Program

17:00-17:05 Opening remarks            

  • Dr. Levente Székely, Director, Youth Research Institute

17:05-17:15 Presentation of the findings of the international survey Values Under Siege

  • Dr. Georgina Kiss-Kozma, Researcher, Youth Research Institute

17:15-17:45 Contemporary Societies in Permanent Crisis?

  • Dr. Anthony Daniels, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute

17:45-18:45 Roundtable discussion

  • Dr. Anthony Daniels
  • Rod Dreher, Visiting Fellow, MCC; Author
  • Stephen Sholl, Visiting Fellow, MCC
  • Moderator: Ferenc Sullivan, Researcher, Youth Research Institute

Have Western European societies lost faith in the traditional family? What are the chief differences between social values in Hungary and in the Western half of the continent? What social causes are people most committed to? And has leisure become more important than traditional values such as national identity?

The Youth Research Institute’s upcoming international conference will examine these questions in light of our representative international survey Values Under Siege, carried out in Hungary and four major European nations (the UK, France, Germany and Italy) earlier this year.

The presentation of the findings of the research will be followed by a lecture by Dr. Anthony Daniels on the crisis of values in contemporary Western societies and the decline of traditional virtues. The keynote speech will examine possible ways out of this situation with view to crime, domestic violence, drug addiction and the breakdown of family relationships. In the address, Dr. Daniels will examine the root causes of social deviance can be traced back to and the extent to which moral and relativism can be held responsible. The keynote speech will be followed by a roundtable discussion.

Dr. Anthony Daniels, also known by his pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is a British author, columnist, cultural critic and retired prison psychiatrist who is currently Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. As a physician, his work took him over the years to a variety of exotic countries (including Zimbabwe, Tanzania, South Africa and Kiribati), as well as prisons across the United Kingdom. His first article was published in The Spectator in 1983. Since then, his contributions have appeared in a number of high-ranking newspapers and journals, such as The Times, New Statesman, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, National Review and The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Daniels is also the author of several literary works.

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