Quod Verum Est Non Semper Popularibus
What started off as a read-up on populism (a term which apparently is now everywhere, often a synonym for demagoguery or a term flung around in attempts to delegitimise political opponency), digressed into a search for the actual definition of populism, and then further down the rabbit hole into a search of definitions and types of socialism and conservativism. After reading half a dozen UK and US newspaper articles on populism, this one for now seems the most legitimate attempt to define something deemed vaguely indefinable [https://www.theguardian.com/.../we-the-people-the-battle...]. The article is aptly sur-titled The Long Read; it takes an hour to read.I often wonder what would be said in articles about this issue written in languages other than English and from non-western countries, and realise my knowledge is limited and biased in favour of western culture, but not only do i digress but that is something from which most, if not all people around the world, suffer - informational relativism, if you like. Vox Populi: Essentially, populism is the pitting of ‘us, the people’ against ‘them, the elite’. And, apparently, it is said to be a threat to western representative democracy. When it comes to American democracy, I take umbrage with this because people act as if they have never heard of or understand the function of the Electoral College in the US election process (let’s just do away with it already, ey?). What I (and most article authours) find problematic is that definitions for ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ are not given, nor can they ever mean one absolute body including all humans versus some other body (of what, Extra Terrestrials?). And so, ipso facto, you have one group loosely defined as those in the right, against another group, believed to be in the wrong. And in an age when moral relativism is practically undeniable, the perils of populism are evident, I hope. Because what populism does (as so many articles report) is essentially demonise one human group for the benefit and simultaneous valorisation of another posited against it. This robs all parties of their humanity. It abuses and feeds upon popular or common feelings of unrest so as to hurl grievances at a perceived shared enemy. An easy-piesy way of deflecting responsibility or accountability, and shifting blame onto the Other. Hence the criticism that populism is a dangerous method of recruiting followers for whatever you are a proponent of. ‘We’ could be any publicum populi raving against a supposed ‘them’ elite (be it a numerical minority or majority, it makes little difference). The OED does a permissible yet contemporary job of defining ‘elite’ as such: <a group of people in a society, etc. who are powerful and have a lot of influence, because they are rich, intelligent, etc.> A further definition by Lexico is <a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society>. The operative word in this latter definition is ‘select’, since it derives from <late 18th century: from French élite ‘selection, choice’, from élire ‘to elect’, from a variant of Latin eligere>. Whether any given elite has actually been selected, let alone democratically selected, is something to be pondered. Sure, an elite could be selected because of potential meritocracy or because of having some advantage over others. But at what cost, and to whose benefit? Even in my lame attempts to discuss populism impartially, I am tending to demonise the elite, and that is exactly what populism does – it wants you to think of some powerful exploitative Other that is working against you, even though the ethical value of each group is entirely relative to and dependant on who is qualifying the definitions! The feeling is that an elite (or elitism) is not a good thing, and that it supports snobbism, exclusion, and generally does away with the norm in favour of the exceptional. The norm is now unexceptional, and hence boring, or unworthy, or incapable. Being part of an elite, then, gives the illusion that exceptionality, in turn, confers (supposed inherit?) value upon the individual. [Another excursus: Just think of any standard advert that orders you to buy better because you are worth it or you deserve it – be part of an elite few, be special. I won’t even go into the gross connections perpetually drawn by employing language related to money – that is the insidiousness of capitalism equating monetary success with human worth/value. It’s enough to make me vomit.] Back to our groups posited against one another. Examples of one group pitted against another abound – in fact, it can be an infinite combination. Some examples: the oppressed poor raging against the flagrantly rich; white supremacists raging against immigration law-makers (Trumpist employment of populism); small business owners raging against their extinction by big corporations; LGBTQ soldiers raging against their exclusion from serving in armed forces; trans women/men raging against exclusion from female/male bathrooms accordingly; the (horrifically termed) INCEL men (involuntary celibate men) raging against whomever they perceive is snuffing their right to sex; and the list goes on ad infinitum (and even ad nauseam). At its core, populism is a single-worded term for ‘two groups of disagreeing people’. It is any collection of like-minded people against anyone that they feel is opposing, oppressing, or exploiting them. Hence the frequently stated opinion that populism is not a political movement or ideology but rather a shade or a filter added on to an existing political inclination to gain followership. Trump has been called a populist and initially I thought, hang on a sec, populism rages against a small elite - he is a fucking billionaire! But as we saw, elite is merely one word for ‘the opponent’. Trump is appealing to his followers’ belief that the elite is whoever works against what they perceive as their rights or benefits. And since there is no one clearly defined ‘we’ and ‘they’, it can be changed at will to suit one’s purpose. Additionally, I found that this succinct article: [https://www.irishtimes.com/.../populism-not-going-away...] thankfully makes the screamingly obvious point that so many nations function under an ersatz democracy: “Anti-populists seem to insinuate that our democratic institutions are more or less in good shape.” My aim is to expand my research into the various types of Socialism (I am very excited to finally read a book called Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956 by Anne Applebaum). Early research took me to a webpage whose name and mission –The Imaginative Conservative– I find a tad suspect (for reasons I won’t go into here) but in any case it is basically an advocate for conservativism (not in the exact sense we commonly use it, in US politics especially – more that it supports conservation of certain things). I read Russel Kirk’s Conservative Principles, written in 1953, following WWII, and found some of them to be rather interesting. [https://theimaginativeconservative.org/.../ten...] I do not agree with everything he says, and having written this text has made me forget where is it that I disagree but that is beside the point. One of the most interesting –truthful?– statements he makes is that he does not favour the view that “everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.” Famous traditional conservatives aligned with Kirk include Benjamin Disreali, John Adams, Edmund Burke (Kirk was highly influence by Burke), Matthew Arnold, Cardinal Newman, S.T. Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, William Wordsworth, Rudyard Kipling, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Flannery O’Connor, C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Evelyn Waugh, John Ruskin, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451), Robert Frost (<3), T.S. Eliot. Now perhaps this is just a commonly held belief between Western white men. Many times I insist on making that distinction, though one might also call it a bias.
