How to argue as a Hungarian

It’s quite simple, really. You call your opponent a Nazi or a pinko liberal Commie, and boom, you don’t actually have to argue with them. After all, who in their right mind would start arguing with a Nazi? Or a Commie? From this point, you don’t actually have to take anything they say into consideration. You have a right –what right? you have an OBLIGATION!- to disregard the facts your opponent comes up with, and you can simply ignore anything he says. All you have to do is insulting him; that’s it.

This is the sad state of affairs right now. People shout at each other without actually listening to what the other has to say, because deep inside they already know. Except, of course, they don’t. But it does its job: it effectively shuts down any conversation. This mentality makes discussions, clashing of differing ideas impossible. It’s us versus them. If you are not in my team, you are playing for the enemy. If you don’t agree with me, you ARE the enemy; no ifs or buts about it. You are either a traitor to the motherland, or you are a Nazi, so you’d better be in my echo chamber or else... Trolls are tolerated if they play in your team. This is, of course, an intellectually lazy solution: you don’t actually have to think for yourself: your opinions are premade for you.

I’ve ran into this many times either online or during personal conversations. Depending on your differing opinion, you can be labelled a Nazi or a dirty liberal (well, looking at how intellectually corrupt the Hungarian liberal political and intellectual elite is, I can’t fault people to dislike liberals). In fact, you can be both at the same time saying the same thing to different people. It’s insane.

So this is what lies behind all the political discourse, all the personal discussions; this is how the country operates. This is why it is impossible for a member of the opposition actually agree about anything with the ruling party, even if they would do the very same thing once in power –or agree with them in person. This is why friendships break up, this is why family members refuse to talk to each other. You can’t discuss your differing point of view. If you don’t agree with me, you are no friend of mine. The country is incredibly bipartisan. No wonder nothing gets done.