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PARTISAN REVIEW
William Phillips:
You're saying America has the same problem as
Hungary .
Gyorgy Hidas:
Hungary is now, somehow, an amazing country in a
changing situation in the East.
Cynthia Colin :
What are the young people thinking about and hoping
for , what do they see as their way out?
Ivan Lust:
I can't say that I'm competent to answer; I'm seeing only
the disturbed young people. But I think young people are not very op–
timistic because they have no reason to
be
optimistic about the fu–
ture . The possibilities of getting ajob, an apartment, and so on, are
poor. They are very pessimistic, and I think it's a very sad conse–
quence of the past thirty or forty years that we have no illusions
about politics and our leaders . Nobody , among young people, has il–
lusions about authority.
Papp Laszlo:
How does the political situation affect you? Not eco–
nomically, but professionally, in terms of your practice or training.
How is that a problem?
Gabor Szonyi:
I think that in general, Hungarians today suffer from a
feeling of low self-esteem. I conducted a survey among Hungarian
psychoanalysts last summer, which pointed to general low self-es–
teem . I suppose that one reason for this feeling stems from the fact
that there is no openness in Hungarian society, that we have no
hope , so it's not uncommon to fear that things will go back or that we
will be able to manage .
Gyorgy Hidas:
Alexander Mitscherlich wrote a book,
Society Without a
Father.
We had an overpaternalistic societal leadership, which after
1945 said, "We are no longer your fathers," so that everybody felt
abandoned. That is also a social psychological problem: people feel
desolate and forlorn .
Joanna Rose:
In Poland right now the Catholic Church is tremen–
dously powerful, in a situation where people are feeling forlorn. It
seems a logical time for religion to reassert itself. What is the situa–
tion of religion now in Hungary?
Gyorgy Vikar:
The relation between the Church and the political
powers is now peaceful. The Church at first strongly resisted the
Communist regime , but in the last years it has been neutral in the
political arena.
William Phillips:
Is it growing in power, in influence?
Gyorgy Vikar:
Yes. But it has less influence than in 1956. It is very in–
teresting also that during the last years, the government has tried to
use the church to solve problems which the Communist regime can-
,
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