> >
>         Please, don't take Eva Durant too seriously. She doesn't believe in
> the nonsocialist economic model.
>
>         Eva Balogh


There are valid reasons for  skepticism, don't you think,
I did list quite a few in the past...


Eva Durant

-Eva Balogh:
>
>         Oh, come on. Lenin wrote his "little book," because he had to come
> up with some theory which would explain why Marx's prediction about the
> worsening situation of the working class in capitalist countries didn't
> materialize. So, he came up with this ingenious theory which went something
> like this: the workers of the capitalist countries were paid off by the
> booties of colonialism. Sounded nice, except it wasn't really true.
>

I have some idea from films and literature about powerty in England
France, Sweeden, Italy etc. in the beginning of the century. Not a
nice picture though millions leaving for the US must have helped
just a bit.
No booties from the colonies?  Why  they bothered fighting
bloody wars for them?  (Including ww1 and ww2, very capitalist
wars indeed, and similar antagonisms already surfacing again)
But the trickle-down effect of the wealthy in society is
greatly exaggerated.
Didn't sound nice and  it was really true.

>
>         Yes, the ideas were developed there but no revolution came in those
> countries.
>

Actually, there were pretty good tries, with not far from victory
in Germany - a Hitler was needed to put it all down,
while he had to maskarade in demagogy of the
very popular "socialist" image.

and a decent general strike in England, also traditional
trick of the day manouvers saved the day there.

>
>         Yes, there were attempts but not because the general miseries of
> capitalism but because of the myseries of the war. Please, keep in mind that
> only that these attempts occurred only on the losing side.

Public relations and the feel-good factor were badly absent
before the war.  As for the all important historical facts -
do some reading of the events in England as mentioned
above. There was also a Paris Commune earlier, I forgot
to mention it.  Did Zola make it all up in those books?


(OK. Russia was
> not theoretically on the losing side but in reality it was.) Yes, these
> revolutionary attempts occurred in Germany, Hungary, and Russia. Not in
> countries which were victorious. As for your saying that "only the Russian
> ruling calss was weak enough to a revolution to succeed," I think is wrong.
> It succeeded in Russia because the Provisional Government didn't have the
> guts to get out of the war. Kerensky and Miliukov felt that they cannot go
> back on their words with the Allies. And, of course, there was a lot of
> pressure on the Allied side to keep Russia in the war. They made a horrible
> mistake. If the Provisional Government had gotten out of the war, Lenin or
> no Lenin, German sealed train or no German sealed train, there most likely
> wouldn't have been any Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
>

You could explain away the same way the defeats of the
above mentioned workers' movements. Don't get lost
in details, look for trends - that is the main point
in history, so that we are more aware how to deal
with the future  - in my thoroughly uneducated opinion.



>         And by the way although my main interest is Eastern Europea and
> Hungary within that, I also studied Russian history quite extensively and
> TA'd year after year in Russian history.


so? refering to authority is never a valid point in a
discussion, however it frequently masks the absence
of a good argument.

Eva Durant (don't worry, I won't be here for long... off to
            Hungary soon, roll on the holidays, has anyone
             travelled in England by Attila Tours coaches?)

At 08:54 AM 7/4/96 +0100, you wrote:
>> >
>>         Please, don't take Eva Durant too seriously. She doesn't believe in
>> the nonsocialist economic model.
>>
>>         Eva Balogh
>
>
>There are valid reasons for  skepticism, don't you think,
>I did list quite a few in the past...
>
>
>Eva Durant

        Yes, but unfortunately the socialist model doesn't work. Please, do
see China's latest experience with capitalism.

