There has been some disagreement between Eva Balogh and me, in part about
the importance of the philosophy of history to the discipline of history in
general.  To show that my opinion on the matter is not unique to me, nor a
neccessarily left wing idea, I am forwarding this post from the
Intellectual History list.  Perhaps I can open some minds?

I also have a question.  Does anyone know of an authoritative work on the
Intellectual History of Hungary in the 19th and early Twentieth Centuries?

Thank Ypu for your kind attention.
Tibor Benke

Forwarded item beneath "V"s.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV


>X-UIDL: 837245147.006
>X-Sender: 
>Approved-By:  "H-Ideas Co-Editor (David Bailey)" >
>Date:         Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:09:17 -0400
>Reply-To: H-NET Intellectual History List >
>Sender: H-NET Intellectual History List >
>From: "H-Ideas Co-Editor (David Bailey)" >
>Subject:      Philosophy of history
>To: Multiple recipients of list H-IDEAS >
>Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-Length: 4403
>
>Date: Fri, 5 Jul 96 15:45:29 BST
>From: Michael Keaney >
>
>Dear listers,
>
>I thought I might lie low and see what kind of response I might get.
>However, the list is fairly quiet just now (assuming I am not missing any
>postings), so I will try to take up some points made by Adam Barnhart.
>
>In my original posting, I was perhaps unfair to Fred Spier in focusing
>primarily on the first paragraph of his communication, ruling out
>consideration of moral value and purpose in constructing a paradigm "that
>fully embraces the natural sciences". There were other interesting ideas
>contained within his post. Nevertheless, if one has to ditch moral value
>and purpose in order to fully embrace the natural sciences then is it
>really worth doing? What is human history without moral value and purpose?
>Crude behaviourism?
>
>The notion of science as a pursuit divorced from ethics is interesting in
>the case of "economic science", which, in one of the most influential works
>written on the discipline, takes ends as given and merely studies their
>attainment (Lionel Robbins, heavily influenced by Ludwig von Mises). There
>is no pretence at ethical consideration here, and calls for a most
>sophisticated psychological treatment of "economic actors" are dismissed as
>coming from those "averse to the effort of exact thought". Economics
>divorced itself from ethics precisely because of the wish of many of its
>practitioners that it should attain scientific status. Therefore they
>adopted the positivist model of inquiry. It is only with the advancement of
>chaos theory and related concerns within mathematics and the physical
>sciences that economists are now taking interest in non-mechanistic models.
>Again the lead is that of the natural sciences.
>
>Perhaps this is an example of an historical science (it ought to be one)
>being accountable to advances in the natural sciences. However, I think
>that the emphasis should be reversed, and that the natural sciences should
>be more accountable to history. Certainly, while this might be an untenable
>position, I think it essential for any historical/social science discipline
>to be held accountable to history.
>
>In his excellent account of _Modern Italian Social Thought_ (1987), Richard
>Bellamy describes Benedetto Croce's struggle with the fusion of history and
>philosophy, arising from Croce's conviction that abstract philosophy was
>not of practical use, except as ideological fodder. As a result Croce's
>life was spent reconciling his idealism with history, constantly refining
>his concepts and system. He was not unique in this respect, as many
>theorists who lived through two world wars and fascism felt compelled to
>alter their assumptions and take account of the horrors before them. A
>truly humanist science would be able to do this, whereas reliance upon
>naturalistic schemes has tended to benefit those regimes and thought
>systems which we would not wish to see return.
>
>Of course the Moon landing meant something politically, for it inspired a
>great deal of optimism, as well as satisfaction. The science of the moon
>landing did not - the event itself did, as it was a fellow human being who
>ventured forth into uncharted territory and was able to relate personal
>experience to the wider society back on Earth. The social act was far more
>moving than the mechanics could ever be. What is even more remarkable is
>the politics surrounding the moon landings. What sort of ethics justified
>the launch of the mission when NASA were reasonably pessimistic of
>Armstrong and Adrin returning? The Soviets did not reach the moon first
>because they could not, within a reasonable level of probability, guarantee
>the safe return of their cosmonauts. The moon landing was as much a
>statement of one political system's intellectual hegemony over another as
>it was the triumph of human ingenuity. Take away moral value and purpose
>and it becomes merely another achievement in the long list of human
>endeavours, robbed of social, political and ethical context. In other
>words, robbed of historical context.
>
>
>*****************************                       ***********************
>
>Michael Keaney                                      
>Department of Social Sciences
>Glasgow CALEDONIAN University
>70 Cowcaddens Road
>Glasgow G4 0BA
>United Kingdom
>*****************************                       ***********************
>
>

at 3:30 p.m. Eva Balogh wrote:

