The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - My Chat with Dr. Balázs Orbán, Political Director of PM Viktor Orbán (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_719)

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00:01:15.400 Hi everybody, this is Gad Saad for the Saad Truth. Today I have with me Balazs Orban, who is the political

00:01:25.000 director of Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary. I will read his bio in a second, but first let me say

00:01:30.900 hello. How are you doing, Balazs? Hello Gad, how are you? Very good, very good. Let me just read your, I won't read 0.99

00:01:36.840 your long bio, but you are a lawyer, political scientist, and member of parliament. You are also, as I said,

00:01:44.140 the political director of the Prime Minister, you are on the board of Matthäus Corvinus Collegium,

00:01:54.120 I like to simply say it, MCC, much easier to remember, where you were kind enough to invite

00:01:59.820 me a couple of years ago because there was the release of the translated version of the Parasitic

00:02:05.220 Mine in Hungarian. Last year we met together with Jordan Peterson because we were both speaking at the

00:02:12.380 Budapest Demography Summit in September, so I've had a few times to visit Hungary. I've fallen in love

00:02:18.920 with the place. Anything else you'd like to add to your bio before we drill down some questions?

00:02:23.640 I'm happy to hear that you were one of the most favorite fellows here at the MCC.

00:02:29.340 Oh my goodness.

00:02:30.760 I just loved you very much, and I have your book here.

00:02:33.060 Well, given that you're kind enough to show my book, this is your book, let me read it. You were

00:02:41.220 kind enough to actually offer it to me when I visited Hungary, the Hungarian way of strategy,

00:02:47.640 which I'd like to talk about what is the unique Hungarian way to strategy, but you have another

00:02:51.840 book that I also want to mention. Do you pronounce it? Is it Hussar? Is that how you pronounce it?

00:02:57.480 Yes. The Hussar cut the Hungarian strategy for connectivity. I had to, I was telling your 1.00

00:03:03.480 colleague, I had to look up what that term meant. It's a cavalry move in the military,

00:03:08.140 so maybe we could start there. Both books are offering the premise that there is a unique

00:03:14.920 Hungarian way of doing things, whether it be connectivity or strategy. Maybe we could start

00:03:19.200 there and we'll take it from there.

00:03:20.260 Yes, indeed. So in reality, we are a landlocked country, not a big one, and a thousand years

00:03:32.620 old country, and in the middle of Europe. But sometimes we do feel that we are kind of an

00:03:41.560 island, culturally and from a civilizational point of view, island of difference, if I may

00:03:47.720 say we are surrounded by a liberal ocean, you know, everywhere else, in all our neighborhoods,

00:03:53.200 they are pushing forward liberal, progressive ideologies and policies, and we do things really

00:04:00.880 in a different way. And we are very proud of it and hope it's going to be sustainable, much

00:04:07.340 more sustainable than the progressive way of doing, and not just sustainable, but also successful.

00:04:14.280 Do you think that, because I was going to say that maybe because of the Hungarian history,

00:04:21.680 certainly in the recent past, having been exposed to other types of parasitic ideas like communism

00:04:26.760 and so on, that there is maybe a natural built-in inoculation against some of these ideas.

00:04:34.280 Could that be one of the main reasons why your trajectory is different from, say, Western Europe

00:04:40.020 that may not have experienced the full brunt of some of these bad ideas?

00:04:46.540 Yes, and I think it also comes from more ancient period of times, because the Hungarian tribes,

00:04:54.240 who used to be Eastern tribes, they came to Europe and they came to the current territory of Hungary

00:05:04.060 more than 1,100 years ago, they brought their unique language, their unique purpose of surviving

00:05:13.620 and managing their life on their own. We are all surrounded by German and Slavic and other type of

00:05:22.620 and Muslim populations, civilizations. So we don't have any relatives, we are not related to anybody else.

00:05:32.640 So I think in a Hungarian mindset, it's like a very old, very old way of thinking is about that,

00:05:41.560 you know, there is such a thing that Hungarian language, there is such a thing that Hungarian way of life,

00:05:48.420 and it makes sense to fight for the preservation of it.

00:05:55.500 And there are some other forces, big forces, and they want to occupy us, they want to convince us

00:06:03.520 to do things in a different way, and we don't want to follow their intentions.

