I was certainly surprised by the
victory of the "Leave" side in Britain's recent EU referendum.
Given
that the pound hit a 31-year low against the dollar today, I do not seem to be
the only one.
The result of Britain’s referendum,
in my eyes, is a reflection of an intensifying push towards Populism in the
western countries.
As frustrating as this is, I actually don't find it very
illogical.
The increasing push towards
populism should certainly be considered a pitfall of democracy.
But where do
the pitfalls of democracy stem from?
The answer is surprisingly
simple, as far as I can see: us.
Man.
The pitfalls of democracy are the
pitfalls of man.
Is Populism therefore human
nature?
I would argue that it very well might be.
Populism is characterized by
illogical thinking, anti-intellectualism, and emotionalism. Taking part in any
of those disciplines should hardly be a challenge to any of us.
In fact, I
would argue it to be the natural tendency of man.
We do not have to learn how
to be illogical and emotional, do we now?
The upshot is that thinking in a
populist manner is easy. It is effortless. It is our natural tendency.
Thinking logically (or liberally
for that matter), on the other hand, is hard.
People spend all their lives
devoted to learning how to think logically, critically, and carefully.
But what
does this effort yield, if anything at all?
The effort to think logically,
critically and carefully, I would argue, yields the ability to think
autonomously.
To think independently and objectively, or at least as objectively as possible.
But how can this phenomenon
explain the emergence of populism?
Pretty well actually.
Once people
become uncomfortable with thinking logically, once their ability to think
logically and stay there is being pushed to and past its limits, they get
scared.
They get frightened.
And you guessed it, they simply return to where
they feel comfortable: thinking illogically, and becoming emotional.
They
shut their blinders and vegetate in blissful ignorance of the truth.
But how can this happen to
the most educated and most logical generations that humanity has ever
yielded?
In my opinion, for two very
distinct reasons.
First, because the world is becoming increasingly complex and
threats seem to follow suit.
The world is becoming more and more intertwined
and so are cause and effect. Nobody can and could ever accurately predict the
future, despite the fact that we spend a large amount of our lives trying to do
just that.
But as our world grows more complicated, so our potential
fears grow bigger, and potential (existential) threats become more
terrifying.
Is it not precisely those fears and threats that the populist rhetoric plays upon?
The second reason is the
emergence of the "On-Demand Society".
We have gotten used to and
are starting to expect more with less time-effort. Information is becoming so readily
available that many of us are nothing short of outraged if we have to visit a
library to search for information (a significant investment of time-effort in many
people’s eyes), because we are so used to information being at our fingertips.
As ingenious as those vast technological improvements are, they come with a
high price.
Spending more and more time receiving an ever increasing amount of raw
information leaves decreasingly little time to reflect, contemplate, and
think.
This means one thing: thinking
autonomously, logically, critically and carefully is becoming harder and
harder.
On the contrary, thinking illogically and being emotional is being
indirectly encouraged.
The upshot is that there seems to
be an inverse relationship between autonomous thinking and populism.
The bad news is that we have seen
a drastic reemergence of populism and a decrease in autonomous thinking.
BUT,
The good news is that we, the
people, are to one-hundred percent in control of our own destiny.
Will we, as a people, as a
nation, and as one unified humanity choose to start thinking autonomously or
will we give in to the populist rhetoric and watch as the downfall of our world
as we know it ensues?
I am a bit confused by your use of the word populism. By definition, populism is a form of opportunism. A politican makes promises, of which he thinks, that they will help him to get the votes of the people.
ReplyDeleteIs your point that, probably, racism or violence could be rooted in the human nature? And now becoming more and more visible because of the short-ranged thinking resulting from the on-demand society in particular?
Gid,
DeleteFirst of all, I would like to thank you for your comment.
I am delighted to see that my post was able to spark some new thoughts and contemplation in you.
Now, let me pave the way for your understanding of my argument. Your confusion about my use of the word populism is very understandable, however, I would like to invite you to focus on the kind of thinking that underlies populism, rather than populism itself. (By the way, I never argued or intended to argue that racism or violence are rooted in human nature and am a bit confused what led you to believe that.)
To get back to the point, my main argument is that certain characteristic of populist thought, first and foremost illogical thinking and emotionalism, are human nature, or rather the pitfalls of human nature.
So how did the on-demand society get tossed in there? I argue that the on-demand society is encouraging the same kind of thinking that underlies populist thought, through which I in return seek to explain the reemergence of populism.
