Left accused of living in an echo chamber
September 6th, 2017A veteran left-wing political scientist excoriates the leaders of the fragmented left-liberal opposition for being absorbed by internal skirmishes which are uninteresting for the young generations and have no relevance to the problems of modern societies.
In a Népszava OpEd piece, political philosopher Attila Ágh finds current efforts by left-wing leaders to promote their own parties while they accuse the others of being reluctant to unite as ‘futile and pathetic’. Their discourse, he explains, only appeals to themselves and those over 65, because their frame of reference relates to the past when democracy was built from above. That kind of democracy has left most Hungarians among the losers of the changes. Ágh suggests that a new strategy envisaging a democracy built from below can be worked out before next spring, but suspects that the current left-wing political elite has already resigned itself to losing the elections in 2018 and is just aiming to secure comfortable opposition seats for themselves. In that case, he warns, those young people who would embody the promise of the future, will vote with their feet and move physically towards the West.