        Eva Balogh

At 11:50 PM 7/3/96 -0400, Joe Szalai wrote:
>At 06:22 PM 7/3/96 -0700, Gabor D. Farkas wrote:
>
>>At 07:55 PM 7/3/96 -0400, Joe Szalai wrote:
>>
>>>...I for one, have never
>>>doubted that Eva Balogh has an agenda.  I just don't agree with it.
>>
>>Because it doesn't match yours. You see, I think that you have an agenda.
>>And I am sure you think I have one. And so on, and so on.
>
>True enough, Gabor.  However, my agenda is to bring some truth to the
>ubiquitous right-wing blather on this newsgroup.
>

        Oh, my, my! I do hope that the Californian triumvirate--I am more
and more certain that there are at least three people who are behind Andras
Szucs and the *Nemzet*--reads this! They will split their sides laughing.
"Right-wing blather" (by the way, what a nice word!(;))--surely, they will
think that you are off your rocker. They consider this list a hotbed of
communism, left-wing socialism, flaming liberalism, and some of the
correspondents, including my humble self, the devils incarnate, bosom
friends of Gyula Horn, believing marxists, cosmopolitans, and, in general,
the enemies of the NATION. Maybe you should inform them of their misconceptions
.

        Eva Balogh

Joe Szalai's latest writing on Hungarian education shows that he has
a strong tendency utter sentiments of flow-blown demagoguery. Here are a few
sentences:

>Oh, really!  As if money and wealth had nothing to do with it.  I wonder how
>many intelligent, but poor, working-class teenagers "self-selected"
>themselves to go to high school?

        This was an answer to a statement by me that before World War II a
very small percentage of the people attended gymnasiums as opposed to today,
when a much larger percentage of 14 to 18 year olds attend some kind of
secondary school. My conclusion was that as a result the prestige of
gymnasium graduates before and shortly after World War II was much higher
than today. Moreover, I added, the educational level of gymnasiums was
higher than it is today. I still maintain that this is the case. As far as
"money and wealth" is concerned, social mobility in Horthy's Hungary was
surprisingly fluid. A lot of children of peasants (admittedly not the
poorest, landless kind) attended gymnasiums and became part of the
intelligentsia.


>>Second, as I mentioned, the Hungarians also adopted the practice of
>separate >institutions for future teachers.
>
>I see this as a good idea, not a bad one.

        You do, I don't. They end up, just like in this country, not knowing
enough of the subjects they are supposed to teach. Not only that but those
you can't get into university, end up going to the "foiskola" (Hochschule).
Thus the less bright end up being teachers. This is the case here too. I can
give you some horror stories of people who ended up finishing "teachers'
college."

>>        Prestige of teachers also dropped considerably in the last forty
>>years or so. When I entered fifth grade, most of my teachers had doctorates
>>in their fields. They belonged to a very small, highly educated elite.

>Indeed they did!  And the rest of the Hungarians?  Did anyone care about
>them?  No!

        Well, I just want you to know that Emanuel Kant was a gymnasium
teacher in Konigsberg in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century.
A few things have changed since since, as we all know. Even in the twentieth
century future university professors began their teaching careers teaching
in gymnasiums, all over Europe, including Germany and, of course, Hungary
whose educational system was based on the German model.

        What I am saying is not some kind of anti-democratic sentiment but
simply hard facts. When practically everybody finishes high school the
educational level of that institution must necessarily drop. As it did drop
all over the world. In the United States the solution was "tracking," with
disastrous results. That is, brighter kids and less bright kids were
separated in different classes and if you were unlucky enough because, let's
say, you didn't test well, and ended up in a "slower" class, you learned
mighty little. The Hungarian system works differently but with the same
results. They demand entrance examinations into high schools: smarter kids
get into prestigious high schools, and less bright kids end up in not so
good high schools. Thus, you often hear: Gyuri went to the Moricz Zsigmond
Gymnasium but his sister got into only such and such gymnasium. Not very
democratic, is it? When I went to high school there was only one girls'
gymnasiums in town. There was no entrance exam but in the whole city of
Pecs, there were only about 160 girls who entered gymnasium that year. Today
there are at least four or five gymnasiums and to my utter surprise my old
gymnasium is the top one in town.