>At 10:16 PM 7/9/96 -0700, Tibor Benke wrote:
>
>>As soon as someone enlightens (felhomajosit) regarding Fabor-Beckerian
>>style, or I manage to crawl to a suitable library and find out for my self,
>>I will try.
>
>        You don't have to crawl to anywhere, especially not to a library.
>Cecilia Fabos-Becker is a correspondent on this list. Her style is--how
>shall I say--a bit on the verbose side. I trust "felhomajosit" was written
>in jest with a little spelling error introduced in it.

Sorry, but with a name like that I thought I was being indirectly accused
of being post-modern as Jeliko accused me before.

>>In the meantime, you might look in the FORUM archive for my
>>reply to NPA entitled (Koppany Megerdemelte) although it my have the
>>objectionable style.  Also you might meditate on the fate of Vazul.
>
>        I don't have time to look at your old article in the archives--you
>can summarize it briefly, I trust.
>

I was hoping, I don't have the technical facility to deal with the archives
myself.  I will try to be as brief then, as I can.

Probably since settlement, but certainly since the days of St. Steven,
every Hungarian has been willing to use whatever means neccessary to impose
his [sic] conception of the correct course of action on his fellows.  Any
means neccessary has included seeking millitary aid from abroad and having
terror purges.  The stuff that Rakosi did, was merely the last phase of
what Vajk/Steven started doing.

And in context of the interminable "liberal-bolsi" versus "nep-nemzeti"
debate on FORUM,  I tried to point out the ironic circumstance that the
"Kereszteny Nep Nemzeti" (Chrishtian Nationalist People Oriented) faction
is now in the same side structuraly as Koppany and his party were then  --
wishing to keep local traditions, while their enemies imposed a
cosmopolitan order.  They lost, but in a way, they lost according to their
own rules.  But St. Steven won, as is acknowledged according to the royal
formula, "by the grace of God".  Unfortunately, he gained the power to
suppress a great many items from the pagan heritage.

Which is why I raised the idea of recunstructing that old knowledge and
publishing it.


>>I hope my style hasn't offended you.  It is pretty ironic: initially my
>>contributions were criticised for spelling mistakes, then for the lack of
>>factual content and now for obscure style.  I'd say I'm coming up in the
>>world.
>
>        I don't know whether obscurity is the right word--incomprehensible
>would be closer. All that stuff about ta'ltos and rego"s and CD-ROMs.
>

When a text is incomprehensible to a reader, the fault may be that the
author is expressing him or herself unclearly.  But it may also be that the
reader is unfamiliar with the concepts involved.  I try to write for the
generaly educated reader as clearly as I can.  Sometimes I fail.

Although in this case I don't know what was so mysterious.  A rego"s (bard)
or a ta'ltos (shaman) had certain traditional knowledge that I, for one,
would like to know more about -- it might help us see more clearly who we
really are.  This knowledge was largely destroyed by the forced
Christianization of the population of the lands of the Hungarian Crown in
the eleventh century, so that knowledge cannot be published in CD-ROM or
even a book, because there is not enough of it left. My point was, that it
seems to be part of our culture to impose our wills on each other without
mercy and without thought that something might be lost.

Bright Blessings to you all who love the land once ruled by the Queen of Heaven
.
(See: Marja Gimbutas _Godesses and Gods of Old Europe_)

Tibor Benke

At 02:43 AM 7/12/96 -0400, Sam Stowe wrote:

>"I yam what I yam..." -- Popeye the Heterosexual (Although, God Knows,
>Olive Oil is Rather Androgynous, Isn't She?) Sailor Man

We all need our role models and I'm thrilled that Slyboots Sam has found
his.  If Sam is reading some of the posts to the 'Gundel Restaurant' thread,
and I'm sure he is, he'd realize that Popeye couldn't possibly be a role
model for Hungarians.  I mean, Popeye eats more spinach in one day than
Hungarians eat in a lifetime.