00:06:08.800 And I think it was, there was this kind of ancient reaction, what we experienced during communist period of time,

00:06:16.880 and what we experienced now, if, you know, Brussels tried to, it tries to dictate us some policies.

00:06:24.220 Yeah, the, certainly the open door policies that you've steadfastly been against.

00:06:30.020 Is your feeling that, so, because of course, as you probably know, Canada is probably on the opposite spectrum of

00:06:38.860 that policy, and I, frankly, it's been about 20, 20 plus years that I've been warning about some of the,

00:06:46.580 you know, maybe irreversible changes that are happening in Canada, because of the open door policy,

00:06:52.100 is your sense that most Hungarians are fully in line with your view, precisely because 0.85

00:07:00.240 you're so afraid to ever lose your distinct language.

00:07:04.740 I mean, by definition, it is distinct in that there's only, I think, three languages

00:07:08.220 that are completely orphaned in the tree of languages.

00:07:12.300 I think it's Finnish, Hungarian, is it Estonian or Slovenian?

00:07:17.740 What's the third one? Do you remember?

00:07:19.680 No, I don't remember, but it's not Slovenian.

00:07:22.840 So maybe it's Estonian.

00:07:24.360 And so because of this unique character, my sense would be that most people are probably in line

00:07:31.320 with your rather strict, more closed door policy when it comes to immigration, correct?

00:07:36.540 Well, yes, it's true.

00:07:38.080 It's an interesting story because it's not a party political issue at all.

00:07:42.820 So it's not the case that, you know, voters of the Fidesz party, they are, so let's call them

00:07:48.980 anti-migration and the voter of the opposition liberal parties, they are pro-migration.

00:07:53.780 So in reality, there is a national unity behind the government's migration policies.

00:08:00.380 80-90% of the society is supporting the government in this regard.

00:08:08.220 And I don't want to disappear in the history, but this also comes from historical experiences.

00:08:17.780 We once were occupied by the Ottomans for like 150 years and how we are here now in Budapest

00:08:27.620 and Buda castle was occupied by the Turkish or Ottoman tribes through a trick that first

00:08:36.940 they came as peaceful visitors, but then they changed their clothes and we realized that

00:08:44.960 they have arms and they occupy the castle.

00:08:47.280 So it's like, if we see this from a civilizational point of view, that you should be able to protect

00:08:56.280 your own borders, to secure your own borders.

00:09:00.340 And this is the starting point for having a respectful and peaceful and normalized relationship

00:09:07.460 with the foreigners, this is decoded very deeply in the Hungarian way of thinking. 0.73

00:09:14.440 Obviously, the historical experience of America and Canada and some other Western European countries

00:09:22.040 are different.

00:09:24.100 The meaning of nation is different, even in Europe.

00:09:28.180 So in the middle, middle age period of time, Catholics from coming from different Western

00:09:37.220 European countries, they felt themselves closer to each other than with the Protestants.

00:09:43.500 But in Hungary, it's like the Protestants and the Catholics were living together and

00:09:49.300 they all felt very close to each other because they were Hungarians.

00:09:53.900 So nation is not a modern concept.

00:09:58.380 It has a deep historical meaning.

00:10:00.860 As I was preparing, I went for a walk before our chat and I was thinking, what are some parallels

00:10:09.040 that I can draw between the Hungarian experience?

00:10:12.440 And as you know, Balaz, I'm Lebanese Jewish.

00:10:16.660 So there's both in my Lebanese heritage and in my Jewish heritage, something, and actually

00:10:23.560 my wife is Lebanese-Armenian, so I can also bring her in, that is similar to the Hungarian

00:10:29.640 experience in that it's a small people, right?

00:10:32.400 I mean, Lebanese people seem to be boxing above their weight class, so to speak, in that 1.00

00:10:38.620 you hear so much about the Lebanese wherever they go.

00:10:42.100 So there's as many in the diaspora as there are in Lebanon, if not many more, yet they're 0.99

00:10:47.800 successful business people, intellectuals, artists, and certainly Jews.

00:10:52.480 There's only 15 million Jews in the world, and boy, do they box above their weight class 1.00

00:10:57.780 in terms of the influence that they have, Nobel Prizes and so on.

00:11:01.220 Armenians also have historically been a minority.

00:11:04.180 The Lebanese-Armenians are a small minority, and yet they've also...