        For some strange reason Joe Szalai thinks that all people come out
their mothers' wombs totally equal. Well, they are not equal. Some are very
smart, others are middling, and some are outright stupid.

        Eva Balogh

In article >, Joe Szalai
> writes:

>True enough, Gabor.  However, my agenda is to bring some truth to the
>ubiquitous right-wing blather on this newsgroup.
>
>Joe Szalai

Geez, how noble of you. And we all know what a couple of goose-steppers
Eva and Gabor are. By the way, Joe, when is your term as savior of BLH up?
Planning to run for office again? God bless you for sharing the truth with
us. Your unbiased and non-partisan approach to the issues we discuss here
is one we could all benefit from emulating.
Sam "I got yer truth right here, pal" Stowe

P.S. -- This Benke schmuck sounds like your kind of crank -- ad hominem
assaults right out of the gate and a stupid, slavish adherence to Marxist
failure.

"If this is paradise,
I wish I had a lawn mower..." -- (Nothing But) Flowers, Talking Heads

>
>         Yes, but unfortunately the socialist model doesn't work. Please, do
> see China's latest experience with capitalism.
>
>         Eva Balogh


China has a similar history of failed totalitarian
structure, that has not much in common with the
democratic socialist alternative.
China copied the soviet system earlier this century,
you wouldn't claim it to be therefore a successful
system?

Eva D

This is a longrunning argument here. The best equipped
and best staffed schools get the brightest kids, and
lo and behold - they get good results.
The point is to have the same high level educational
environment for all.  Very few people are geniuses
or "outright stupid", most are in between and if
given a chance, will become as well-educated as those
past lucky grammal-school kids.  The problem is,
it is all to be done on the cheap for the "average".

The hungarian system of mixed ability classes seems
better in my experience, than what I've seen in the UK,
if the teachers are good and the classes are not bigger,
than 25 - which is too much to ask these days anywhere.
In England 60%+ of children were discarded as "factory
fodder" until for the last few decades unskilled jobs
disappeared. Now they are suddenly good enough for
secondary education - to keep them out of the streets
and the unemployment statistics - but without resources
it is a tragically wasted opportunity.

In Hungary uptil the late 80s secondary education was not as bad
as Eva B. makes it out. There were still not enough
places, but enogh in "szakmunkastanulo" (apprenticeship)
schools, where you for three years yo spent time in school,
and time at practical work.   The grammarschools were not
segregated into "real" and "human", everyone had to have
a certain amount of science, foreign language, history
and hungarian language/literature.  I found my comtemporaries
from Hungary having a wider acquantance with the world -
and more curiosity (which in my opinion also to be stimulated
by a decent education) than people of same educational level
here.



-cut-
>         What I am saying is not some kind of anti-democratic sentiment but
> simply hard facts. When practically everybody finishes high school the
> educational level of that institution must necessarily drop. As it did drop
> all over the world.

I repeat: only if the level of resources and expectations
dropped too.

Eva D

At 01:33 PM 7/4/96 +0100, Eva Durant wrote:
>-Eva Balogh:
>>
>>         Oh, come on. Lenin wrote his "little book," because he had to come
>> up with some theory which would explain why Marx's prediction about the
>> worsening situation of the working class in capitalist countries didn't
>> materialize. So, he came up with this ingenious theory which went something
>> like this: the workers of the capitalist countries were paid off by the
>> booties of colonialism. Sounded nice, except it wasn't really true.
>>
>
>I have some idea from films and literature about powerty in England
>France, Sweeden, Italy etc. in the beginning of the century. Not a
>nice picture though millions leaving for the US must have helped
>just a bit.