I hope that yields some clarification.
Best,
Tim
Thanks for the quick answer Tim.
DeleteYou definitely gave me some clarification, but I want to discuss some things.
I see populism as the instrumentalization of the peoples opinions by politicians to gain votes for themselves. So the success of it is determined by the current believes inside society. Out of that understanding I thought you meant the push towards nationalism which is seen in the western countries at the moment. (Because of your argumentation for populism lying in the human nature I thought that would be your point, sorry for the drastic choice of words and definitely exaggerating in that point)
You see that it is always the politician who is populist, but never the people, they just get more and more radical, which is used by the politician for his own advantage. Therefore the thinking that underlies populism is the use of radicalised opinions in the population. I think that emotionalism and illogical thinking support this radicalisation.
So let me now point out my own opinion:
I see the push towards short-ranged and egoistic thinking as the decisive problems regarding to the upcoming tendencies leading to the success of people like Boris Johnson or Donald Trump. Typically these people promise to bring back the “old days”, because they tell us that everything changed with the arrival or influence of strangers i a bad way. But people now forget all those massive benefits we got from globalization, which caused weak structures in other countries. Now, when, because of economic reasons or the brutality, the human streams start to follow the capital streams, nobody wants to share the new goods, this is the egoism; we want to get those people out because we are told that they endanger our prosperity. And the solutions to these social problems are very populist and short ranged. We rather keep the fire out and watch it grow in the rest of the world, than fighting it.
These ideas go hand in hand with less reflection and less autonomously thinking in the society. The on-demand mentality probably drives us in that direction, but I am not sure about this yet.
Probably it is connected with the possibilities of getting applause for your way of life in, for example, social media, where people usually just look at the surface. More money based or look based thinking could probably lead to more likes. As I said, I am not sure about this yet. Karl Marx once said: “It is not the consciousness of people, which determines their social stand, but reversed their social being, which determines their consciousness.” So probably this acceptance of egoistic striving to admiration plays an important role in the development of western countries at the moment.
What do you think?
Best,
Gideon
Gideon,
DeleteWhat a great comment. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, perspective, and world-view with me and the rest of readers.
Now, let me share a few of my thoughts.
Politicians are always incentivized to first and foremost care about being elected.
That is their main incentive. It is completely rational for politicians to only care about being elected. It is this perverse incentive that is one of the atrocious problems of democracy; a problem that does not only apply to politicians spewing populist rhetoric, but all politicians.
Another thought I came across is that nationalism, or more specifically the reemergence of nationalism, is a symptom of the kind of thinking we are criticizing (for good reason). The radicalization, I would argue, while certainly stemming from this illogical thinking, is also a product of the economic circumstances (specifically the extremely high levels of youth unemployment, 15-24 year olds) in countries such as Greece and most Middle Eastern Petrol-States.
The illogical thinking is the root-problem, everything else is merely a symptom of it.
Bringing back “the good ‘ole days” is incredibly irrational, as far as I can see. The world is getting progressively better in every way, not worse. Man, however, has a natural tendency to cry out to “stop” progress once he is overwhelmed by the responsibility of being human, which in this sense is mainly characterized by having to think about the world and our place in it into-depth. Luddites have never and will never be successful in their endeavors.
I think you articulate some very good thoughts, Gideon.
The humanitarian perspective on what is happening in Europe is indisputable, as far as I can see. From an economic perspective, immigration also has huge upside potential with virtually no fact-based downside. The Anti-Foreign bias, which I would also argue to be a natural pitfall of man, can certainly not be overcome without in-depth reflection and contemplation of one’s own beliefs.
Another problem I see with the on-demand society (and social media specifically) is that it is becoming harder and being actively discouraged to critically examine oneself, with all biases, beliefs, and prejudices. In fact, I see social media fostering the growth of the above, because it acts as a self-defined “safe-zone” in which any confrontation with opinions, beliefs, and ideas different than one's own can be avoided very effectively. I think the big question is how can we make intellectual confrontation less “emotional”? How can we get people to open up so they are able to receive the seed of reason?
Man naturally gets offended and emotional when confronted with ideas (and especially the truth!) that contradict his current beliefs and opinions.
It is this reflexive intellectual blind-shutting and ignorance of the truth that I argue to be the real problem of the human condition; all else is a mere symptom.