00:11:08.420 So I wonder if there is a strong parallel here in that once you have a people that are dominated

00:11:16.260 by a much greater majority, you always turn a bit insular and inward because you have to

00:11:23.260 protect that heritage.

00:11:24.300 Do you see those parallels?

00:11:26.360 Yes, I do see those parallels.

00:11:28.280 And I think it's very important because we have to put an enormous amount of intellectual

00:11:36.000 energy to understand the Western civilization, because it's crucial for understanding the

00:11:45.740 future and working on preserving the peace.

00:11:49.840 And we have to understand that although we are many Westerners, are part of the same civilization,

00:11:58.420 our backgrounds are completely different.

00:12:00.680 So our habits, our way of thinking about politics, about how we think about our values, it's completely

00:12:09.240 different.

00:12:09.880 And if we don't understand this, that we will be stuck into a serious type of confrontation.

00:12:17.080 I'm very often with the prime minister in Brussels, in the European Council meeting.

00:12:25.060 And I have also personal experience to hear this from other leaders of European countries,

00:12:33.080 that for them, the idea of nation means something different.

00:12:38.800 So for them, it's a modern concept.

00:12:43.300 And for this reason, for them, migration is not a threat at all, because it's just a change in the paradigm.

00:12:51.880 It's a different concept, which is not based on similarities in religion, similarities in language,

00:12:59.060 similarities in shared history, but based on something else.

00:13:02.560 For example, I don't know, human rights or constitutional rights or so on and so on.

00:13:13.240 And for them, it's a very normal way of thinking about the future.

00:13:19.120 But countries like this or civilizations like this or like nations like this for Israel, 0.61

00:13:25.380 for Hungary, for Armenia, it's a different cafe house.

00:13:30.200 Indeed, I want to draw a few personal links that I have with Hungary,

00:13:37.460 and then we can discuss some additional uniquely Hungarian policies when it comes to safe fertility and so on.

00:13:45.440 I'd love to talk a bit about that.

00:13:47.700 But if you and I remember, I think in my first lecture that I gave at MCC,

00:13:51.680 I might have mentioned this, that some of my favorites,

00:13:55.420 so my background originally was in mathematics and computer science.

00:13:59.120 And so Paul Erdős was a Hungarian mathematician.

00:14:04.760 John von Neumann was Hungarian, one of my absolute favorite guys.

00:14:09.940 And he was a real polymath in that he could navigate through game theory and economics and statistics

00:14:16.260 and psychology and mathematics.

00:14:18.760 And he was great in all of them.

00:14:21.000 The professor that I had for the most number of courses throughout my entire university education

00:14:28.140 was in my undergraduate mathematics degree.

00:14:31.020 It was Professor Mackay, who was originally Hungarian.

00:14:36.200 One of my good friends now was my former MBA student.

00:14:40.200 His name is Balent Budai.

00:14:42.560 He's a physician by training.

00:14:45.260 Some of my favorite dogs are from Hungary.

00:14:49.540 Not Belgian shepherds are number one.

00:14:51.780 Sorry, apologies.

00:14:53.260 Nothing compares with Belgian. 1.00

00:14:54.660 But if I get the pronunciation wrong, you'll correct me.

00:14:57.880 There's the Kuvac, which I love.

00:15:00.460 There is the Puli.

00:15:03.180 How do you say it?

00:15:05.440 Kuvac.

00:15:06.340 Kuvac.

00:15:06.840 Yes, there is the Puli and there's the Kommandor.

00:15:09.420 I absolutely, you know, when I first went to Hungary, I was, and I was walking around Budapest.

00:15:14.340 I was thinking that I'm going to be seeing Kommandors walking everywhere.

00:15:18.680 And for those of you who don't know what a Kommandor is, it's an unbelievable looking dog.

00:15:23.580 And yet I didn't see one.

00:15:25.320 No, no.

00:15:26.180 They are living in the countryside.

00:15:27.740 So they are not sitting there.

00:15:29.080 They're living in the countryside.

00:15:30.160 One more link to Hungary and then you can comment.

00:15:33.260 And then we'll go back to policy issues.

00:15:35.440 Of course, I'm a huge soccer fan.

00:15:38.340 I used to be a competitive soccer player myself.

00:15:41.180 Now, this is before my time, but I am a historian of soccer, so to speak.

00:15:46.260 And of course, the early 1950s soccer team with Pushkash and the rest of them was an unbelievable team.

