Beware of populists

Aside from an overly writerly (and up its own academic derrière) prologue – in one’s humble opinion! – the book, Nexus, by Yuval Noah Harari, is rather decent and has some interesting and clear interpretations of information and the ownership and expression of it, to explain why it often is misplayed and manipulated to benefit unfair, controlling and often nasty actors, not the people those leaders so say represent.

The quoted passage below, about populism (and populists), is a rather good example of that and reading it will be a good thing for you (as will reading the full book) as it frames, with good sense, better understanding of populism . . . claiming simplicity (through populist mantras and the ending of bureaucracies) is and will not be the answer to many a societal difficulty . . . involvement and engagement with and responsibility for all, while potentially harder, will be more transparent, accountable and effective, certainly over the longer term and keep (political) strongmen much less likely to be furthering their own nest, aims and values for singular power over the people they purport to want to serve . . .

Populists are suspicious of institutions that in the name of objective truths override the supposed will of the people. They tend to see this as a smoke screen for elites grabbing illegitimate power. This drives populists to be sceptical of the pursuit of truth, and to argue - as we saw in the prologue - that ‘power is the only reality’. They thereby seek to undercut or appropriate the authority of any independent institutions that might oppose them. The result is a dark and cynical view of the world as a jungle and of human beings as creatures obsessed with power alone. All social interactions are seen as power struggles, and all institutions are depicted as cliques promoting the interests of their own members. In the populist imagination, courts don’t really care about justice; they only protect the privileges of the judges. Yes, the judges talk a lot about justice, but this is a ploy to grab power for themselves. Newspapers don’t care about facts; they spread fake news to mislead the people and benefit the journalists and the cabals that finance them. Even scientific institutions aren’t committed to the truth. Biologists, climatologists, epidemiologists, economists, historians and mathematicians are just another interest group feathering its own nest - at the expense of the people.

In all, it’s a rather sordid view of humanity, but two things nevertheless make it appealing to many. First, since it reduces all interactions to power struggles, it simplifies reality and makes events like wars, economic crises and natural disasters easy to understand. Anything that happens - even a pandemic - is about elites pursuing power. Second, the populist view is attractive because it is sometimes correct. Every human institution is indeed fallible and suffers from some level of corruption. Some judges do take bribes. Some journalists do intentionally mislead the public. Academic disciplines are occasionally plagued by bias and nepotism. That is why every institution needs self-correcting mechanisms. But since populists are convinced that power is the only reality, they cannot accept that a court, a media outlet or an academic discipline would ever be inspired by the value of truth or justice to correct itself.

While many people embrace populism because they see it as an honest account of human reality, strongmen are attracted to it for a different reason. Populism offers strongmen an ideological basis for making themselves dictators while pretending to be democrats. It is particularly useful when strongmen seek to neutralise or appropriate the self-correcting mechanisms of democracy. Since judges, journalists and professors allegedly pursue political interests rather than truth, the people’s champion - the strongman - should control these positions instead of allowing them to fall into the hands of the people’s enemies. Similarly, since even the officials in charge of arranging elections and publicising their results may be part of a nefarious conspiracy, they too should be replaced by the strongman’s loyalists.

In a well-functioning democracy, citizens trust the results of elections, the decisions of courts, the reports of media outlets and the findings of scientific disciplines because citizens believe these institutions are committed to the truth. Once people think that power is the only reality, they lose trust in all these institutions, democracy collapses, and the strongmen can seize total power.

Of course, populism could lead to anarchy rather than totalitarianism, if it undermines trust in the strongmen themselves. If no human is interested in truth or justice, doesn’t this apply to Mussolini or Putin too? And if no human institution can have effective self-correcting mechanisms, doesn’t this include Mussolini’s National Fascist Party or Putin’s United Russia party? How can a deep-seated distrust of all elites and institutions be squared with unwavering admiration for one leader and party? This is why populists ultimately depend on the mystical notion that the strongman embodies the people. When trust in bureaucratic institutions like election boards, courts and newspapers is particularly low, an enhanced reliance on mythology is the only way to preserve order.

Yuval Noah Harari Nexus

The structures and institutions in and around the state (and its politics and economy) always need monitoring and adapting, even replacing sometimes, as a healthy, involving and vibrant socially democratic society is one that isn't infallible and is empowered and enforced by that.

Reducing everything to us and them in a binary-like manner, certainly politically and even commercially through products and services, to show some sort of efficacy and power is an unhelpful attitude and approach to facing and admitting societal issues, even possibilities; while things appear to be done and even achieved in the short-term, the legacies of those efforts invariably have difficult and painful long-term effects.

Be engaged and be mindful of not just perpetuating realities (even myths) that might look good, even helpful, but really just add to the self (and likely the continuing of backward neoliberal attitudes and approaches that fuel individualism) not the community.