        I was not talking about former colonies like the American colonies,
later the United States. These were "colonies," which were actually settled
by English-speaking people from England all through the seventeenth century.
The flood of English emigrants at that time was staggering. But in the
nineteenth-century not too many people came from England or especially
France. The French are not the emigrant types. A few Norwegians and Swedes
came and of course a lot of Italian, mostly from southern Italy where
poverty was considerable. (There is still a huge difference between the
economic well being of north and south in Italy.) At the end of the
nineteenth century most of the immigrants to the United States actually came
from Eastern Europe: Poland, Upper Hungary (Slovaks), Russian and Ukrainian
Jews. But in any case, this is not what I was talking about or Lenin was
talking about. Lenin was talking about the African colonies or India which
England and France exploited--according to him--in order to appease their
own working classes. But the fact is that these colonies were not terribly
profitable for the countries themselves. Moreover, Germany which didn't
really have colonies to speak of also experienced a huge rise in living
standards, all over the board, including the working class which by then had
strong trade unions. Let's face it, both Marx and Lenin were wrong. Today's
European working class is infinitely better than ever before without having
any African and Asian colonies whatsoever.

>No booties from the colonies?  Why  they bothered fighting
>bloody wars for them?

        Mostly prestige. By the time the government of England, for example,
paid for the administration, by the time they built all the roads, by the
time they established schools, the whole enterprise cost more than it was worse
.

>(Including ww1 and ww2, very capitalist
>wars indeed,

        Oh, why? Please, explain, why we should label these wars "capitalist
wars."

>and similar antagonisms already surfacing again)

        What, capitalist antagonisms? Between whom and whom.

>>         Yes, the ideas were developed there but no revolution came in those
>> countries.
>>
>
>Actually, there were pretty good tries, with not far from victory
>in Germany - a Hitler was needed to put it all down,
>while he had to maskarade in demagogy of the
>very popular "socialist" image.

        Somewhere at the end of your note you say you don't know much
history. Well, you don't! I am especially intrigued by your description of
what happened in Germany and how Hitler managed to quell all those
revolutions! This is, of course, all wrong. If you want to argue seriously
about these matters, you must have at least rudimentary knowledge of the facts.


>and a decent general strike in England, also traditional
>trick of the day manouvers saved the day there.

        But there was no proletarian revolution there either. General strike
or no general strike.


>>         Yes, there were attempts but not because the general miseries of
>> capitalism but because of the myseries of the war. Please, keep in mind that
>> only that these attempts occurred only on the losing side.

>Public relations and the feel-good factor were badly absent
>before the war.

        Sorry, I simply don't know what you are talking about. Revolutionary
attempts occurred only in countries which lost the war: there was no
revolutionary fervor in England, France, Czechoslovakia, Romania,
Yugoslavia. But in Russia (in terrible economic shape), Germany, and Hungary.

>As for the all important historical facts -
>do some reading of the events in England as mentioned
>above.

        First of all, I do know some English history. But the fact is that
the "marxist, proletarian revolution" didn't break out in the most advanced
capitalist countries but the least developed, backward, mostly agricultural
country, Russia. And there only after a practically lost war when the weak
Russian economy was unable to fight a prolonged, technically very advanced war.

>There was also a Paris Commune earlier, I forgot
>to mention it.  Did Zola make it all up in those books?

        Well, of course, you would be better off to read some history books
about the Commune instead of Zola. Sure, there was a Paris Commune but it
was only an episode. A full-fledged "communist" regime was established only
in one country: Russia.


>>(OK. Russia was
>> not theoretically on the losing side but in reality it was.) Yes, these
>> revolutionary attempts occurred in Germany, Hungary, and Russia. Not in
>> countries which were victorious. As for your saying that "only the Russian
>> ruling calss was weak enough to a revolution to succeed," I think is wrong.
>> It succeeded in Russia because the Provisional Government didn't have the
>> guts to get out of the war. Kerensky and Miliukov felt that they cannot go
>> back on their words with the Allies. And, of course, there was a lot of
>> pressure on the Allied side to keep Russia in the war. They made a horrible
>> mistake. If the Provisional Government had gotten out of the war, Lenin or
>> no Lenin, German sealed train or no German sealed train, there most likely
>> wouldn't have been any Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
>>
>
>You could explain away the same way the defeats of the
>above mentioned workers' movements.