00:15:53.620 Can we ever hope that Hungary can return to such a glory or was that a one shot and never to be returned?

00:16:00.680 What was your position, Gat?

00:16:02.340 Oh, I played actually attacking midfielder.

00:16:04.740 So I played the number 10 position, although I didn't wear number 10.

00:16:07.960 And I actually discussed this, Balazs, in the first chapter of The Parasitic Mind, where I say that my love of freedom doesn't just apply to, you know, freedom of inquiry and freedom of speech.

00:16:21.740 I played that position because it's the guy who goes around trying to exploit spaces, play freely, right?

00:16:30.120 You just roam around.

00:16:31.660 And whenever I had a coach who would tell me today, you're playing a bit on the left side of midfield and you have to do this and that, it's as if you decapitated me because you're putting constraints on my ability to create.

00:16:44.020 So take it away.

00:16:45.800 I got your point.

00:16:48.240 So you are not a left winger.

00:16:50.340 I'm not a left winger.

00:16:51.560 I'm a playmaker.

00:16:53.300 If we're going to compare, if I dare compare myself to someone who is a great player, it's probably be De Bruyne, right?

00:17:01.700 He just kind of floats around, you know, very skillful.

00:17:06.760 So, yeah.

00:17:07.520 Did you play soccer, by the way?

00:17:09.200 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:17:09.780 I'm still playing.

00:17:10.780 I'm trying to be the Hungarian Inzaghi.

00:17:16.240 So you're a forward.

00:17:17.720 You're a striker.

00:17:18.580 I'm a forward.

00:17:19.380 I'm a striker.

00:17:20.460 I mean, forgive me for asking, but you must be well into your 30s now, yes?

00:17:25.880 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:17:26.480 I'm 38.

00:17:27.500 38, and yet you still have the courage to go out there because I've tried to play.

00:17:34.040 The skills are all there, right?

00:17:35.900 The touch, the silky touch.

00:17:38.240 But the second that I try to do a quick acceleration, things very, very quickly go wrong.

00:17:44.740 Is this starting to happen to you?

00:17:46.260 This is the bad side of your position.

00:17:48.340 If you are either a striker or a central defender, you don't have to run at all.

00:17:53.400 You just have to wait for the ball and then kick it.

00:17:56.780 So it's like I think my position is much better than yours.

00:18:00.980 Very true.

00:18:01.380 You could play for much longer.

00:18:03.240 There is one player that I know from today's generation.

00:18:07.780 It's the midfielder who plays for Liverpool, who's quite a lovely, silky player.

00:18:15.580 I suppose he's probably the top player right now from Hungary, correct?

00:18:19.640 He is very, very smart and very good player with a very good technique.

00:18:25.460 And he is still very young.

00:18:30.780 So I hope that he will be the new Pushkash. 1.00

00:18:34.740 Those are very high standards to reach.

00:18:37.060 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:37.640 That's true.

00:18:38.320 But, you know, I think that it's like it's not a coincidence that the Hungarians are very good in sports.

00:18:46.460 Unfortunately, not now, not among the best ones in football.

00:18:51.700 So we're trying to catch up.

00:18:53.640 But in the Olympic Games, the number of medals compared to the population, we are among the top nations.

00:19:02.100 And the same with the Nobel Prize winners.

00:19:04.180 Just last year, we had two new Nobel Prize winners, which is amazing.

00:19:10.120 Not just one for a small country, but two in two different categories.

00:19:13.660 So I think, but it also goes back to this Hungarian thing, because we really think that if we want to survive, we have to be the best.

00:19:27.320 So it's like not possible to survive this surrounding with this unique culture and unique way of thinking if you are not the best in sports, in education, in science and so on and so on.

00:19:40.960 So we respect the best of the best ones.

00:19:45.880 And everybody in Hungary wants to be the best of the best.

00:19:49.280 Sometimes we succeed, sometimes not.

00:19:51.360 But this is, I think, a different standard.

00:19:55.020 Well, when I visited MCC, I quickly realized that arguably one of your greatest, I don't know if he was a fellow at the time, who's, I mean, a non-Hungarian was Sir Roger Scruton, right?

00:20:08.860 Who's studied, you know, the philosophy of aesthetics and so on.

00:20:14.240 And the reason I'm mentioning this is because I'm going to link aesthetics to two areas of the Hungarian reality.

