningful and positive change from within. He is betting that the populations within other EU countries have seen the example he and other eastern European leaders have shown, and that these populations will turn out en-masse and swing the vote away from the progressive, Leftist bureaucrats currently in entrenched in power within the vast Citadels of Darkness and Towers of Babel that epitomize the EU. I must admit, I admire his confidence, but I fear he may be setting up Hungary for another fall from the tightrope, albeit inadvertently and unintentionally.

Orbán was a young political activist when he witnessed the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989/1990. During those days, weeks, and months, he saw firsthand the immense influence a small country can have on the global stage in the face of insurmountable odds. When Hungary threw open a segment of its border during the Paneuropean Picnic in 1989, it quickly precipitated the collapse of communism in all of eastern Europe shortly afterward. I feel Orbán is hoping for a similar turn of events in the upcoming European Parliamentary elections in May. On the surface it is a noble goal, but at the risk of being pessimistic, I doubt it will work even if Orbán ends up getting the election results he desires.

Attempts to remold a bureaucracy as inherently evil and corrupt, and as utterly demon-controlled as the EU not only seem futile, but smack of wrong thinking and foolhardiness. At its core, it’s the approach of the alchemist – the vain attempt to turn lead into gold. Though I generally believe much of what Orbán has stood for to be Good, I have deep misgivings about Hungary’s current balancing act. If I were in Orbán’s position, I would simply lay the plans for Hungary’s eventual departure from the EU. For all I know, he could be doing that at the moment. Whatever the case, remaining inside the EU, regardless of the political direction it takes after the May elections, seems like an extremely bad idea to me.

In my darker moments, I feel everything I am seeing now is little more than a political dog and pony show – that Orbán might actually be cooperating with the Establishment at much deeper levels than is readily apparent. However, when I examine the sum total of all the actions Hungary has taken against the Establishment thus far, I simply cannot accept this to be the case. This is where I begin considering the possible spiritual/metaphysical dimensions of what is currently taking place.

Will Hungary finally reach the other side and be able to step off its eternal tightrope and inspire Europe to follow it as was the case in 1989, or will Hungary tumble into the abyss with the rest of Europe, perhaps never to recover again?

The coming months and years will determine that. Maybe it’s something we should all be keeping an eye on.

Note: Though I have presented a rather sweepingly positive view of Orbán and the Hungarian government in this post, I am fully aware of their many deficiencies, shortcomings, corruptions, and missteps. It goes without saying that I consider Orbán and his policies to be net Good, especially when compared to what is happening in countries like France and Germany under the leadership of figures like Macron and Merkel respectively, but I am not oblivious to Orbán’s faults and the simple fact that he is, after all is said and done, a politician.

What I have attempted to do here, probably quite poorly, is present or approach current political developments in Hungary and the EU from a spiritual/cultural/metaphysical perspective. Seen in this light, Orbán at least seems to offer a glimmer of hope. Time will tell if this hope truly has a basis in or manages to manifest in Reality in any meaningful way.

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What's in a Name? Or, How I Would Have Been an Absolute Rock Star of a Person Had I Been Born In France

14/2/2019

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Names are strange. Like so many other things in life, we don’t have much say in the matter, especially when we are young. We are labelled at birth and if we happen not to like the label we have been given, there isn’t much we can do about it until much later when we can legally change our name should we so chose.

My parents emigrated from Hungary to the United States, and when I was simply named after my father when I was born. In Hungary, my father’s name was Berger Ferenc (Hungarians always place the surname first) pronounced something like Bairgair Fairains in Hungary, but in America he became Frank Berger, and I became the junior variety of that name. He chose Frank over Francis because he thought it sounded more manly. It took him a while to learn that when most Americans heard his new, Anglicized name, all they could think of were barbeque meats.

Think about it. Frank. Berger.

How are the franks, Bob?
They’re done, Dick, but the burgers need a few more minutes!
Well, let’s have another Pabst Blue Ribbon then!

But I really can’t complain. My poor sister had it worse. My parents named her Anita.

Anita Berger. Say it fast.

I need a burger.

My parents raised us both as best they could and provided everything we needed, but in the name-giving department, they messed things up big time, God bless them both.

I bloodied many noses and had my nose bloodied many times defending my name when I was growing up because whenever kids heard my name, the hamburger jokes were quick to follow.

Do you come with a side of fries?
I saw you yesterday in a Happy Meal!
What’s your middle name? Cheese? Bacon? Double? How about chicken?

Yeah, I pretty much heard them all. Naturally, the taunting diminished as I grew older, but even as an adult, I could tell my name still inspired mild amusement among fellow adults. No matter where I went, I was confronted with thinly veiled expressions of bemusement and lightning flash grins whenever I introduced myself.

