Bevezető
Abstract
Why Does One Build a University?
"The problem of the university, the true university, is once again in the foreground of European thinking. As a matter of fact, we could even go as far as to say that Europe is not capable of intellectually rebuilding itself if it does not rehabilitate, revive, the institution of the university, the real one, first. If we look at Europe's second millennia it's no accident, that all social crises and need for change was preceded by a crisis of the university as an institution."
Szimbólum
Abstract
Initiation
"In the teleutai sense: to lead into death. To initiate means bringing into death, the induction of death. However, death is considered an exit, a door leading to somewhere else. The exit is followed by an entrance. In the Christian sense: the transgression from one state of being into another is always linked to suffering, which with its various tests leads from the man of old to new man."
Egyetem és társadalom
Abstract
The Problems of a Modern University
"...Today universities have turned to industry and science, have set up an alliance with them, all the more so since industry has a symbiotic relationship with the state. Therefore universities, which award great prestige to the exact sciences, is financed by the generosity of the state. The triple fortification: state - industrial companies - universities has overwhelming power and takes the place of culture as the "new university" and "new knowledge".
...The greatest danger today is the industrialization of the university. It's as if instead of educating for a calling or a profession, universities have turned into huge laboratories or manager offices. People, whose sense of vocation is an integral part of their post at a university, should be running them, people who view their profession in much the same way a good priest views the spiritual service of his congregation."
Abstract
University and Academy
"Ever since the change of regime the system of higher education and scientific classification is in a state of perpetual transformation, not lacking contradiction and clumsiness, and lagging far behind the demands. Though several important intellectual centers have formed during the past ten years, the positions of old are steadfast. While according to the opinion of financial professionals problems of the state budget render the compensation of the inefficiencies in public and higher education impossible, the necessity of profound change cannot be overemphasized."
Abstract
Is This the End?
"It seems as though anti-national politics in Hungary isn't specific to one party or another: it's continuous. During the 47 years of 'temporary' Soviet military presence anti-nationalist politics were mandatory. Due to the pressure of dictatorship it's no wonder that a veritable army of executors faithful to the party was 'produced'. But there's no explanation for anti-national politics after the last Soviet soldier has left Hungary. And yet it continues in several areas, even the most important one: at the roots of the nation, the fostering of the inborn talents of children in schools and universities."
Abstract
The System of University Entrance Exams and Scholarships
"The well from which the intellectuals of the future will draw their successors is growing shallower and shallower. The possession of talent does not rely on social class, a city environment, or financial status: it's unfolding and expression, however, does."
Abstract
Uninitiated existence
"Today the majority views initiation as something from which it is left out, whatever the original intention. Revision awaits not only the political style, but communication as a whole as well. The proud universal process tolerates and exhibits the restriction and ridicule of universality in its rude practice of leaving uninitiated."
Abstract
College in the Highest
"...This was where the college stood, the Ferenc Páriz Pápai Public College for Medical Students. (...) It was blown up, and the plot is empty still. (...) Our schools have time and again been the prisoners and fugitives of our derailed history. (...) In 1982, under a huge tree in Vámosmikola, we revived the college. It was as if the indestructible spirit of the college had broken forth during a breakdown of the education industry."
Abstract
The Goals of the Academia Nova Budapestiensis
"It's cliché: The world today is developing at such a fast pace, (...) which is why there is a constant need for new information. Traditional education, however, is limited and not efficient enough in providing this information: the search is on, world-wide, for new ways to pass on knowledge meeting the challenges of increasingly globalises life. The multitude of methods can be divided into two major groups: goal oriented, quick to master, specialised knowledge which finds immediate reimbursement, and educational strategies which aim at a broader goal both in the sphere of knowledge and related to time. The latter builds on tradition and does not give up on embedding knowledge in the horizon of universality.
It is in the spirit of the latter that the Academia Nova Budapestiensis Foundation was created. The goal of both the foundation and its intellectual workshops is the maintaining of the great traditions of Central European, and on a more specific level Hungarian, education - especially university education - including adult education and the experiences of the public college system. The foundation strives towards renewing education, making use of available modern technical resources."
Abstract
Ethics and Economy, or the Idea of Humanistic Economist Education
"Complex economic problems require a multidisciplinary approach in which economics, leadership skills, psychology, and ethics all play an integral role. At the same time the ecological, feminist and communitarian viewpoint can also help understand and analyse the problems of the present."
Abstract
Education for globalisation
"Western education today, which has successfully displaced local educational systems all over the world, prepares students almost exclusively for urban existence, dependence on mineral fuel, and world trade. Children are taught how to compete most effectively from a very early age. They are not taught, however, how to live in a truly sustainable society."
Egyetem és ökológia
Abstract
An Intellectual Farm by the Aegean Sea
"Located on the southern part of the Turkish Aegean Sea's west bank, the Gümüslük Academy is not a school, and not a university. Rather it is an intellectual farm, where art, philosophy, ecology and science encounter each other as possible solutions."
Abstract
The Building of an Ecological Academy
"The Ecological Academy of Linden lies just outside of Dietramszell on the highway leading to Baiernrain. The goal of the architectural plan was to expand the capacity of the Academy in the form of an auxiliary building built aside the original one erected in 1906. An important aspect which needed to be taken into account while drawing up the plans, was the desire on the behalf of the Academy to take part in the building process. In accordance with the building's function ecological considerations also had to be followed: the utilisation of solar energy and rain water, the grassing of the roof, and the usage of ecological building materials."