        What are you talking about? With the exception of the Paris Commune,
not one of the pre-war working-class movement relied on force. They opted
for trade unionism; they no longer followed the marxist dictum about
"proletarian revolution."

>Don't get lost
>in details, look for trends - that is the main point
>in history, so that we are more aware how to deal
>with the future

        I don't get lost in details. Let's put it as simply as I can: The
Russian bolsheviks were successful because the Russian government was stupid
enough to get the country involved in a protracted war for which it was
ill-prepared. Lenin in 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the war, was
extremely pessimistic about the coming of that famous proletarian
revolution. He said that it was unlikely that it would occur in his life
time. And he was right. Just before the outbreak of the war, Russian
economic growth was very high and thanks to Stolypin's reforms the peasantry
at last began to strive economically. Then, the war broke out. And that was
Lenin's happiest day: he said that he didn't think that the Tsar was that
stupid; now there might be a revolution. And there was!

>--in my thoroughly uneducated opinion.

        Well, you said it not I.

>>         And by the way although my main interest is Eastern Europea and
>> Hungary within that, I also studied Russian history quite extensively and
>> TA'd year after year in Russian history.
>
>
>so? refering to authority is never a valid point in a
>discussion, however it frequently masks the absence
>of a good argument.

        Unfortunately, it is true that the more knowledge we have of a
subject with more authority we can speak. You have no background whatsoever
in Russian or German history and therefore you can't argue effectively
because you don't know the facts. I am in a much better position: I studied
Russian history both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student. I find
it hard to swallow that some people think they someone who has a smattering
of knowledge of history is entitled to act as an expert. Nobody would dare
to say to a physician that his years at medical school were totallay useless.

        Eva Balogh

At 03:53 PM 7/4/96 +0100, Eva Durant wrote:
>>
>>         Yes, but unfortunately the socialist model doesn't work. Please, do
>> see China's latest experience with capitalism.
>>
>>         Eva Balogh
>
>
>China has a similar history of failed totalitarian
>structure, that has not much in common with the
>democratic socialist alternative.
>China copied the soviet system earlier this century,
>you wouldn't claim it to be therefore a successful
>system?

        Eva, This is not your day! Let's start with the ambiguous words
"earlier this century." That sounds like the 1920s. But the revolution in
China took place in 1949. Yes, they slavishly imitated the soviet economic
system which failed. This is not what I'm talking about. I am talking about
the introduction of market economy and the incredible economic success which
it brought about. The living standards simply soared.


        Eva Balogh

At 07:38 AM 7/4/96 -0400, Sam Stowe wrote:

>In article >, Joe Szalai
> writes:
>
>>True enough, Gabor.  However, my agenda is to bring some truth to the
>>ubiquitous right-wing blather on this newsgroup.
>>
>>Joe Szalai
>
>Geez, how noble of you. And we all know what a couple of goose-steppers
>Eva and Gabor are. By the way, Joe, when is your term as savior of BLH up?
>Planning to run for office again? God bless you for sharing the truth with
>us. Your unbiased and non-partisan approach to the issues we discuss here
>is one we could all benefit from emulating.
>Sam "I got yer truth right here, pal" Stowe

I'm glad you've discovered where my truth is, Sam.  Now, I would suggest
that you take your hand off it or else you might excite yourself and, as the
Hungarian saying goes, "a fasz felall, az esz megall"!  And who knows what
will happen then?  (My Hungarian isn't very good.  Perhaps Martha Bihari can
translate it, hopefully without Latin words.)

>P.S. -- This Benke schmuck sounds like your kind of crank -- ad hominem
>assaults right out of the gate and a stupid, slavish adherence to Marxist
>failure.

