<nettime> hate and smear campaign against Hungarian philosophers

[Janos Sugar <sj@c3.hu>]

The daily Magyar Nemzet ("Hungarian Nation") 
claimed that those philosophers had missused 
funds on a large scale. All of them are 
considered "liberal", i.e. skeptical about the 
present homeland politics of their country. It 
seems that after considerable philosophical 
infighting some insider has triggered a police 
investigation into the finances of six projects 
carefully selected to incite a maximum of 
populist indignation. Magyar Nemzet runs an 
almost daily campaign on behalf of the Orban 
government, insinuating that an elitist 
intellectual clique has taken control of 
Hungarian academic life. (Alas, still an 
effective type of accusation.)
It is easy to whip up resentment against money 
spent on philosophy. Mihaly Vajda's project was 
on "The Spirit of European Totalitarism"; Agnes 
Heller's on Nietzsches, Lukács and Heidegger. 
Another scholar, Kornél Steiger had undertaken 
new translations of Plato. What a waste of 
taxpayers money, since a translation is already 
available
http://phaidon.philo.at/qu/?p=843

Agnes Heller 2011 01 16 on Inquisition of Hungarian Philosophers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1tydB1czbA

http://philo.at/pipermail/register/attachments/20110121/5a7b8e2c/attachment.pdf

"Wir machen uns Sorgen": Philosoph Jürgen 
Habermas und der ehemalige Kultur-Staatsminister 
Julian Nida-Rümelin warnen vor Ungarns Umgang mit 
missliebigen Regimekritikern - und sprechen vom 
"Skandal im Skandal".
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/aufruf-von-habermas-und-nida-ruemelin-schuetzt-die-philosophen-1.1050449

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/logosz/


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