Utak és kiutak
Abstract
"Small is Beautiful!"
"In Hungarian society today the tendency of settling is towards the 'small'. The rich have long brought their houses in the illustrious sections of town, and have recently built houses in the nearby villages of Budapest, with dogs and armed guards. The less well to do with some money in their pockets have moved out of the city into villages farther away, but within a forty kilometre radius. Only the poor, penniless masses have remained in Budapest in dilapidated housing projects, with unpaid bills or even water, gas and electricity that has been turned off.
A partial solution to this problem is the creation of a culture I refer to (after Imre Lázár, Csébfalvi Károly, and the mission statement of the College of Zsámbék) as the manor house culture. The goal is for every Hungarian home and institution to be a manor house, with its own workshops, spirituality, hospitable, all-accepting universality. Not an island, which outsiders cut off from the rest of the world, but not a ghetto either, locked in unto itself. May culture art, education, Christian humanity, environmental management and information science find a home in these manor houses, which at the same time are our homes."
Abstract
Small is Bountiful
"Economists have declared over a hundred years ago that small farms are old fashioned and ineffective, and are doomed to perish. However, small holdings project a productive, effective and ecological way of farming for the future. The economic system of today has a damaging effect on small scale production. We must therefore teach economists and politicians why they should prefer small farming. But are the small farms capable of competing with the large ones? And what are its advantages, anyway?"
Abstract
Oedipus, the Solver of the Riddle
"The essence of the process of being reborn is suffering - inner confrontation, struggle, and dying - during which (after which?) one accepts as a part of life that, which one previously refused with all his might: illness, pain, poverty, insanity, cruelty... The story of Oedipus is not about sin, it is about fate. Sin is an ethical question. What we're talking about here is much more basic, much more fundamental: the process of confrontation." Excerpts from the book.
Ökomorgó
Abstract
The Educational System Trains Us to Obey and Compromise
Bryan Lesseraux Talks with Noam Chomsky "Chomsky is a harsh critic of the political activities of the United States all over the world, but especially in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. He casts light on the social and economic policies which emphasise profit before the interest of the worker, and keep the process of decision making a secret. The interview was given to be published in University newsletters."
Életünk színterei
Abstract
Master and Disciples
"The most basic process of learning is when one learns with the help of someone who is truly an expert in that area. This is the most simple and effective way of learning something. Compared to this, learning from books is unbearably dry. And yet the form of learning from someone has completely disappeared from modern day society. Schools and universities have adopted a method of learning, and provide abstract learning material, which previously belonged to the work of specialists, businessmen, artists, and independent scholars."
Abstract
The Market-Like University
"The closed administrative order and official procedures of concentrated universities organised in groups, which define who may hold courses, destroys the possibility of learning. (...) Two things are needed if we are to reinstate the freedom and possibilities of the academies of old with their free exchange and increase of thought.
First of all, the social and physical environment must provide surroundings which stimulate personal and free thinking, instead of hindering it. Second, a motivating environment must be ensured in which the individual is receptive to various thoughts, which provides the maximum opportunity and possibility for becoming oriented in a wide range of thought, and enables students to develop their own way of thinking.
These circumstances are best exemplified by the picture of a traditional marketplace, where hundreds of tables offer their interesting and unique wares, drawing customers with their original quality, and set up in such a way that the customer is free to look around and scrutinise the goods before purchasing."
Mesterek és műhelyek
Abstract
Schumacher's Legacy. A Discussion With Diana Schumacher
"Small is beautiful. Ernst Fritz Schumacher, the German economist's book published in 1973 is, to this day, a fundamental ecological work, and has been translated into almost eighty languages. Why is this book still so important? This was my first question to Diana Schumacher, the spiritual successor to the famous economist who died in 1977, and president of the Shumacher Society in England, with whom I met in London."
Könyvespolc
Abstract
Universal Universitas
A review of the thematic edition of the journal Világosság, which discusses the origin, the meaning, the importance and the future of the university, as an institution.
Abstract
Hastings Rashdall: The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages.
"It is a difficult task to introduce a book over one-hundred years old to the readers of today." The book, published in 1895, introduces the history of the three most prominent universities in Europe at the time (Paris, Bologna, and Oxford) in three volumes.
Abstract
The Ads Tell the Story of the Universe
"I did not expect to find a rousing accusatory indictment against modern advertising in a book on the birth of the universe, but I did, right here in the physicist Brian Swimme's new book, entitled The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos. Humanity and the New Story."
Abstract
Architecture-Therapy
"Finally David Pearson's book on ecological architecture, The Natural House Book. Creating a healthy, harmonious, and ecologically-sound home environment, has been published in Hungarian."
Abstract
The Shadow of the Butterfly
Review of a selection of works in the spirit of phenomenology (by Husserl, Fink, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty), hermeneutics and art history, among others, on the topic of representation and depiction, entitled Kép, fenomén, valóság (Image, Phenomenon, Reality), edited by Béla Bacsó.
Abstract
EcoLibrary
In this column we introduce works published abroad dealing with the theme of our current edition, as well as new purchases made by the Cultural Innovation Foundation's library.
A szám címlapja.
Lapunk képanyagához felhasználtuk Divald Károly fénnyomatait (A királyi magyar egyetemek épületei, 1900, Budapest)
Az angol nyelvű összefoglalókat Nagy Piroska írta.