Reverting my given name back to Francis instead of Frank when I was a young adult in an effort to differentiate myself from my father and put a stop to the endless confusion about which Frank the caller wished to speak to every time the phone rang at the house carried its own set of problems. I cannot tell you how many times I showed up places and introduced myself as Francis only to discover people had been expecting a female instead of a male.

Some Germanic names like Berger simply do not translate well into English. My ancestors were originally from Austria and the name Berger means mountaineer or of the mountain. The root of the word still exists in English words like iceberg, but people in modern Anglo-speaking countries do not take such etymological subtleties into consideration when they hear the name Berger – for most the word epitomizes a grilled beef patty on a sesame seed bun. Nothing less; nothing more.

The only group in North America that does not find my name instantly amusing – German and Hungarian-speakers aside – is Jewish people. I guess it’s because the Jews have enough Rosenbergers, Goldbergers, and Schwartzbergers among them. In fact, Jewish people sometimes assumed I was Jewish after they heard my name, and I must admit there were times I wished I had been born a Radelberger, a Silverberger, or even a Freiberger instead of just a plain-old Berger without a side of fries.

As I was growing up, I was acutely aware of the many reasons why people changed their names. I knew why Hollywood actors like Bernard Schwartz decided to become Tony Curtis, and why writers like Marie-Henri Beyle felt more comfortable writing under the pen name, Stendhal.

A person's name is a calling card to the world. It transmits unconscious messages and signals that attract or repel, invite or dissuade, comfort or distress, impress or amuse, enchant or disenchant. This quality extends to everything, not just people. Consider this - corporations and marketing agencies spend countless hours and billions of dollars agonizing over names. As much as we hate to admit it, names matter.

A lot.

Oddly enough, despite the minor hardships I endured growing up, I never seriously considered changing my name after I matured. I knew a few people who had. There was one chap I knew when I lived in Budapest who, like me, had been born with a rather unfortunate Teutonic name, and he changed it to something more Anglo-sounding when he became an adult. He never told me about this personally. It was something I stumbled upon inadvertently years later, and when I discovered his original name and the changed name he had chosen in its place, I was reminded of James Gatz’s transformation into Jay Gatsby.

When I was a teenager, I sometimes told girls my name was Jim Steele, borrowing the name of Holden Caulfield’s alias in Catcher in the Rye. I was stunned to discover that most girls reacted considerably more positively to Jim Steele than they did to Frank Berger. Maybe as Jim Steele I gave off the allure of a Ford Mustang, while Frank Berger reminded them more of an AMC Gremlin?

Who knows?

Though I never considered changing my name, I remember wishing many times that I had been born in France rather in New York City. This first occurred to me when my grade six French teacher, who was a lovely young lady I secretly adored, gave all of her students’ names a French flair. Thus, the Marys became Maries, the Johns became Jeans, and I became – brace for it – Francois Berger.

Francois Berger.

Not Francois Burger, but Berger, with a soft g, pronounced Bershay – ah, Bershay - the sound of a seductive spring breeze; the soft rustle of silk on bare skin; a romantic whisper in the dead of night.

Even in grade six I understood that Francois Berger was one hell of a sexy name. Every time my French teacher said it I imagined myself as the fourth muskateer in some swashbuckling novel. Even then, I wondered how my life might have been different if I had been born in a French-speaking country rather an English-speaking one.

The name Francois Berger oozes style, sophistication, class, and poise. It’s like a brand name within itself. I knew I could join the ranks of Louis Vuitton, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and Coco Chanel. I had never been into fashion, but I was certain that with a name like Francois Berger I could sell myself as anything – especially as a writer. As I matured, I seriously contemplated moving to Quebec from Ontario just to use my French name. I was sure Francois Berger would have it much easier and better than Francis Berger ever could.

Yet I never moved to France or even Quebec, and Francois Berger has remained a name that never was – at least not for me. For the past four years, I have been living in Hungary. Here I am officially Berger Ferenc. Hence, I have reclaimed the name my father cast aside when he moved to America so many years ago.

Neither my surname nor my Christian name elicits as much as a chuckle from anyone here in Hungary. There is no implicit connection to any kind of grill meat – patty-shaped, tubular, or otherwise. If we remain in Hungary, my son will never know what it is like to be teased for his name. He may have to bloody some noses or have his nose bloodied for other things – but never for his name.

As for me, I am happy being Francis Berger and Berger Ferenc, though most of my friends and colleagues simply refer to me as Frankie, even here in Hungary.

If and when I travel back to the US or Canada, I am sure the customs agent will look at my passport and smile, but this no longer bothers me in the slightest.

Really.