00:20:22.680 So as I was walking around, I mean, most of the time I spent was in Budapest, but we also got to go to other places.

00:20:29.460 And there is this pronounced focus on aesthetics, right?

00:20:36.060 So whether it be the door handles or the manholes on the street, you're thinking, boy, somebody spent a lot of time making the manholes on the streets look so beautiful.

00:20:47.720 So there is this really glorious sense of the importance of aesthetics, which then if I link it to soccer, you know, the 1950s team was a very stylish team, right?

00:20:59.220 They were very skillful.

00:21:00.780 And I always joke with my Italian friends that, I mean, I could argue the same thing for Italians for many things, but not for their soccer. 0.97

00:21:09.100 When it comes to their soccer, they're not at all aesthetic.

00:21:12.520 I mean, the French play stylish, the Dutch play stylish, of course, the Brazilians, the Hungarians, but the Italians don't carry the aesthetics to their soccer, but apparently the Hungarians apply it everywhere.

00:21:26.020 Yes, that's probably that's probably that's true, even in the field of soccer.

00:21:31.440 But it's like Hungarian players, they do have very good skills and they are like this push cash type of thinking. 1.00

00:21:43.220 Like, think about my prime minister, you know, like he is doing the driblings in politics.

00:21:48.380 He is like really a superstar, whether you like him or not, but he has like 35 years of history, you know, 16 years in opposition, 16 years in government.

00:22:01.800 He's the doyen of European politics and so on and so on.

00:22:05.640 So it's like, but we also have to put a lot of energy into being always disciplined, like not just dribbling, but protecting the defense line or defense or make the defense like the Italians. 0.98

00:22:23.100 So it's like, if you have skills, it does not mean that you cannot learn from others.

00:22:28.560 So we also have to learn we need some Italian or German type of defender.

00:22:34.360 Very nice.

00:22:35.520 Hungarian attack are very effective. 0.99

00:22:38.240 Beautiful.

00:22:39.180 Let's come back for a second to to some unique Hungarian policies.

00:22:44.420 And then I'd like to ask you about sort of your daily life as a, you know, the political director of the prime minister.

00:22:51.400 What are the hats that you put on?

00:22:52.960 But before we get to that, one other policy I'd like to discuss earlier, we discussed a bit, you know,

00:22:57.400 the Hungarian immigration policies.

00:22:59.980 But, you know, the second visit that I when I went to Hungary was, as I mentioned earlier, for the I think it's biannual, right?

00:23:07.320 The Budapest Demography Summit, which was organized by President Novak.

00:23:14.240 Now, I know that one of my friends, which I know that, you know, I mean, Elon Musk is very concerned with fertility issues.

00:23:21.820 He often writes about it.

00:23:23.100 You know, I've written about it.

00:23:24.160 I came, I've spoken with you guys.

00:23:25.580 So you guys have this unique policy whereby you link the exemption from paying taxes to having babies.

00:23:35.740 And I think if I'm not wrong, and I'll ask you in a second to take the floor.

00:23:39.120 Once a woman has four children, income taxes disappear. 1.00

00:23:44.700 Am I right?

00:23:45.460 And fill in the details.

00:23:46.720 True.

00:23:47.980 That's true.

00:23:48.560 And we try to, you know, expand that.

00:23:52.880 So if you have three children, then no income taxes.

00:23:56.780 But that's just, that's not the reality.

00:23:58.820 Unfortunately, now that's just the government goal.

00:24:01.360 But, but, but God, it's true.

00:24:03.880 So we think that, you know, if you look on the fertility rates everywhere, the entire Western civilization,

00:24:11.980 or if I may put it that way, all developed countries are in trouble.

00:24:18.140 And, and I think demography is important.

00:24:21.580 It's a kind of sign of strength.

00:24:23.680 So, so it's like, and, and migration, that kind of migration, what our countries experiences now,

00:24:31.180 it's not a strong sign of strength, as it used to be in the case of Canada or United States,

00:24:38.460 but it's a sign of weakness.

00:24:41.340 So if we want to preserve our countries and, and get prepared for, for next generations, 0.96

00:24:49.320 we need to figure out how to have more babies. 0.94

00:24:52.520 And, and we don't need to convince the people to, to want more children than they want.

00:25:00.880 But actually, it's like, according to all statistics, people want to have more children.

00:25:06.220 It's just, it just doesn't happen for many reasons.

