symbolic elements of everyday culture - MTA Szociológiai ...

● KAPITÁNY ÁGNES – KAPITÁNY GÁBOR ● Changing World-Views in Hungary, 1945–1980●
in retail trade, and in the emerging of the second economy in almost all areas of services. The
relation of production and distribution also turns as more emphasis is placed on distribution. The
concepts of income, wages, and well-being enter the world-view of the period; scientific works
examining peculiarities of redistribution become conspicuous. The sciences devote themselves to
questions of life and the quality of life, entertainment, leisure, and feasts as the cultured spending
of free time becomes an important topic.
The world-view becomes grossly materialistic as the determining role of material factors truly
permeates general thinking. Against the previous denial of the role of consciousness, the moral
elements of the human soul, of the psyche, is now increasingly recognized. Together with the
increased role of the individual, the discovery of love and sexuality in art, rock 'n roll, and the beat
generations' way of life enter the world previously characterized by an asexual prudishness. The ideal
of quantity is unambiguously replaced by the ideal of quality – which is inseparable, both from the
rehabilitation of the individual and from the central role of life standards. Increasingly, money and
wealth become the measure of values; moreover, the object-world of consumer societies become
the symbol of productiveness. The model of productiveness is no longer the fruitful field, but the
shop window. The world-view of Kádárism is permeated by increasing recognition of the market
economy. Many performances of Hungarian society, also known abroad, are significant expressions
of this age: the hybrid model of economic coordination, created by the reform-minded economists as
well as the films of Miklós Jancsó, Ferenc Kósa, István Szabó, or the later works of György Lukács and
his school, all belonged to this period.
The world-view of the 1960s, of course, carried on many elements from the world-view of the
fifties. In a modified form the principle of development remained, as did the polar contrast between
socialism and capitalism; beside the ideal of quality, the ideal of quantitative growth lived on; the
declared adherence to the communist ideal, although increasingly emptied, still played a role, as the
idealized picture of the future. There was also the peculiarity of Kádárism that it sought to balance,
inside the bastion of power itself, the defenders of the old world-view with the representatives of
reform.
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