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Self-Righteousness Is Self-Wrongness

13/2/2019

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Leftism not only opposes righteousness, it is openly hostile to it. Righteousness is anathema to Leftism. The goal of Leftism is to do everything it can to ensure people stray from living righteous lives. Leftism replaces righteousness with self-righteousness, and seeks to make that the foundation and altar of life.

Self-righteousness can take many forms in the language of Leftism – social justice, equality, human rights, and so forth. The insertion of self into righteousness is the trick and the distortion – the replacing of perfection with imperfection. God is cast aside and the imperfection of Man is held up as perfection.

Leftism urges people please themselves instead of God – to adopt a smug sense of moral superiority and embrace the idea that Man-made beliefs, affiliations, and actions represent the highest possible virtues. Self-righteous Leftism cannot tolerate the opinions, actions, and behaviors of those who strive to be righteous and considers these strivings to be laughable, outdated, regressive, hateful, and deplorable.

Leftism also deftly wields self-righteousness as a weapon and uses it to attack those striving to be righteous. In a deft sleight of hand, the Left accuses everyone else of being infected with self-righteousness.

“Who are you to judge us?” they demand. “It is you who are smug in your perceived moral superiority! What gives you the right to believe you are holier than we are? Do not enslave us with your sententiousness – your excessive moralizing. We seek to be free and we wish to liberate you from your own sanctimonious morality.”

Seeds of doubt are planted and many abandon righteousness for liberation. Others withdraw and fall silent lest they themselves be judged.

Yet those who honor and strive for Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Virtue are not immune or blameless, for some become self-righteous themselves. Some cannot resist the self-satisfaction of donning righteousness and displaying it scornfully for the world to see as they perform struts of unearned certainty and strike poses of unwarranted confidence.

And in my darker moments, I become one of them. Those times I rise from my chair and glare banefully at the world, convinced I can do no wrong as I mercilessly place others on the scales.

Utterly oblivious to shadow I have cast – to the self and the place it should not be.

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Pálinka - Yeah, It's an Acquired Taste

12/2/2019

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The rock band Queen performed a concert in Budapest, Hungary in 1986, three years before the fall of the Iron Curtain. On the day of their open air rehearsal, members of the band were invited to sample pálinka, a fruit brandy native to Central Europe and, in many regards, the quintessence of Hungary itself.

Here is Freddie Mercury’s reaction to drinking pálinka.

As you probably noticed by Mr. Mercury’s reaction to this Magyar spirit, pálinka is touch on the strong side, which makes it a bit of an acquired taste. Made from mashed fruit, which is then distilled and matured for a short time, pálinka is famous for, or perhaps more correctly notorious for, the strong punch it packs. The etymology of the word comes from the Slavonic stem paliti, which means to burn. This is highly appropriate, for few spirits burn as thoroughly and impressively as pálinka does. The average alcohol content ranges between forty and fifty percent, but eighty percent distillations are also readily available.

Pálinka can be distilled from almost any fruit, but plum, peach, apricot, cherry, apple, grape, and pear are the most common varieties. A recent trend in Hungary is the distillation of more uncommon or expensive fruits such as raspberries, currants, blueberries, elderberries, and strawberries. Pálinkas blended with honey are becoming increasingly popular among those who simply cannot bear the burn.

I never cared much for pálinka when I was younger, but I have become quite partial to this fruit brandy since I moved to Hungary four years ago. Before proceeding allow me stress that I am an extremely light drinker, one who tends to limit his alcohol consumption to two or three drinks per week. Nonetheless, one of those two or three drinks inevitable ends up being a good shot of pálinka. Nothing, in my opinion or experience, takes the edge off a long day or warms the insides as thoroughly as pálinka does (save perhaps an excellent cognac, but that’s another subject entirely).

Pálinka making has a long tradition in Hungary and many Hungarians continue to distill their own. Producing one’s own pálinka is a matter of considerable pride in this country, and few things provide as much pleasure to the average Hungarian gentleman as being able to offer his friends or guests a sampling of his own handcrafted spirit. Quite a few men in my village distill their own pálinka; the ones I have been fortunate enough to sample thus far have been superb. I hope to distill my own next year.

If you enjoy a good stiff drink, keep your eyes open for Hungarian pálinka the next time you visit the shops or liquor store. The first shot will likely put you off, but don’t let it put you off entirely. Like many great things in life, pálinka is definitely an acquired taste, and it is, in my opinion, a taste well worth acquiring – in extreme moderation, of course!

If you do eventually acquire a taste for it, you will ultimately develop a sense of kinship with the people of this small, landlocked country. Unfortunately, the development of this kinship is extremely rare, as displayed by the reactions below.

