A Hero of the Christian Right Opposed to Homeschooling

Lately I've been encountering some articles concerning homeschooling in Hungary. To the surprise of many in the American Right and within the Christian Right – Viktor Orban of Hungary and his government have actually moved to restrict homeschooling.

Reading some of the articles and commentaries, one senses no small degree of confusion and even a sense of betrayal. Orban who has become something of an icon to the Right and especially the Christian Right seems to hold to less than favourable views of home education.

Why would this be?

I cannot speak for the man but I think it points to a larger reality that many of his American allies and cheerleaders seem to misunderstand. Orban can talk all day about traditional values and Christian civilisation but first and foremost he is a nationalist. And in the context of nationalist governments – or more specifically authoritarian nationalist governments – the idea of something as individualistic as homeschooling is frowned upon.

While the American Right decries the state taking a strong role in education and laying claim to the nation's children, it is at this juncture they are guilty of forgetting their own history and misunderstanding the application of their ideology. The traditional Right didn't believe in a libertarian view of such issues and questions – this is actually the divide in today's Right. Traditionalist conservatism frowned on individualist expression that flouts convention, and a sense of civic duty and so forth – not to mention sectarianism and subcultures. These impulses are what led to compulsory public schooling in America. There was a real fear that non-Protestant immigrants coming from lands with no tradition of Classical Liberalism or republicanism would not be properly indoctrinated and assimilated into the American system and so by compelling children to attend to public schools they could wrest them away from their parents and their traditions and train them up to be good English speaking (preferably English-only speaking) flag-waving Americans that would obediently work in factories and if called to do so take up arms for the country. As a consequence of this thinking, Catholic parochial schools were met with a degree of hostility. As strange as it seems these opponents of parochial schools are the ideological forebears of today's homeschooling movement.

For conservatives, the question was not whether or not children should be indoctrinated but rather who gets to do it and what's the programme.

Today's Right mistakenly associates the rise of public schooling with the Left. The Left has always argued for public schooling in terms of disadvantaged people having access to education. The Right wanted it as a tool of social engineering and forced conformity – a role that has in some respects shifted in terms of today's Left which now plays a leading role in these institutions. Today's setting is rife with chaos and contradiction as sodomitical ideology is pushed, along with sometimes race-driven narratives of American history – even while nationalism and veneration for veterans (and presumably the wars they fought in) are zealously promoted.

For the New Testament Christian of today, the public school is literally a cesspool of anti-Christian ideology and culture.

One could say elements within the Right created the monster but they lost control of it during the 1970's and now it works against them and (ironically) they employ arguments against the notion that their Right-wing ancestors would have rejected.

Libertarianism has made deep inroads into American conservatism and has in many respects helped to change the larger political movement from being a socially and culturally conservative political faction into one that is merely committed to certain Right-wing ideals – they are not always the same thing.

For the Christian Right, if they think Orban is a libertarian they are sadly mistaken. He is anything but. He's not interested in expressions of free speech and personal autonomy. He's interested in Hungary being great and compelling citizens (if necessary) to conform to and participate in that project.

His rejection of homeschooling doesn't surprise me in the least. I think this episode simply illustrates the confusion and ignorance that seems to dominate American Right-wing circles. They don't even properly understand their own ideology and the directions it has taken over the past few generations. Joseph McCarthy is about as far removed from Libertarianism as one could imagine and yet many of the conservatives of his day lauded his inquisitorial campaign.

The spectrum of American political thought is seemingly broad but in actuality the Constitution operates within fairly narrow and perhaps even self-contradictory limits. The Right has struggled with some of the basic ideas of Classical Liberalism which dominate the Constitution. And since the conclusion of World War II, the party has largely moved away from this older orientation. On the one hand there is a strong libertarian impulse but many are also embracing the kind of anti-liberal authoritarianism seen within Trumpism, and figures like DeSantis, and Orban. And yet these ideologies do not easily exist side by side.

I always think it illustrative when talking to people within the Christian Right to present to them a scenario – Say (for argument's sake) they have won the day and control America's political institutions. Many suggest they would immediately move to dismantle the Department of Education which was met with hostility at its inception in 1979. And yet, many also seem uncomfortable when I suggest that in the years following their takeover, society might see a rash of sodomite and left-wing homeschool movements begin to develop. Would they permit this? Would they allow home-based and private schools to rise up that directly challenge the Right-wing narrative? Imagine a bustling and busy Socialist private school on the corner of their street. Few are comfortable with this and seem willing to call upon the state's coercive powers to arrest such a trend. Their admission reveals the hypocritical and contradictory nature of their thinking – at least in terms of the principles. What it comes down to in the end is this is all about power – not principle. Once you understand that you can move past all of the rhetoric and emotion.

As such, all the talk about the Constitution and its universal claims, notions of rights and liberties are in the end revealed to be little more than convenient and yet empty slogans. Orban's posture reveals this reality in stark terms.