Of Trolley Problems and the Supply of Wives
Weekly briefings on the life of The New European Capital of Conservatism.
Events This Week
Statecraft? Nuh-uh. Soulcraft? Uh huh...
Alex Lefebvre, Visiting Fellow and Kind Of A Big Deal in the world of post-liberal philosophy has drawn in the heavy hitters to debate his vision of From Statecraft to Soulcraft, about how a new wave of governments are 'ruling through the good life', aka 'Soulcraft'. How can we use institutions, incentives, and cultural power to cultivate particular virtues? Speaking on the panel will be Dr Eric Hendriks, the flamboyant Dutch sociologist, Philip Pilkington, an economist, and Ralph Schoellhammer, the clean living Austrian professor from MCC, with moderation by the 'vaguely piratical' (copyright The Observer) Calum TM Nicholson. Wednesday, January 28. 5:30 P.M.
Today at 5PM, you can take a turn up the MCC to ask: Are Western Balkans Economies Ready for the EU? Your question will be answered by Professor Igor Luksic, who is expecting it. Register here.
Effective altruism has been a mainstay of the tech world since 2015, fanned by star philosopher Peter Singer, Slate Star Codex's Scott Alexander, and more dubiously, Sam Bankman-Fried. But is a fresh obsession with utility taking us anywhere we haven't been before? In the language of EA: would you switch the trolley tracks to kill the lot of them if it meant saving one particularly adorable otter? Thursday, David Edmonds will be sorting the cant from the humbug in Effective Altruism: A Philosophical Reckoning. MCC, 5:30PM.
Finally, while Hungary and Ukraine continue to trade words over whether the latter should be let into the EU, Ralph Schoellhammer is teaming up with his long time sparring partner Rodrigo Ballester to peer over the edge of one potential future: if it did happen, how would Europe's taxpayers bear the costs of incorporating a war-ravaged state? Is this a Marshall Plan, or just a Bad Plan? Tuesday, 5:30PM, MCC.
Around Town
Perspectives and people from the week
Wednesday, at the Villa, the DI held its Israel in 2026 conference to a packed house. The Israeli Ambassador, Maya Kadosh, was followed around by some seriously heavy duty security, lurking in various alcoves of the building throughout the day, fiddling with their earpieces - well you wouldn't want to miss The Joe Rogan Experience.
Biggest laugh was reserved for Radek Vondráček, chair of Czechia's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, who mentioned the Slovenian roots of Melania - and Czech Ivana - in the context of strengthening relations with the White House. "Central Europe has already given Trump two wives - we've done our bit!"
It's Oscar season: time to fill up on Hollywood's good films for the year. Of the year's Best Picture contenders, these are the ones still watchable in Budapest this week. Playing everywhere: One Battle After Another ('Egyik csata a másik után') Hamnet Selected cinemas: Marty Supreme - Special preview, January 29, 2026, at 7PM, Cinema City Westend, ahead of general release. Bugonia - Monday and Tuesday nights, 9:15PM, Művész Mozi.
At a mid-week seminar, former bodybuilder Raymond Ibrahim talked the DI crew through his publishing journey: from his first book, pitched after discovering obscure untranslated Al Qaeda texts in the Library of Congress, to his more recent re-tellings of the medieval battles between Christendom and Islam. Even in this sphere, Ray has the go-hard or go-home gene: he confessed he sometimes smashes out 8000 words in a day. How much can you write, bro?
Kovács Lehel left home twenty years ago to start freelancing for the likes of The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone. Now back in Budapest, his playful, hypercolour illustrations are going on exhibit. Book here.
Greenland. What was all that about, eh? Only five days since Mark Carney rather jumped the gun by declaring the Western Alliance DOA, the news cycle is suddenly eerily quiet. But the ramifications of Trump's ramraid on his allies will linger on, in a diverse, multi-national coalition of hurt feelings. Rod Dreher has picked apart the implications for the European right, who still have to go into bat for Trump and national sovereignty, with their bats newly splintered by the team captain.
Elsewhere, at The American Conservative, Philip Pilkington sees the Greenland issue from the White House's side: as a punishment beating, delivered to break EU intransigence over the Ukraine peace deal.
Paper of the Week
From Keleti to Kilburn High Road and Back. Personal Reflections on Europe's Migration Crisis
Wir schaffen nichts. Ten years after Angela Merkel made her famous declaration, several European countries are openly talking about 'remigration'. The hubris of becoming a harbour to the world has shown itself in the metrics for German unemployment, French terror, and British gang crime. It's hard to recall the Cameron-Merkel-Hollande political world that birthed it, or the liberal sense of optimism that it has gradually extinguished across the continent.
DI Visiting Fellow Adam Lebor was at Keleti Station in 2015, as a 150 000 person human wave began its ascent towards the North and West of the continent. In this pacy paper, he assesses how Europe, and his own views, have changed in the past decade.
For teargas connoisseurs, it contains a memorable evaluation of the difference between the Romanian and Serbian brands: "Romanian tear-gas is like a bad
attack of hay fever—Serbian has you crawling on the floor." The old shops of Kilburn High Road had clearly been replaced, but in the same buildings which still stood, now bedecked in Arabic calligraphy. I could only trust my instincts—and the evidence in front of me. The High Road of my youth, and even my twenties and thirties, was clearly long gone, unlikely to ever return. Now at least I understood the meaning of ‘unheimlich’—the feeling, the moment when a once-familiar place finally becomes something else, unfamiliar and unsettling.
Comings & Goings
Coming: Eduard Habsburg Eduard is perhaps our first fellow to take the pronouns 'Your Excellency, His Excellency, His Excellency's'. The former Hungarian ambassador to the Vatican is not, contra popular rumour, the next in line to the Triple Crown. That honour passes to a cousin, Archduke Karl von Habsburg (whose own racing driver heir apparent recently won Le Mans). Though the rumours are true that he is a former animation producer - and that he penned an Austrian zombie movie. The question of what exactly Cardinal Ratzinger made of his thesis on Thomistic philosophy is a blank he says he will fill for us shortly. At the DI, he will be working on Christian Democracy - where it went, whether it could come back. Hope to see you down Pointers with the lads, Your Excellency.
Dates For Your Diary
Budapest Global Dialogue — 9 - 10 FebruaryMunich Security Conference — 13 - 15 February “Nagy az Isten állatkertje"— God has a huge zoo (There's no shortage of strange people in this world)