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When Courage Comes at the Worst Time (And How That is Usually Good)

11/2/2019

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I have spent the last few days thinking about courage and what it means to courageous in our contemporary world. Though I enjoy the idealized depictions of courage found in films, novels, comic books and the like, I have always regarded these as unrealistic. Part of the problem with idealized heroic courage is its seeming effortlessness. Comic books and Hollywood films have a tendency to make courage look easy, to depict it as something that just happens, is just done, like breathing or scratching your head. Press a button and, boom, you have courage! Once the courageous act is complete, you are rewarded. This kind of cartoon courage is acceptable in action films, but real courage tends to be far more complex and nuanced.

Nevertheless, every now and then we are lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this kind of action-hero courage in real life; for example, when we witness police, firefighters, or rescue workers putting their lives at risk in an effort to help or save others. Sometimes ordinary people put themselves in harm’s way in an effort to do good, and these displays of courage fascinate us even more. Whatever the case, respect for the physical heroic act seems hardwired into us, and we respond positively to physical heroic acts whenever we encounter them in life.

Even so, courage is not limited to displays of bravery such as saving people from burning buildings or foiling armed bank robberies with nothing but a set of car keys and a half-eaten ham sandwich (I don’t know, use your imagination!). Subtler, less dramatic displays of courage do exist all around us, but these do not get much air time in our world, and when they do, they are usually misunderstood.

Oddly enough, this is the courage that interests me the most. Heroic physical action is but the visible tip of the courage iceberg; the real mass of what constitutes courage lays hidden beneath the water’s surface. This is the realm of mental and spiritual courage, and the actions emanating from here are usually subtle, occasionally ethereal, and almost always misinterpreted by everyone, including the person who performed the act!

Whether in act or thought, these ethereal expressions of courage rarely entail risking one’s physical life, but they often require just as much fortitude – perhaps more because they lack the physical/impulse reaction element present in most physical heroic acts, and instead focus on matters beyond the purely physical. This is the world of spiritual courage. Sometimes spiritual courage occurs spontaneously, a sudden burst that emanates from built up pressure one can no longer bear. Sometimes it is the result of much pondering, ruminating, and second-guessing; the product of a long, drawn-out fermenting process that builds up the self-possession and confidence required to trigger a decision or an action.

Unlike physical heroism, spiritual heroism offers little in the way of spectacle. Acts of physical courage and heroism are like firework displays; acts of spiritual courage, on the other hand, tend to elicit confusion or embarrassment whenever they are played out before an audience. Physical courage relies on being able to do the right thing in the right place at exactly the right time. On the other hand, spiritual courage often manifests in the material world as seemingly doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. People who perform purely physical acts of courage are rewarded with accolades and tributes on the six o’clock news, while spiritual heroes are normally considered dolts who let a great opportunity slip through their fingers.

As mentioned above, superhero displays of bravery are celebrated and admired because they demonstrate the ability to take the right action at the right time. Spiritual acts of bravery are misunderstood and perplexing because they are often perceived as the inability to take the right action at the right time.

From a purely material perspective, spiritual courage always comes at the worst possible time because it involves giving up or rejecting something in the material realm while simultaneously gaining something in the spiritual realm. Onlookers see the former, but are blind to the latter. This is what makes the even the most profound displays of spiritual courage appear like foolishness to the outsider.

Perhaps this is why we don’t always understand spiritual strength when we see it. Perhaps this is why we hesitate to perform acts of spiritual courage ourselves. Because the motivation to do so always seems to come at the worst time, and always involves some display of resolution that either brings no reward or, perhaps, even puts us at risk.

This idea has fascinated me for a long time. I explored it in my novel, in a scene where the young protagonist kills his own chance at being accepted into a university of fine arts in communist Hungary because he simply cannot bring himself to mouth the words the party wanted him to mouth.

The scene was intriguing to write. Viewed from one angle, the protagonist’s courage could not have come at a worse time – his insistence on speaking what he considers truth costs him his chance at fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a celebrated artist. Yet, from a different, more meaningful perspective, the protagonist’s strength of spirit could not have come at a more optimal time. By sabotaging his own attempt to get into the communist-ideology possessed university, the protagonist essentially saves his integrity and, perhaps, his soul.

The scene can be found below. Give it a read if you are so inclined. You may find it interesting.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

An usher guided them to the room where the interviews were being held. The selection committee – an odd mixture of a few intimidating party members garbed in military regalia, other stern-looking party members in civilian clothes, and a few weary professors dressed in ill-fitting suits – sat behind a long, imposing table perched upon a dais at the far end of a vast room decorated with ornate Baroque flourishes. Flags of The People’s Republic of Hungary drooped from vertical masts on either side of the table. A thick, oppressive cloud of silver-gray cigarette smoke hung in the air. Reinhardt sat down on one of the collapsible wooden chairs along the side of the room and he waited his turn. Ms. Kálmán sat in an area on the opposite side of the room reserved for escorts and guests.