00:25:09.740 So according to the Hungarian understanding, the government's duty is to have those young men

00:25:16.780 and women who want to get married and want to have babies. 1.00

00:25:20.780 But it's, it's, it shouldn't be their, it's their private decision, of course,

00:25:26.700 but, but the state should recognize their kind of sacrifice and should support them financially

00:25:34.360 and in as many means as the state can.

00:25:37.660 So this is why we have an enormous amount of programming, more than certain measures,

00:25:42.640 tax cut, tax incentives, special loan programs, um, uh, uh, special, uh, uh, buying program

00:25:51.640 for cars, uh, you know, everybody can decide whether they want to stay, whether the mother

00:25:58.760 want to stay at home for like three years, or she can go back to work immediately. 1.00

00:26:04.060 It's entirely up to them.

00:26:07.060 There is a kindergarten program.

00:26:09.880 You can stay at home.

00:26:10.940 You can go back.

00:26:11.700 So it's like a real family friendly environment where it's everything.

00:26:16.740 It's up to you.

00:26:17.880 Everything.

00:26:18.540 It's your decision.

00:26:20.100 But if you decide to have, um, a marriage, if you decide to have a family with babies,

00:26:26.680 then the state is on your side.

00:26:28.560 And this is, I think, a very unique thing.

00:26:31.460 Uh, there's no other comparisons.

00:26:34.380 How long ago did you institute those policies?

00:26:37.520 And are you able at this point to definitively gauge whether the policy, you know, you were

00:26:44.740 at X fertility before those policies.

00:26:47.400 Now you're at X plus Delta.

00:26:49.160 Therefore they're working.

00:26:50.020 And of the 13 measures, I think you said, do you have a sense, which is the one that's

00:26:55.920 been the strongest?

00:26:56.860 I'm thinking here as an econometrician and as, as a statistician in terms of gauging

00:27:02.180 the, the effectiveness of a policy.

00:27:04.420 Can you tell us a bit about that?

00:27:05.780 So it's approximately we spend four to 6% of our GDP to family support programs.

00:27:13.420 We started this in 2010.

00:27:15.900 Back at that time, fertility rate was the lowest in Europe.

00:27:20.580 It's around 1.2.

00:27:23.160 It was around 1.2.

00:27:24.640 Now, since then it's between 1.4, 1.6.

00:27:29.960 It depends on the year.

00:27:32.100 And, um, and so it means in a Hungarian standards that since then we have 200,000 more babies who

00:27:41.300 would never be born without this family support program.

00:27:45.260 200,000, that's the second largest Hungarian city.

00:27:48.780 So it's, uh, compared to the Hungarian standards, it's, it's quite a significant number. 1.00

00:27:55.120 The number of marriages went up.

00:27:57.680 The number of divorces went down.

00:27:59.900 Number of abortions also halves without changing any regulation.

00:28:04.300 So I think there are some, uh, positive signs.

00:28:08.320 In general, what we try to monitor always is that, you know, if you have babies, the, the,

00:28:18.100 the average level of income for you as a family, it goes immediately down.

00:28:25.660 So it decreases because you have a bigger family and, um, and, and no one is earning money.

00:28:31.840 So what we're trying to work, we are not at that level, but what we want to achieve as

00:28:37.660 a goal, this is our, this is our hope that in just a couple of years time, we will be able

00:28:43.100 to reach that, that if you have children, this, this, uh, level of income will not decrease.

00:28:52.100 So it will be comparable and you will even bad, even have better financial situation than

00:29:01.860 those couples who don't have children.

00:29:04.760 So it's like, this is what we have to achieve.

00:29:08.160 This would be the game changer position that you can say that although I have, uh, children,

00:29:14.640 I'm better off than without children, because in reality, this is now the opposite in every

00:29:21.880 single country.

00:29:22.960 If you have children, it's a, it's, it's a burden.

00:29:26.760 It's a, it's a financial burden, uh, for you.

00:29:29.560 So the state should be able through different measures to counterbalance, uh, this, we are not

00:29:36.580 at that level now, but this is what we every year trying to monitor very closely, whether

00:29:42.220 we are closer to that goal or, or the distance is getting bigger and bigger.

00:29:47.080 Obviously now Europe, it's a, we are in a serious situation because of the war, there

00:29:52.100 is inflation, energy prices are skyrocketing.