Yup!  That's what I'm into.  I love a slavish adherence to anything that
doesn't tax my brain.  Too bad that Marxism isn't as fashionable as it was
when I was a student.  Intellectual standards are just not as high as they
were 25 years ago.  But not to worry!  The slavish adherence to serve one's
corporate masters has finally taken hold of the people.  The desire for a
better world is now redundant.

>"If this is paradise,
>I wish I had a lawn mower..." -- (Nothing But) Flowers, Talking Heads

This sounds rather violent.  Maybe the self-esteem movement can help you.

Joe Szalai

At 07:24 04/07/96 -0700, Eva Balogh commented in response to Joe Szalai's
left-wing blather:

<snipped previous repartee>

Uncle Joe:
>>True enough, Gabor.  However, my agenda is to bring some truth to the
>>ubiquitous right-wing blather on this newsgroup.
>>
Eva B.:
>        Oh, my, my! I do hope that the Californian triumvirate--I am more
>and more certain that there are at least three people who are behind Andras
>Szucs and the *Nemzet*--reads this! They will split their sides laughing.
>"Right-wing blather" (by the way, what a nice word!(;))--surely, they will
>think that you are off your rocker. They consider this list a hotbed of
>communism, left-wing socialism, flaming liberalism, and some of the
>correspondents, including my humble self, the devils incarnate, bosom
>friends of Gyula Horn, believing marxists, cosmopolitans, and, in general,
>the enemies of the NATION. Maybe you should inform them of their
misconceptions.
>
>        Eva Balogh

Hi, Eva!

Joe's comment makes me wonder which list he's been reading. It also makes me
think you must be doing something right, if the extreme left and the extreme
right both think you are out to lunch!

TTFN! :-)

Johanne
>
>

Two relatively obscure questions about Hungarian that I'd like to have
answered:

1. What's the difference in meaning, if any, between "nemzeti" and
"orszagos"? My Hungarian-English dictionaries list both as meaning
"national" and I haven't been able to construe a difference in meaning by
observing how the two words are used in actual practice.


2. Was there really such a person as Laszlo Orszagh and is it true that he
compiled the most widely-used English dictionary in Hungary in the
post-war period despite having a minimal command of the language himself?
The account I read blamed Orszagh's, uh, colorful opinions on English
vocabulary and usage for imbuing an entire generation or two of Hungarians
with a unique brand of English intelligible, in many cases, only to
themselves. This sounds, at first blush, like a delightful fiction. But
who knows? Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.
Sam Stowe

"If this is paradise,
I wish I had a lawn mower..." -- (Nothing But) Flowers, Talking Heads

Joe Szalai felt it necessary to present us with this left-wing truth:

> take your hand off it or else you might excite yourself and, as the
> Hungarian saying goes, "a fasz felall, az esz megall"!
> (My Hungarian isn't very good.  Perhaps Martha Bihari can
> translate it, hopefully without Latin words.)

If you are macho enough to let the world know in Hungarian, be macho enough
to provide an English translation too.  Otherwise you are consciously
denying the English-only speakers the pearls of you wisdom.  Someone
may even mention cowardice in this context.

> Intellectual standards are just not as high as they
> were 25 years ago.

Despite your best efforts.

George Antony

Sam Stowe asked:

> 1. What's the difference in meaning, if any, between "nemzeti" and
> "orszagos"? My Hungarian-English dictionaries list both as meaning
> "national" and I haven't been able to construe a difference in meaning by
> observing how the two words are used in actual practice.

I'd pair 'nemzeti' with 'national' and 'orsza'gos' with 'nationwide'.
'Orsza'gos' is mostly used in contexts where the national, as opposed to
local, nature, terms of reference, area of operations, etc., of an
institution is emphasized.  (E.g., Orsza'gos Takare'pe'nzta'r: Nationwide
Savings Bank).  'Nemzeti' refers to more of a morally or intellectually
national terms of reference for an institution rather than a geographic one.
(E.g., Nemzeti Szi'nha'z: National Theatre Company.)