It did not take long for the head of the committee, a stout, bulldog-headed man whose sweaty, bald scalp glistened even in the dull light, to call upon Reinhardt. The bulldog-man enunciated Reinhardt’s name distastefully, making no effort to veil the disgust he experienced as he forced his lips, tongue, and larynx to emit sounds his mind considered anathema. A lump formed in Ms. Kálmán’s throat; the interview had not even started, yet it already appeared her pupil did not stand a chance. As Reinhardt took his place before the table, she silently cursed herself for her idealism: See how they looked when they heard his name? What were you thinking Edina? You’ll be the laughing stock of the Ministry! You’ll rot in that awful village until you die!

Unlike Edina Kálmán, Reinhardt was calm and composed. He answered the first question the committee put to him succinctly. A few members of the committee nodded in approval. They perused his portfolio, handing it back and forth along the table while he spoke. Ms. Kálmán calmed down considerably after the first question. The response to the next question was eloquent and articulate. After ten minutes the committee was smiling in approval and the schoolteacher sat in her chair beaming as she playfully imagined herself back in Budapest in a senior level position within the Ministry of Education. That Reinhardt would gain entrance into the academy seemed a sure thing – that he would eventually rise and become a great artist became a very real possibility. She closed her eyes and pictured the day her student became famous. That would be the day she would be lauded as the comrade who had inspired a simple, Swabian peasant boy to become a great artist for the socialist cause. As these visions of future glory wafted through the teacher’s head, the committee put their final question to Reinhardt.

“Drixler, my boy,” the bulldog-headed man said. Mysteriously, he no longer experienced any difficulty pronouncing Reinhardt’s name. “In terms of truth, which do you believe is the most capable of expounding the profound truths of life: art or communism?”

Reinhardt pondered the question for a moment before replying slowly and methodically. “Communism. But as an aspiring artist, I would hope the combination of communism and art would ultimately expound the most profound truths about life.”
The committee nodded unanimously. Edina Kálmán smiled and envisioned herself in a spacious flat in the Buda Hills.

Had Reinhardt left his answer there, he would have gained acceptance into the University of Fine Arts and his teacher’s longing to return to Budapest may have become a reality. But the young artist found it impossible to leave his answer there. Even though it was not in his best interest to do so, he felt compelled to add something to his previous statement.

“Of course, as far as truth is concerned, some claim art trumps communism.”

The additional thirteen words Reinhardt chose to tack onto the end of his original answer stunned the committee. The temperature in the vast smoke-filled hall seemed to drop by ten degrees. Reinhardt immediately realized he had struck a nerve. He scrambled for a way to salvage the situation. He quickly realized all he needed to do was negate the notion contained in his previous statement by adding: but I would claim these individuals do not truly understand the enlightened foundations upon which communism is built . . . or words to that effect were all that were required. He opened his mouth. The right words were there, dripping from the tip of his tongue like honey, ready to feed and mollify the agitated, buzzing committee. But for reasons he could not even begin to comprehend, his brain refused to let his tongue rattle them off. He closed his mouth, cleared his throat, looked defiantly at each member of the committee and, to Ms. Kálmán’s utter horror, recited the underlined passage in Szentvölgyi’s old copy of Art of the Ages: “Art,” he said in a firm, steady voice, “is one of humanity’s highest callings. It is a higher thing than politics or economics. It marks the total expression of the creativity and freedom of the human spirit and is also one of the few paths through which mankind can transcend its earthly circumstances and approach the Divine. This is the essence that makes art eternal.”

Higher than politics or economics. Freedom. Creativity. Human spirit. Divine. The words exploded around the committee like bombs and rendered them shell-shocked. Reinhardt instantly joined the ranks of those noble, tragic souls who seal their own doom by expressing their opinions fully and sincerely. Put another way, Reinhardt committed the unforgivable sin of not knowing when to shut up. Edina Kálmán’s jaw dropped in disbelief and she nearly toppled from her chair. Only one person appeared to approve of what Reinhardt had said: the ancient professor at the end of the table who might have started his tenure at the university when Hungary was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The professor could not suppress a grin of endorsement after he heard Reinhardt’s words and, for a brief second, the old man’s eyes sparkled. But when he glanced down the length of the table and saw the frowning, disapproving looks, he quickly remembered himself. The grin vanished, the sparkle faded, and he hunched forward again, assuming the aura of a dying star slowly collapsing in on itself.
“Thank you, Drixler,” the bulldog-headed man said in an agitated voice. Reinhardt’s name had become difficult to pronounce once again. “That will be all.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Idiot!” Ms. Kálmán screamed.