00:29:55.340 So the middle class is suffering in every country.

00:29:58.100 So we have to mobilize a lot of financial resources to keep that level for families that we can say

00:30:06.060 that, um, the, the, the price of the war and of the bad economic decisions of Brussels is

00:30:13.160 not paid by the Hungarian families.

00:30:15.920 So it's like, it's a constant fight.

00:30:18.560 Have other countries emulated the Hungarian model when it comes to this fertility issue?

00:30:24.960 Well, those governments in Europe who are coming into power, like, uh, like the Italian conservative

00:30:31.740 government, the Polish government before they were, um, uh, defeated by the liberals or some

00:30:39.860 French politicians, they keep talking about the same things, mainly tax incentives for, for

00:30:47.400 families, but, um, but, uh, but there is no such, uh, policy elsewhere, not no such complex

00:30:55.500 family policy, uh, measure system than in Hungary.

00:31:00.000 That one more policy question, and then we'll talk about sort of your personal day to day,

00:31:05.260 and then we'll wrap it up because I know you have a hard stop.

00:31:07.680 Uh, another policy that I remember reading about, especially from my perspective as the author,

00:31:13.400 of the parasitic mind is that the government has, I don't know if it was withdrawn its funding

00:31:19.740 to certain disciplines that would typically be some of the disciplines that are most likely

00:31:26.440 to be the promulgators of these parasitic ideas.

00:31:29.880 Is this correct?

00:31:31.720 And how do you respond to the people who say, oh, by you doing that, you are infringing on free

00:31:39.180 inquiry and so on?

00:31:40.280 Uh, well, yes, this is, this is true.

00:31:44.000 And we actually organized a national referendum on LGBTQ, so gender ideology.

00:31:50.420 And we asked the people, I think we are the only country, um, on earth who did that.

00:31:55.660 And with an overwhelming majority, like it's really a non-party political issue.

00:32:02.020 So even those who are, who are not supporting the government in other issues, they voted against

00:32:07.780 gender ideology in schools and kindergartens and, uh, uh, restrictions for protecting our

00:32:15.680 children.

00:32:16.120 So it's, um, it's, it's, I know it's controversial, but, but this is what the Hungarian people,

00:32:23.300 uh, want.

00:32:24.420 And actually it's still, the fight is still, uh, going on because this woke ideology is

00:32:30.160 coming, coming, uh, to Hungary from, from media platforms, Netflix, Disney, and so on.

00:32:38.720 So it's affecting, um, our children as well.

00:32:41.680 So we have to every year, uh, introduce new and new measures to protect, um, our children.

00:32:48.480 I think it's not an anti-freedom, uh, statement at all, because our position is clear.

00:32:53.860 If you are an adult person, um, you can do whatever you want.

00:32:59.400 It's about the children.

00:33:01.320 So the children shouldn't use for ideological purposes, full stop, uh, without the consent

00:33:09.540 of, of, of the parents.

00:33:11.080 So it's like, uh, the state shouldn't do, uh, this and full stop.

00:33:16.380 And then if they are adult, they can do whatever they want.

00:33:20.100 So I think this is the only way how you can protect, uh, your children.

00:33:24.140 And the situation is very, very hard, very complicated.

00:33:27.840 The online word is causing a lot of harm on, on, on the children.

00:33:32.960 So even how to use the mobile phone and the telecommunication technology in the, in, in

00:33:39.900 the classrooms, this was a, this was the latest debate in Hungary.

00:33:44.400 And we banned the usage of mobile phones, uh, for students in, in, in the classroom, because

00:33:49.940 that's the only way how you can preserve the quality or, uh, or, or increase the quality

00:33:56.120 of education.

00:33:57.260 Well, I think we're seeing, we're seeing that in a growing number of schools, as you probably

00:34:01.220 know, Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist wrote a book, right?

00:34:04.940 The Anxious Generation, where, you know, his whole raison d'etre is to try to do exactly

00:34:10.940 that I read, I read this book and I, I, I, uh, I, um, try to give an advice to the Hungarian

00:34:18.000 politicians as well to follow, uh, his, um, his ideas.

00:34:22.860 Right.

00:34:23.360 Beautiful.

00:34:24.740 So, okay.

00:34:25.560 Uh, last set of questions and I'll, I'll let you go.

00:34:28.480 Uh, what's your day-to-day life?