Joe Szalai

Q.  What happened to the Pope when he went to Mount Olive?
A.  Popeye beat the crap out of him.

On Fri, 12 Jul 1996 07:29:25 -0300 Johanne L.  Tournier >
wrote:

>My next question is - exactly what is the difference between nokedli and
>galuskas? My cookbooks that give galuska recipes don't seem to even
>mention nokedli. Would it be that the nokedli are thinner in consistency
>than the galuskas?

Dear Madam,

When they want to speak in an "elegant" fashion, they use "paraj" instead of
"speno't" [i.e. spinach], "burgonya" instead of "krumpli" [i.e. potato] and
"galuska" instead of "nokedli" [i.e. "dumplings"].

As a matter of fact, "spenot", "krumpli" and "nokedli" are loan-words from
German and they belong to common parlance. Nevertheless, compare Hung.
"nokedli" with Austrian-German "Nockel", German "Nudel", Engl. "noodles" as
well as  Spanish "noclos" (pr. ny-) and you'll realize that's all the same
Italian pasta, i.e. "gnocchi".

Best regards



^^^^^^^^
Paolo Agostini >
"Az egyetlen olasz szuletesu aki a magyar nokedli szaggatasahoz ert..."
[The only  native Italian who knows how to make (~ "cut")  Hungarian galuska...
]

Dear Mr. Agostini!

At 16:32 13/07/96 +0200, you wrote:

>Dear Madam,
>
>When they want to speak in an "elegant" fashion, they use "paraj" instead of
>"speno't" [i.e. spinach], "burgonya" instead of "krumpli" [i.e. potato] and
>"galuska" instead of "nokedli" [i.e. "dumplings"].
>
>As a matter of fact, "spenot", "krumpli" and "nokedli" are loan-words from
>German and they belong to common parlance. Nevertheless, compare Hung.
>"nokedli" with Austrian-German "Nockel", German "Nudel", Engl. "noodles" as
>well as  Spanish "noclos" (pr. ny-) and you'll realize that's all the same
>Italian pasta, i.e. "gnocchi".
>
>Best regards
>
>
>
>^^^^^^^^
>Paolo Agostini >
>"Az egyetlen olasz szuletesu aki a magyar nokedli szaggatasahoz ert..."
>[The only  native Italian who knows how to make (~ "cut")  Hungarian
galuska...]

Nagyon sze'pen ko:szo:no:m!

A couple of gentlemen sent me variations on the various nokedli or galuska
recipes, but you are the only one to discuss the etymology of the word, and
I find that fascinating! It just goes to show that even though Hungarian
culture is very distinctive, still like every other part of Europe, the
influences spread across all the national boundaries, often very subtly. Do
you know by chance if the more *cultured* word, galuska, is actually Magyar
(or perhaps I should say Finno-Ugric) in its derivation, or would it perhaps
be Slavic in origin?

Thanks again for taking the trouble to write.

By the way, you might enjoy corresponding a bit with Aniko (that is, if she
ever returns to the Net! :-)), as she has vacationed in Italy and I believe
she speaks a bit of Italian.

I would be interested to hear from you as to how you would compare the
Hungarian and Italian cuisines, as I enjoy both of them, and how you would
compare the cultural traditions of the two countries.

Tisztelettel,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier
e-mail - 
>
>

At 16:32 13/07/96 +0200, Paolo Agostini wrote to the List:

Sorry to one and all! I thought that was a personal e-mail from Mr.
Agostini, and I responded with a personal message, which I didn't realize
was going to the list until it was too late.

Sorry!

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier
e-mail - 


>
>

And GALUSKA is a Hungarian borrowing from Slovak HALUSKY (= plural since
no one ever eats just one).  The S has a soft mark, making it SH the same
as the Hungarian S.  Whether the Slovak word is related to Italian
gnocchi seems unlikely etymologically, but the thing itself is very
similar to the German noodle types obviously.  (I'm assuming it isn't a
Slovak borrowing from Hungarian because of the Slavic ending KA.)

How do Hungarians serve galuska in an "elegant" restaurant?  As a side
dish in place of potatoes or rice?  Is it ever served alone as a meatless
starch dish (like macaroni and cheese)?  Alone, Slovaks consider it
traditional peasant food, and with BRYNDZA sheep cheese it still has a
sort of mystique as coming from the mountain sheep pastures of the Low
Tatras, since bryndza came with the so-called Wallachian colonization
from Rumania in the late middle ages.