The schoolteacher slammed the sliding door of the train cabin shut and glared at her pupil. Following the failed interview, she quickly aborted her promise to show Reinhardt the sights of Budapest and marched him back to the train station. She exchanged their tickets for ones good on the next available train. With new tickets in hand, she called ahead to Pécs and arranged to have the car meet them earlier than expected. Once they were on the train, she dropped down on the seat opposite Reinhardt, lit a cigarette and spat an angry plume of smoke into her student’s face. “We never rehearsed that answer!”

“They asked me a question about truth,” Reinhardt mumbled. “I told them the truth.”
“Truth?” Ms. Kálmán threw back her head and emitted an odd noise that fell somewhere between a screech and a cackle. “Do you have any idea what truth is, moron? Truth is whatever the Party tells us! Nothing more; nothing less.”

“That’s not truth.”

“Aargh, you make me sick!” she cried. She stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray and lit another one. “I hope you’re satisfied. You humiliated me before ministers, professors, party members. I am the laughing stock of the whole Ministry of Education. I’ll never be able to show my face in Budapest again! I’m lucky they didn’t arrest me on the spot!”

“I’m sorry,” Reinhardt said sincerely. “I meant no harm.”

The schoolteacher’s eyes became as wide as dinner plates and she wagged an accusatory finger. “Sorry? You’re not sorry. You did this on purpose.” Her tone became muted – conspiratorial. “You plotted this for months. It’s all part of some sick scheme. Revenge. The only reason you came to Budapest was to make a fool of me!”

Reinhardt leaned forward and touched Ms. Kálmán’s forearm. He had meant it as a wordless apology. He hoped it might soothe her, but the touch of his hand made the teacher recoil in disgust.

The train lurched forward and pulled out of the station. Ms. Kálmán looked longingly at a few ugly, nondescript buildings as the train rolled out onto the open tracks. “Well, you have succeeded in embarrassing me; however, I can wring some satisfaction out of this awful day, too. It pleases me to know your talent has no future here. You can paint until the flesh falls from your fingers, but you’ll never be a recognized artist in Hungary. You’ll end up a swineherd like the rest of your primitive ancestors.”

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Just an Expression

10/2/2019

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I have a part-time position at a university of applied sciences in Austria, and twice a month I travel across the border to the new, modern campus that resembles an airport terminal. On the first day of classes in September my supervisor held an orientation session for all the master’s level students enrolled in English classes, and she requested that all English instructors be present for the event.

I have worked at the school for four years, and in that time I have had five or six different native English-speaking instructor colleagues. Most tend to be American expats and very few tend to stay on the job more than a year or two. This past September, I had two new American colleagues, a man and a woman, both in their thirties. I happened to meet them for the first time in the hall outside the lecture hall just before the orientation started. We cordially introduced ourselves to each other. They struck me as friendly and enthusiastic, and after a few minutes of small talk, we entered the lecture hall together and took seats near the front of the room.

The American woman sat down next to me and continued her small talk to fill the time before the orientation began. She is an attractive, stylish woman, my female colleague, and her speech is crisp and articulate. I pegged her as a native Californian that day, but I could have that wrong. She informed she had a full-time instructor job in Vienna, and had previously spent a number of years in Prague. When she discovered I lived in Hungary, she asked a few questions about the country and what it is like to live there.

“It’s quite pleasant,” I replied, purposefully keeping my answers as general as possible to avoid having to wade into any long-winded descriptions and elaborations.

“That’s surprising to hear,” she said incredulously. “I read an article last week that said the country was sliding toward a dictatorship.”

I chuckled and nodded. Her eyes narrowed, as if she were gauging my reaction to her declaration.

“Yeah, well, don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” I said lightly, ending the sentence with a small smile.

She opened her mouth to respond, but remained silent. It took me a couple of seconds to notice that she was no longer really looking at me, but was focused instead on something behind me on the far side of the room. A dismayed expression settled over her face. She tapped me on the elbow with her manicured left hand and then pointed briefly at the door.

“Oh my God!" she said, before I had a chance to turn my head. "What is that doing here?”

I finally turned around to see what that was, but the only thing I noticed was a small group of students chatting by the door.

Sensing I was not seeing what she wanted me to see, my new colleague added, “Above the door.”

The source of her discomfort was a richly-carved wooden crucifix, no more than forty centimeters in height, affixed to the ocean of whiteness above the entrance. I must admit, I was rather surprised to see it myself, but for me the surprise was rather pleasant.

“That shouldn’t be here,” she continued after thirty seconds had elapsed. Her tone was hushed, almost conspiratorial.

“It's a Catholic country,” I offered. “And I've heard the people around these parts are quite religious.”

“So?” she snapped, shooting down my explanation as soon as it hit the air. “That makes no difference. That belongs in a church, not here.”

