These days one doesn’t know—if one ever did—what to believe. We are told, for example, that Hungary and Poland are sliding into authoritarianism, but is it true? Most of us speak neither Hungarian nor Polish, and those people we know who do so are usually parti pris. It all depends on whether we trust our informants, and largely we do not.

In Hungary, it is said, the media—television and newspapers—are increasingly in the hands of the governing party; but even if true, how much would it matter? We are also told that such media are of ever less importance in forming public opinion, especially among the young. Much stricter control of the media than anyone has alleged against Hungary has proved perfectly compatible with popular revolt or revolution. Recently the opposition party won the municipal elections in Budapest, suggesting that opinion is dividing between the metropolitan area and the rest, as it is dividing in many other countries.

Nor are those who accuse Hungary and Poland of authoritarianism necessarily friends of freedom of choice themselves, except in respect of which restaurant to go to tonight. I’m bored with Mexican, why not Moroccan? This is not necessarily a perfect model for society, or at least for all societies, as a whole. And in fact there does seem such a political phenomenon as liberal authoritarianism. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $10.00 (as of 08:25 UTC - Details)

President Macron of France, for example, wants a Europe-wide approach to immigration. This does not recognize that what suits one country does not necessarily suit another. It also implies a supranational authority that has the power, legal and de facto, to implement such a policy, even against the wishes of a local population. He wants migrants arriving—illegally, of course—to be shared out among European countries according to a binding formula.

There are many things to be said about this proposal. The first is that it takes no notice of the preference of the migrants themselves, who may not wish to be delivered like an inanimate parcel to this or that resentful country. Not that they will necessarily have to stay there: If they can support themselves elsewhere and raise the money to go, there will be nothing to stop them from moving.

Second, the proposal recognizes, or at any rate implies, that the migrants are not a benefit but a liability to the receiving country, which is why they have to be parceled out as if they were the bearers of some contagious disease. It is possible, of course, that they will not prove a liability, for no one knows for certain what the consequences will be in, say, fifty years.There are examples in history in which migrants who were at first unwelcome proved to be beneficial to the receiving country. But the principle of sharing out the burden does not suggest that M. Macron believes the migrants to be an overall blessing, certainly not in the duration of his political career—and he is still in his early 40s.

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The Best of Theodore Dalrymple

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$bio: Theodore Dalrymple is an author and retired doctor who has written for many publications round the world, including the Spectator (London), the Wall Street Journal (New York) and The Australian (Sydney). He is contributing editor of the City Journal of New York, and his latest book is Admirable Evasions: How Psychology Undermines Morality, Encounter Books.

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