What do Hungarians call bryndza?  In Germany it's Liptauer cheese, from
the Liptov region which commercialized it.

And Paolo, what are "cut" galuska?  Do you mean cut off the end of a
board with a knife moving so fast it's a blur?  If so, congratulations,
as that's an art less and less passed from mother to daughter even, much
less parent to son.


Norma Rudinsky






On Sat, 13 Jul 1996, Paolo Agostini wrote:

> On Fri, 12 Jul 1996 07:29:25 -0300 Johanne L.  Tournier >
> wrote:
>
> >My next question is - exactly what is the difference between nokedli and
> >galuskas? My cookbooks that give galuska recipes don't seem to even
> >mention nokedli. Would it be that the nokedli are thinner in consistency
> >than the galuskas?
>
> Dear Madam,
>
> When they want to speak in an "elegant" fashion, they use "paraj" instead of
> "speno't" [i.e. spinach], "burgonya" instead of "krumpli" [i.e. potato] and
> "galuska" instead of "nokedli" [i.e. "dumplings"].
>
> As a matter of fact, "spenot", "krumpli" and "nokedli" are loan-words from
> German and they belong to common parlance. Nevertheless, compare Hung.
> "nokedli" with Austrian-German "Nockel", German "Nudel", Engl. "noodles" as
> well as  Spanish "noclos" (pr. ny-) and you'll realize that's all the same
> Italian pasta, i.e. "gnocchi".
>
> Best regards
>
>
>
> ^^^^^^^^
> Paolo Agostini >
> "Az egyetlen olasz szuletesu aki a magyar nokedli szaggatasahoz ert..."
> [The only  native Italian who knows how to make (~ "cut")  Hungarian
 galuska...]
>

At 09:51 AM 7/13/96 -0700, Norma Rudinsky wrote:

>What do Hungarians call bryndza?  In Germany it's Liptauer cheese, from
>the Liptov region which commercialized it.

The word "bra>nza~" (turn the > 90 degrees counter-clockwise and put it on
the top of the first a and put  the ~ on the top of the second a) means
cheese in Romanian, I assume that is the origin of "bryndza".

Gabor D. Farkas

At 09:51 AM 7/13/96 -0700, Norma Rudinsky wrote:

>What do Hungarians call bryndza?  In Germany it's Liptauer cheese, from
>the Liptov region which commercialized it.

In "The Cuisine of Hungary", George Lang, writing about Lipto' Cheese Spread
says, "If you are unable to buy the real sheep's-milk cheese, a very similar
product called Brindza, which comes from Rumania, can generally be purchased
in the better cheese stores."  He also says, "The cheese which is the base
of the spread originally came from a north Hungarian area called Lipto'."

Whenever my mother made Ko:ro:zo:tt ju'htu'ro' she always used cottage
cheese instead of sheep's-milk cheese or Brindza.  Keep in mind that the
cottage cheese in Hungary is a lot drier than the creamed cottage cheese
sold in North America.  And, by the way, we always called it Liptai tu'ro'.

Lipto' Cheese Spread (Ko:ro:zo:tt ju'htu'ro')

half pound Lipto' sheep's-milk cheese
quarter pound lightly salted butter, softened
one teaspoon paprika
half teaspoon prepared mustard
half teaspoon pounded caraway seeds
one small onion, grated
half teaspoon anchovy paste

1. Sieve the cheese and mix it with softened butter and all other ingedients
till the spread is light red in color and evenly mixed.  Refrigerate.
2. Serve with wedges of good, crusty bread or toast, accompanied by young
radishes, green peppers or scallions.

Joe Szalai

At 02:51 AM 7/12/96 -0400, Sam Stowe wrote:

>Great! A couple of pinko die-hards, a woman who thinks pouring mustard all
>over herself in public is art, ...

I agree with you, Sam.  Pouring mustard all over oneself in public is not
art.  Well, in any case, it's not art compared to those beautiful
paint-by-number masterpieces that adorn the walls of your house.

Joe Szalai

"In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal
to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us
nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting
that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable,
conformable."

                              Susan Sontag

Joe Szalai suggested the Hungarian government bypass the "no-smoking"
section and go directly toward abolishing smoking.