> 2. Was there really such a person as Laszlo Orszagh and is it true that he
> compiled the most widely-used English dictionary in Hungary in the
> post-war period despite having a minimal command of the language himself?
> The account I read blamed Orszagh's, uh, colorful opinions on English
> vocabulary and usage for imbuing an entire generation or two of Hungarians
> with a unique brand of English intelligible, in many cases, only to
> themselves. This sounds, at first blush, like a delightful fiction. But
> who knows? Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.

Linguists such as Andra's Kornai (sorry, Andra1s Kornai ;-) would know
the definitive answer to the first questions.  As a humble user, I found
a couple of shortcomings over the years, but it is basically OK.

On the other hand, as I heard, Ja'nos Arany, one of the great 19th century
Hungarian poets, practised the literary translation of English works into
Hungarian without actually speaking English.  You see, English pronunciation
is quite a hurdle for Hungarians.  So is the highly idiomatic native-level
usage of English, but then anyone translating from English in a serious
way would know those idiomatic expressions.

George Antony

(Eagerly awaiting the truth brigade to put the above right-wing blather
left ;-)

Martha wrote 16:09:04 EDT 1996 HUNGARY #715:

> At 09:57 PM 6/26/96 -0400, Ferenc Novak wrote:
> >Eva Balogh wrote in Hungary#710:
>>
>> > But what I don't understand
>> >is the following: why do you think that Gyorgy Ilsovszky actually talked
>> >about you. Perhaps Hosszu's first name is Ferenc.
>> >
>> >        Eva Balogh
>> >
>> There you go again, f.p. What business is it of yours?
>
>Excuse me, please.  Will you tell me what the above abbreviation means?
>
>Martha

Fogadatlan prokator (Unsolicited advocate).

Ferenc

At 07:24 AM 7/4/96 -0700, Eva Balogh wrote:

>        Joe Szalai's latest writing on Hungarian education shows that he has
>a strong tendency utter sentiments of flow-blown demagoguery. Here are a few
>sentences:
>
>>Oh, really!  As if money and wealth had nothing to do with it.  I wonder how
>>many intelligent, but poor, working-class teenagers "self-selected"
>>themselves to go to high school?
>
>        This was an answer to a statement by me that before World War II a
>very small percentage of the people attended gymnasiums as opposed to today,
>when a much larger percentage of 14 to 18 year olds attend some kind of
>secondary school. My conclusion was that as a result the prestige of
>gymnasium graduates before and shortly after World War II was much higher
>than today. Moreover, I added, the educational level of gymnasiums was
>higher than it is today. I still maintain that this is the case. As far as
>"money and wealth" is concerned, social mobility in Horthy's Hungary was
>surprisingly fluid. A lot of children of peasants (admittedly not the
>poorest, landless kind) attended gymnasiums and became part of the
>intelligentsia.

At 05:13 PM 6/26/96 -0700, Eva Balogh wrote:

>Even a mediocre student in a Hungarian gymnasium was way above the average
>student, let's say, in the United States. However, more and more Hungarian
>children go to gymnasiums or their equivalents and therefore the pool is
not >as good as it was a few decades ago.

It seems to me that Eva Balogh just doesn't get it.  In a post to Tibor
Benke she expressed her affection for "facts".

>Well, without facts or with the wrong facts, we can't do anything.
>No fancy foot work, no fancy philosphy of history will be worth a damn
>without the righ facts.

So, what are the "facts" about the decline of the standards of Hungarian
gymnasium's (high school)?   Eva Balogh keeps repeating that the fall in the
standards happened when greater number of students started to go to high
school.  But did the standards really fall?  I'd love to see some "facts".