I took a second to examine her face, which had become pallid under the fluorescent lights. There was no doubt about it. The sight of the cross genuinely offended her. But it was more than mere offense. Her eyes revealed faint traces of disgust. Unable to look at her anymore, I averted my gaze to the fold-out desk before me and pretended to be intrigued by the wood grain lines on its lacquered surface.

“I’m going to bring this up with the dean,” my colleague said after a moment had passed. “It's inappropriate.”

I kept looking at the flowing wood-grain lines. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” I said. I did not wait for her to respond as I turned back toward her. “Which god do you believe in?”

The query caught her off guard and her eyes revealed the whites she had encased within elegantly-drawn eyeliner frames.

“When you saw the cross above the door you said ‘Oh my God,’” I said flatly. “So what god do you believe in? You obviously don't believe in Him.”

She looked at me as if I had just uttered some obscene joke. I could sense that I had instantly become the most ridiculous person she had ever met. I might as well have asked her if she believed in the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny.

“I’m an atheist,” she replied matter-of-factly. Then with a tinge of flustered impatience, she added, “It’s just an expression, you know.”

“What is?”

“Oh my God.”

“Yes, of course."

I could think of nothing else to say. Luckily, my supervisor called for everyone’s attention and began the orientation. My new female colleague started taking notes; I spent most of the orientation examining the fine craftwork of the cross above the door.

I have seen my female colleague at the school a few times since then. We smile and courteously say hello, but she shows little interest in stopping to chat whenever we happen to bump into each other in the halls. I have not been in that big lecture hall since the orientation in September. Occasionally, I pause and wonder if the cross is still in there above the door.

Next time I’m at the school, I’ll make a point of checking.

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My Only Real Regret in Life Thus Far

9/2/2019

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As is the case with everyone, I can comfortably utter the following line from the song My Way, made famous by none other than Frank Sinatra – Regrets? I’ve had a few.

Fortunately, I have learned how to cope with regret over the years and now rarely dwell in regret for extended periods of time. On one hand, I have learned how to seek repentance for my past and current wrong actions, trespasses, failures, and sins. On the other hand, I have also learned to let go of past failures and disappointments that were consequences of right action by viewing these failures and disappointments as necessary. In other words, there was something in those situations that I had to face and learn from – often the hard way.

I don’t spend much time wallowing in regret because I am genuinely content with my place in the world and welcome the challenges and joys I face day to day. Nevertheless, there is one aspect of my life where I still occasionally feel pangs of regret – not having more children.

Though I have been blessed with a beautiful and happy little boy – who has enriched my life in ways I cannot even begin to describe – I sometimes wish my wife and I had had more children. I won’t go into the history of why we did not have more than one child. To be honest, I cannot even pinpoint the exact reasons myself and, as I mentioned above, I am truly blessed with the one child I do have.

Yet every now and then, usually during some cheerful moment I am sharing with my son, or when I catch a glimpse of a family with several children, or late at night when my consciousness lingers in that no man’s land between wakefulness and sleep, I feel a slight pang of regret – a cold finger that emerges from some netherworld to cruelly caress my spine.

I am usually able to melt the ice the touch leaves behind rather quickly, but sometimes it lingers, like late-spring frost, and then I must wait for the sun to rise above the horizon for the last frigid traces of this regret to dissolve completely.

Thankfully, it always does, and whenever it returns, it is a little fainter and less cold.

Me and my son, Mátyás in Budapest - December 2018. In the background, Saint Stephen I of Hungary.

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Two Steps Forward, One Step Back; Or, How Demons Dance

9/2/2019

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This is by no means an original observation, more a note-to-self - a piece of string tied around my forefinger.

I believe many of us regard the progression of evil in purely linear terms – as a relentless advancing movement forward. Of course, that is the way evil likes to portray and market itself – as an unhindered perpetual march forward, as an unstoppable juggernaut it would be futile to oppose – but even the most cursory examination of evil’s actual progress quickly reveals these assessments and assumptions to be false. True, evil has progressed and is continuing to progress as I write these lines, but its progression has been and remains far from purely linear in nature.

As far as I can tell, evil does not progress forward from one stage to another in a single series of steps for a number of reasons.

Firstly, despite appearances to the contrary, evil is simply not powerful enough to ceaselessly crush everything in its path like a steamroller. It can certainly utilize blitzkrieg tactics once in a while to surprise its opponents and occupy large swathes of territory like an invading army, but the initial gains these kinds of attacks yield are quickly tempered by the logistical reality of having to occupy and subdue the conquered territory. As military history has demonstrated countless times, this is no easy task. Lighting war assaults can stretch supply lines and leave behind determined and tough pockets of resistance that are incredibly difficult to identify and flush out.