00:34:31.400 Like, so for example, for me, before I, before I turned the floor to you, what speaking about

00:34:36.260 freedom earlier, whether it be freedom of inquiry, freedom of speech or freedom on a

00:34:40.480 soccer field, I'm someone who really loves to vagabond.

00:34:43.920 Right.

00:34:44.100 So now I go off to the library.

00:34:45.700 I worked for three hours on my book.

00:34:48.080 Then I'm going to get to speak to this lovely Hungarian guy.

00:34:51.740 Then I'm going to go for a run then.

00:34:54.160 Right.

00:34:54.280 And, and, and once you put too many restrictions on me, I call it in my latest book on happiness,

00:34:59.080 I call it scheduling asphyxia.

00:35:01.880 You are suffocating me now as a political director, I'm presuming that you suffer from

00:35:07.920 scheduling asphyxia because you have meeting after meeting, after meeting.

00:35:11.140 So walk us through a day of the world of Balazs Orban. 1.00

00:35:16.880 Actually, I should, I should live the, the, the life of God's side ways.

00:35:22.320 You should have been a professor.

00:35:24.280 I should, I should change, change the lifestyle immediately.

00:35:27.720 No.

00:35:28.480 So I'm, I'm responsible for, for a talent management institution, MCC, what you were mentioning

00:35:36.940 and some other educational institutions.

00:35:38.960 So there, there is a duty how to, how to do the management work.

00:35:46.660 But in politics, I, this is why my position is, is called the political director because

00:35:53.660 I don't, it's not my duty to get involved in, in, in any branches of, of government.

00:36:01.420 So I'm not responsible for energy policy or for, I don't know, educational policy in details.

00:36:09.520 There are some, some government members who are responsible for that.

00:36:13.960 My job is to try to help the prime minister to, to understand the word.

00:36:21.640 And I'm having a think tank inside the government, which wants to analyze what's going on, bring

00:36:28.640 in new ideas and, and, and monitor what's going on in intellectual life.

00:36:33.400 So it's actually, my job is to watch very closely, God Sod's, and monitor him and his, his fellow 1.00

00:36:43.700 people and what they think and what they read and what they, what they tell us about the

00:36:48.080 work.

00:36:48.680 Very good.

00:36:49.080 Well, my next book, in case you are watching me is one that hopefully you will invite me

00:36:53.380 to, it's maybe not a nice thing to solicit an invitation, but that it's only a measure

00:36:59.400 of how much I love hunger.

00:37:00.620 I already invited you it's, it's, it's already happened.

00:37:03.500 Ah, okay.

00:37:03.980 Very nice.

00:37:04.440 So suicidal empathy, the next book is exactly in line with, I mean, if you like, it's part

00:37:10.680 two of the parasitic mind, right?

00:37:12.800 Because if the parasitic mind is about how bad ideas can parasitize our cognitive system, 0.54

00:37:18.340 suicidal empathy is how it can parasitize our emotional system, right?

00:37:23.240 Because we become overly empathetic in ways and toward people that don't necessarily reciprocate

00:37:29.360 that empathy.

00:37:29.880 So I look forward to hopefully.

00:37:31.320 Very interesting topic.

00:37:32.860 Oh, thank you so much.

00:37:34.220 I look forward to having you in Hungary.

00:37:36.120 I can't wait.

00:37:37.600 Balazs, it's such a pleasure having you stay on the line just so we could say goodbye officially 1.00

00:37:41.620 offline.

00:37:42.660 You're welcome to come back anytime.

00:37:44.500 If President, Prime Minister Orban ever wants to come on the show, I know he's very

00:37:48.300 busy.

00:37:48.840 He's more than welcome.

00:37:50.040 Thank you so much.

00:37:50.880 And I'll talk to you soon.

00:37:51.540 Thank you.

00:37:51.900 Appreciate it.

00:37:52.580 Bye bye.

00:37:53.180 Cheers.

00:37:53.380 Cheers.

00:37:53.440 Cheers.

00:37:53.480 Cheers.

00:37:53.520 Cheers.

00:37:54.060 Cheers.

00:37:54.440 Cheers.

00:37:55.440 Cheers.

00:37:56.440 Cheers.

00:37:57.440 Cheers.

00:37:58.440 Cheers.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - October 04, 2024

My Chat with Dr. Balázs Orbán, Political Director of PM Viktor Orbán (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_719)

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