Wonderful idea, but I doubt it'd happen, for two reasons.  One, this would
show that the government actually cared for the well-being of its
citizens.  And since it obviously doesn't care for their economic
well-being (i.e. the brazen corruption within), why should it care if they
get cancer or not.

Two, the Hungarians themselves.  Like most other people in our unbalanced
world, Hungarians are full of anxiety.  Cigarettes are something to hold
onto.  My suggestion would be for Hungary to import--and damn the cost--a
set of worry beads from Greece for every citizen, regardless of age
(babies should learn to use them early--they'll need them).  There has to
be some replacement for the cigarettes.  (Although Greeks smoke a lot
despite their worry beads.)  And if they're worried how they'll pay for
this--well, they've got their worry beads to alleviate the anxiety.  (Kind
of like the person who receives his latest whopping credit card bill and
gets so anxious over it that he has to buy something--on credit, of
course.)

I really think this is a great idea, and it passes the supreme test: Would
the communists have allowed it?  (Never!  There was never anything to
worry about under communism.)

Burian

Who wrote this?

I promised you to discuss a little bit more these quotes of
a radical left-winger ideologist:

> "Withdrawal of tolerance from repressive movements before
> they can become active, intolerance EVEN TOWARD THOUGHT,
> OPINION AND WORD, and finally, intolerance in the opposite
> direction, that is toward the self-styled conservatives, to
> the political Right -- these ANTI-DEMOCRATIC notions respond
> to the actual development of the democratic society. (...)
> To be  sure, THIS IS CENSORSHIP, EVEN PRE-CENSORSHIP."
>
> "The tolerance (...) will never be gift of the powers that
> be; it can, under the prevailing conditions of tyranny by the
> majority, only be won by the sustained effort of RADICAL
> MINORITIES (...) -- minorities INTOLERANT, MILITANTLY
> INTOLERANT and disobedient to the rules of behavior which
> tolerate destruction and suppression."

YES, everyone was right who guessed these qoutes are from
Herbert Marcuse, the apostle of neo-marxism in the sixties
and seventies. (See eg. in Critical Sociology, edited by
Paul Converton, Penguin 1976, pages 320 and 328.)

I just found a very profound example for how to use these
ideological guidelines right here, on this discussion list.

So what follows here is THE EXAMPLE:

************************************************************
I don't want to call names. So let's name the 2 persons
involved in this example by X and Y.

X accused Y to be a nazi like this:
> But [Y] is a nazi! I spotted him as soon as I began reading the
> HIX publications more than two and a half years ago.
Is this really an accusation? Well, it seems to be. The
nazis killed a couple of million people and anybody called
to be a nazi is secretly said to be a potential mass
murderer. No question about it.

Let's see, how X explains his/her ardent accusations:
> The discussion centered
> around the Bolshevik revolution and I said something to the effect that most
> likely the Bolshevik revolution would have taken place without the outbreak
> of World War I. [Y] answered: the outbreak of the Bolshevik revolution was
> decided when a Jewish banker loaned a few million dollars to Japan in 1904!
In another world, we see here, that Y maintained a highly
non-standard explanation regarding the outbreak of the Big
Bolshie Revolution in Russia in 1917. Maybe X found it a
"behavior which tolerates destruction and suppression." Why?
The hell knows. But X must have decided that Y tolerates
destruction and suppression by his views, because X
immediately withdrew tolerance from Y and showed up massive
"intolerance EVEN TOWARD THOUGHT, OPINION AND WORD".

See how X finishes his/her "proof":
> I immediately knew that I was talking to a man who ardently believes in
> international Jewish conspiracies.
That is Y "ardently believes in international Jewish conspiracies".
It is X's conclusion, just because Y has non-standard views
about a piece of history. Is it not ridiculous?

And also see the clear suggestion that X made about Y: Y
"believes in international Jewish conspiracies", therefore
Y is a nazi! Is it really that clear, that anybody that
"believes in international Jewish conspiracies" must be a
nazi, a potential mass murderer? I don't think so. And I
also doubt that non-standard views about the history
imply  "belief in international Jewish conspiracies". That's
just simple bullshit.

So what we reveal here is simply a kind of "INTOLERANT,
MILITANTLY INTOLERANT" bahavior from the side of X toward Y.
To be sure, this is not a behavior of a respected historian!
This is plain ideological babbling. Right on the track of
Mr. Marcuse.
***************************************************************

Take care,                                           Sz. Zoli