Let's assume that a small gymnasium has 100 students.  Let's also assume
that 10 of them are excellent, above average students.  That would mean that
10 percent of the school is at a high standard.  Then, 30 or 40 years ago,
those nasty commies make high school available to all students regardless of
family income.  The student population swells to 1,000.  Of that number, 50
are excellent, above average students.  That would mean that 5 percent of
the school is at a high standard.

Eva Balogh looks at the "hard facts" and proclaims that the high standard at
that gymnasium fell from 10 percent of the student body to 5 percent.  My
"facts" show that there are now five times more excellent students then
before.  My "facts" also show that 900 more students in the community are
now better educated than before.  Is that not a social gain?  I say it is.
Eva Balogh says it isn't.  She's overly nostalgic for the good old days when
the elite had it all.  Sorry, but times change.

Joe Szalai

P.S.  Eva Balogh also wrote:

>        For some strange reason Joe Szalai thinks that all people come out
>their mothers' wombs totally equal. Well, they are not equal. Some are very
>smart, others are middling, and some are outright stupid.

Ever since I've seen the above I've been wondering where she would place me.

In article >, Joe Szalai
> writes:

>I'm glad you've discovered where my truth is, Sam.

LOL! That's not where your truth is. You've just gotten into the bad habit
of letting it do all your thinking for you.
Sam Stowe

P.S. -- It really is nice to have you back in rare form. You have been
missed here.

"If this is paradise,
I wish I had a lawn mower..." -- (Nothing But) Flowers, Talking Heads

Lectoris Salutem!
        Before my departure for a short holiday round-trip in Hungary

(BTW a visit to the memorial park of O-pusztaszer in the 1100th year of
the Panno-Hungarian history may be highly recommended to all Hungarians)

I found a real masterpiece of "careless cross-reference", which -
mentioning my name - cannot be left without answer even if during my
absence the thread happily faded away.
        Our prominent careless cross-referee referring to the
HIX SZALON list wrote (HUNGARY Digest - 18 June 1996 to 19 June 1996):
>
> Gyuri Ka1da1r, who have just
> recently engaged in one of the most characteristic mudsliding tactics
> of the Hungarian ultraright, blaming people for the alleged past of
> their relatives  (in this particular case, blaming the current mayor of
                                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Budapest for the "bolshevik arrogance" of having married the
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> granddaughter of a very prominent Stalinist of the fifties)
>

        First of all the readers of the HIX discussion lists, who might
have privileged me by turning attention to my postings,  will be able to
evaluate the qualification: "...of the Hungarian ultraright..." assigned
to my name (Gyorgy Kadar, not Gyuri...).
        They can judge how unjust this assigned qualification is.

        More important: the readers of the HIX SZALON list might remember,
that in a thread beginning with a quite lengthy posting (actually a
citation from the Hungarian newspaper "Magyar Nemzet", sent by me on 31
May, 1996)
I blamed (e.g. HIX SZALON, 6 June 1996) the current mayor of Budapest

for the "bolshevik arrogance" of approving the selection of the
program of a festive musical concert:
                a funeral mass
        for the fifth anniversary of the departure of  the last soldiers
of the Russian troops from the soil of Hungary (Budapest bucsu)
        in the 1100th year of Panno-Hungarian history...
and not for his family connection

        Sure enough, there was a (one!) careless line at the end of my
first Hungarian language postings, in which the fact of the family
connection of the mayor to a prominent Stalinist of the fifties was
mentioned, and this fact was posted later in the GWU HUNGARY list too,
but...
        ...but before the above cited careless cross-reference (12 June
1996) I apologized publicly for mentioning the family connection when the
mayor (and his staff) decided to change the program of the concert.

        Anyone, reading both the GWU HUNGARY list in English and the HIX
SZALON list in Hungarian, may verify the facts described in this posting.
        And, please, the issue now is not the Budapest mayor, but  the
above cited piece, which is one of the best examples of
"careless cross-reference"...

        God bless us all...                     kadargyorgy