The task of this study is to listen to the moral voice of István Bibó, a Hungarian
democrat. Listening to past ‘voices’ is an approach of intellectual history
introduced by Stefan Collini, who has eavesdropped on the conversations of
‘public moralists’ in the British intellectual life from the period c. 1850–1950.
What has been translated of and written on Bibó’s thought in Hungary –
irrespective of a couple of notable exceptions not much is found abroad – is
very ‘Hungarian’ in tone in particular, note the very productive workshop (Bibó
Szellemi Műhely), whereas I have tried independently to develop Collini’s
approach. Instead of uncovering the meanings of ideas and concepts in the
contexts of their utterance (textuality and conceptual unity), Collini’s point is to
study political ideas and arguments in relation to some basic values that an
intellectual culture maintains and intellectuals reevaluate. My hypothesis is that
Bibó’s voice is ‘publicly moralist’, a
s he sent serious messages to his reading
public, not only to Hungarian intelligentsia but occasionally to all Europeans.
Not entertaining so much a ‘scientific attitude’, in times of crisis Bibó detected
confusion, decay and loss of the fundamental values on which order and
legitimacy of power in a society rest. His main message was to awaken the
elites to their proper function of reinventing and resuscitating such values as
equality, freedom, solidarity, temperance, moderation, political correctness, and
social justice. He also pointed to their possible moral failings; they had not been
ready or willing in their governing practice to execute timely reforms in
accordance with such values. Bibó presupposed that moral issues outweigh
political, economic or aesthetic considerations. His rhetoric was not only
rational persuasion or political-cultural criticism telling the truth and
demanding some social reform from a set political platform. Instead, he stood
on a higher moral ground from which he could preach the revival of democratic
values that were, in his view, at some critical historical moment brought to fore
but lost (in Hungary e.g. in 1848–1849, 1945 and 1956). Bibó used his voice from
a rearguard position and took part in political life only when a democratic
solution appeared feasible (in 1945–1947 and 1956). Thus political theory for
Bibó appears as a parasite to social values and moral comprehension.
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