"You can govern without cultural hegemony - for a while - but you cannot build an era. Culture creates the era, so soft power is actually the hardest political tool.”

Historian-political scientist, editor-in-chief, XXI. Director of Szazad Institute, who learned Italian in order to read Gramsci in the original. Márton Békés can be presented in many ways, he is the one whom the opponent can only mock by being recognized, almost complimented. Cultural Warfare Márton Békés accurately analyzes the fight for culture in domestic politics, making the stakes clear, which is impossible without re-tuning society's consciousness. The left, in the absence of strong political personalities, is forced to rely on its intellectuals, they win a few battles with them, but is that enough? Reshaping public thinking is a decades-long task, without mastering the language, defeat is guaranteed. Where does the conservative side stand in the war now, and can it learn anything from the left? Does the left even have a language? The first guest in the new series of 888.hu is Márton Békés - someone to watch out for.

Cultural hegemony “very briefly means, is there a cultural majority behind the political majority? In the absence of this, an election can still be won and a certain political logic can be enforced, but not in the long term and especially not permanently. Whereas, if there is a cultural majority, one election at a time can even be lost... Of course, it's much better not to! ( laughs ) Let's remember: even though the right won the elections twice in 1990 and 1998, post-communism remained dominant for twenty years, which was consolidated by a liberal cultural hegemony. If there is cultural hegemony, then, like under the circus gymnasts, there is the protective net, which is nothing but the material and spiritual institutional system of culture, which includes storytelling, narrative weaving, the language set as well as the imagination of people or their behavior among themselves and their everyday gestural system.”

The full interview can be read HERE

Cover image: Photo: 2022plus