Secondly, linear progression goes against the ultimate goal of evil, which is the damnation of souls. If evil’s only goal was to physically extinguish humanity, it very well may have won or lost the war ages ago for one simple reason – people would have clearly understood the threat evil posed as a concrete reality. In other words, people would be more willing to take a definite stand against evil if it were simply a matter of physical survival because physical existence is considered real and defensible (for many, it is the only real thing in the world and the only thing worth defending).

Contrary to popular belief, physical annihilation only interests evil once spiritual annihilation has been achieved, and spiritual annihilation requires more than just conquering territory or ending lives. Physical annihilation can be attained through force; spiritual annihilation cannot. Spiritual annihilation requires freely given consent and superfluous surrender. Thus, the progression of evil is not about superior firepower and straight line tactics – the progression of evil relies of subtle firepower and advance-retreat tactics because this is the only way it can achieve its ultimate goal of having people willingly surrender their souls to damnation. In essence, evil relies on trickery much more than it does on straight-up warfare, and the only way it can truly win is by getting us to consciously trick ourselves.

Problem-reaction-solution and baby step tactics are often-discussed when the progression of evil is assessed. Evil has certainly utilized both of these, and there is considerable overlap in all of the tactics evil employs; however, none seem as effective and prevalent as the “two steps forward, one step back” tactic which, in my opinion, adheres the most closely to evil’s ultimate strategy of damning souls through freely given consent, of freely allowing ourselves to be not only led into temptation and surrendering to it, but convincing ourselves that the evil within the temptation is not as evil as we had initially considered it to be.

How does the “two steps forward, one step back tactic work?”

First step forward

Evil sets an objective that might help it attain its ultimate end goal. It seeks to achieve this goal in step two, but does not reveal this. Instead, it merely floats the idea or subtly introduces the evil through minor actions or events. Reaction to this is gauged.

Second step forward

The evil course of action is implemented, often in a severe or extreme manner. The goal set in the first step forward is achieved here. This is met with opposition only after the damage has already been inflicted.

One step back

Evil is finally resisted and it deliberately takes a step back to feign weakness or seem diplomatic, but it leaves the achieved goal and the consequent damage it has caused intact. Those resisting evil feel as if they have won some sort of victory, as if they have forced evil into some kind of compromise. There exists the illusion of regained territory, but nothing has been gained at all because the territory evil won in step one remains firmly within its control. In other words, it has advanced while its opponents have been pushed back.

Cue the music again

Evil begins planning its next “two step forward, one step back tactic” on the same battlefield to gain further ground if needed; or it opens a new front somewhere else if all of its objectives on a given battlefield have already been achieved.

Be especially wary of the “two steps forward, one step back” tactic whenever you see it unfold in larger contexts – political, social, economic, etc. Any perceived victories in these realms tend to be particularly Pyrrhic. I currently see the tactic unfolding in the arena of mass migration where evil appears to be taking a decisive step back by agreeing to the sanity of border controls, stopping ships, and second-guessing the goals it has achieved through the so-called refugee crisis of 2015. At the same time, mandates for “safe, orderly, and regular migration” at the global level have already been pushed through.

The only thing of I am unsure of is this – can Good utilize the same “two steps forward, one step back” tactic? My intuition says no because it would involve compromise with evil in order to work. Put another way, Good would need you to take both of its steps back, repent, and proceed once more from where it originally started only after repentance.

Does that make sense, or am I missing something?

To sum it up, demons wage war through dancing; it is imperative that we adamantly decline any demon’s offer to join it for a three-step, regardless of how courteously or persuasively the invitation to dance is extended to us.

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No Csíksomlyó Pilgrimage This Year

8/2/2019

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I have iced my plans to participate in the annual Csíksomlyó Pilgrimage to Translyvania this June. The young man who organizes the trip for my village's residents every year recently informed me the group will be traveling to Csíksomlyó the week before Pentecost this year in order to see Pope Francis, who will be visiting the region and holding a mass at that time.

Though I can understand the young organizer's and many of the pilgrims' motivation to travel to Csíksomlyó the week before Pentecost - they have all been to the Pentecost pilgimage many times, but have never attended a mass held by the Pope - I personally have no interest in seeing Pope Francis, nor am I interested in anything the Pope has to say. What for some of my fellow villagers amounts to a "once in a lifetime opportunity" is for me "something I would avoid at all costs."

Of course, I could make plans to travel to Transylvania independently for Pentecost a week later, but I believe part of the joy of the Csíksomlyó Pilgrimage is getting there with a group of like-minded pilgrims and savoring the sense of community that dominates for the rest of the week; thus, I believe it is more prudent to simply wait until next year - which is exactly what I am going to do.

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