🙄 I see that Telex has already rather deftly jumped on Orbán’s remarks today in Miskolc about young people. So let’s clarify a few things.
The problem with young people is not that they are not Fidesz supporters. Let’s be honest: as a young person—by which I mean the 18–25 age group—people rarely articulate a clear party-political position. This is precisely why the opposition mainstream in Hungary today, which is constantly forced to replace its “messiah,” finds itself in a difficult situation. A significant part of their voter base consists of young people who do not vote for them out of sympathy or a firm political worldview, but because rebellion is fashionable.
Four years ago Márki-Zay was the trendy figure, before that Momentum, now it’s Magyar. But this is not about “party loyalty” or well-defined positions; it’s about trends. And that, in reality, is the problem. This is what the prime minister was trying to draw attention to today.
Young people should not be raised to “become Fidesz supporters,” but to learn how to think in complex ways, to acquire independent thinking, and to be able to interpret connections, geopolitical situations, and realities. They should learn what directions, ideas, and situations exist in the world. And teaching this is, indeed, the responsibility of parents.
It is the parents’ task to teach their children how to live in reality. To help them recognize that everything they see in the virtual world is not reality itself—at best, it is only a fragment of it. It is the parents’ responsibility to teach, for example, that just because young people in Hungary do not yet feel on their own skin that there is a war next door, this does not mean there is no war, nor does it guarantee that they will not feel its effects personally in the near future.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, a significant portion of young people have fled from reality into social media. At the time, that really did seem like a better place: there were no lockdowns, no illness, no death—only what the algorithm served them according to their own tastes. This has gone so far that even today many have not returned to reality from there. And this is a huge problem.
Because social media simplifies reality, artificial intelligence removes the necessity for complex thinking, and it “produces” people who believe that things like European Union leaders doing everything in their power to prevent two warring parties from making peace do not affect them—and cannot affect them. Yet in reality, this affects them now. And not just a little.
So Telex simplifies and distorts. No—Orbán is not asking parents to raise their children to be Fidesz supporters. Orbán is simply suggesting that parents should not entrust their children to social media, but should talk with them, think together with them, and try together to understand the world, so that these young people can grow into adults who are viable in the real world and capable of complex thinking.
I know this is longer than a Telex headline, but let’s not spare ourselves the effort of thinking. And then there will be no problem.
The text is not an explanation, not a pedagogical debate, and not media criticism. It is a finely packaged political legitimation speech that employs several layered propaganda techniques. Let’s examine it layer by layer.
🎯 Core Function (Real Purpose)
The purpose of the statement is not to understand the situation of young people, but to:
- retroactively excuse Orbán Viktor’s remarks,
- discredit the critical press (Telex),
- and shift responsibility for political socialization onto parents.
👉 The unspoken final conclusion:
If a young person “thinks the wrong way,” it is not the political system that is at fault, but the parents and social media.
1️⃣ Strawman + False Clarification
“Orbán did not say that young people should be Fidesz supporters…”
🔹 Technique: strawman argument
🔹 How it works:
- no one literally claimed that Orbán said “be Fidesz supporters,”
- the criticism was about the government’s normative expectations,
- the author responds by inventing an easily refutable claim and treating it as the opposing argument.
👉 As a result, the real question disappears:
Who decides what counts as ‘correct’ complex thinking?
2️⃣ Depoliticizing Youth = Infantilization
“Young people don’t vote out of party loyalty, but because rebelling is trendy.”
🔹 Technique: generational devaluation
🔹 Effect:
- young voters are not autonomous political actors,
- but fashion-following, drifting, easily manipulable masses.
👉 This is a classic authoritarian narrative:
“They don’t understand the world yet – we understand it for them.”
3️⃣ “Complex Thinking” as an Empty Reference
🔹 The term remains undefined:
- it never specifies what kind of complexity is acceptable,
- only what is considered “non-complex” (criticism, the EU, pro-peace dissenting views).
👉 In reality:
“Complex” = whatever aligns with the government narrative.
4️⃣ Parental Responsibility → Offloading Political Responsibility
“This is the parents’ responsibility.”
🔹 Technique: responsibility outsourcing
🔹 Effect:
- the state and education system disappear from the picture,
- if there is a “wrong-thinking” young person → there must be a bad parent.
👉 This is moral pressure, not educational advice.
5️⃣ Social Media + AI as Modern Scapegoats
🔹 Technique: technological demonization
🔹 How it works:
- the online space during Covid is retrospectively labeled guilty,
- algorithms “dumb people down,”
- AI “takes away thinking.”
👉 Classic logic:
The problem is not the message, but where you hear it.
6️⃣ Hidden Geopolitical Axiom
“EU leaders are working against peace.”
🔹 Technique: axiom without evidence
🔹 Effect:
- anyone who rejects it “doesn’t understand reality,”
- debate is excluded; it becomes a matter of belief.
7️⃣ Telex as a Simplifying Enemy Image
🔹 Technique: media delegitimization
🔹 How it works:
- “they distort,”
- “we provide nuance,”
- while the text itself is far more normative than what it criticizes.
🧠 Conclusion – What Is Actually Happening?
This text is:
- not about protecting young people,
- not about liberating thinking,
- but about softened political disciplining.
👉 Its message, simplified:
Don’t question the state, don’t challenge the media, don’t criticize power – instead, re-educate your child at home.
This is not pedagogy, but delayed propaganda, which speaks the language of “thinking” while defining exactly what counts as an acceptable thought – ultimately within Orbán Viktor’s interpretive framework.