Thank you for this - I really appreciate how you are using this substack to explore and explicate academic writing, in addition to providing political-interpretive commentary. I am troubled, though, by the focus on "populism" in academia. It seems to me that "populism" is often a hardly-veiled critique, and I am not sure it should be. Doubtless there are troubling patterns of credulity among politically right-leaning people, but it seems to me that much of what is captured by the concept of "populism" is simply non-academically-trained people trying to think for themselves. And there is very respectable philosophical warrant for that. I'm just re-reading Hannah Arendt's "Thinking and Moral Considerations" lecture, which provides a nice summary of her diagnoses for the "banality" of evil - which occurs when people refuse to stop and think about social conventions that upend their understanding of morality. In short, I think "populism" is to the academic left what "wokism" is to the non-academic right.....But I am very open to being told that I am wrong!;)
Funny you should mention it, I plan to post something on the history and evolution of populism soon. I hope you will enjoy it. There definitely is something to what you say about populism being the uneducated trying to figure out the world for themselves, but there are also politicians who prey on that, and they take populism in a different direction, and although "populism" does get thrown around a bit, I actually feel like it should be used more because we constantly see the left calling their political opponents "fascists," when what they're really talking about is usually some version of populism. I also think we need to highlight the fact that left-wing populism is a thing too, because it seems like that doesn't get pointed out often enough and the left gets a pass.
Look forward to the post! And I am definitely open to thinking about the ways that politicians might prey on this. I would vote for "non-academic" rather than "uneducated" because I think that there are many people who are highly educated, critical thinkers, who are not trained into the jargon of contemporary academia (perhaps for the better).....
Thanks for the kind words, Michael. I hope you continue to enjoy the content. I definitely believe in engaging readers and in fact I plan to have some live discussions in the future and send out polls to see what kind of content readers would like to see. I have always believed journalists should be public servants. I came to believe this even more strongly after seeing the facts of a story here and there rub up against the corporate interests of the publisher where I was working. This was years ago, back when I was the national editor for the NYT sister paper in South Korea, and since then things have only worsened.
True, I definitely think these things get blurred when in fact both the left and the right each contain half a dozen factions, some of which seriously hate each other, although there seems to be more coalitional strength on the right, probably due to the fact that free speech absolutism has become a right-wing value, and more internecine venom on the left. But I agree, distinguishing these various categories is crucial to understanding what they represent and what each one is attempting to offer.
I may write a post in the next few days discussing populism, its history and current trends. But I’m keen to hear your take. If you don’t think Trump is a right-wing populist then how would you describe his politics?
Thank you for this - I really appreciate how you are using this substack to explore and explicate academic writing, in addition to providing political-interpretive commentary. I am troubled, though, by the focus on "populism" in academia. It seems to me that "populism" is often a hardly-veiled critique, and I am not sure it should be. Doubtless there are troubling patterns of credulity among politically right-leaning people, but it seems to me that much of what is captured by the concept of "populism" is simply non-academically-trained people trying to think for themselves. And there is very respectable philosophical warrant for that. I'm just re-reading Hannah Arendt's "Thinking and Moral Considerations" lecture, which provides a nice summary of her diagnoses for the "banality" of evil - which occurs when people refuse to stop and think about social conventions that upend their understanding of morality. In short, I think "populism" is to the academic left what "wokism" is to the non-academic right.....But I am very open to being told that I am wrong!;)
Funny you should mention it, I plan to post something on the history and evolution of populism soon. I hope you will enjoy it. There definitely is something to what you say about populism being the uneducated trying to figure out the world for themselves, but there are also politicians who prey on that, and they take populism in a different direction, and although "populism" does get thrown around a bit, I actually feel like it should be used more because we constantly see the left calling their political opponents "fascists," when what they're really talking about is usually some version of populism. I also think we need to highlight the fact that left-wing populism is a thing too, because it seems like that doesn't get pointed out often enough and the left gets a pass.
Look forward to the post! And I am definitely open to thinking about the ways that politicians might prey on this. I would vote for "non-academic" rather than "uneducated" because I think that there are many people who are highly educated, critical thinkers, who are not trained into the jargon of contemporary academia (perhaps for the better).....
A very good, in depth analysis.
Thanks for the kind words, Michael. I hope you continue to enjoy the content. I definitely believe in engaging readers and in fact I plan to have some live discussions in the future and send out polls to see what kind of content readers would like to see. I have always believed journalists should be public servants. I came to believe this even more strongly after seeing the facts of a story here and there rub up against the corporate interests of the publisher where I was working. This was years ago, back when I was the national editor for the NYT sister paper in South Korea, and since then things have only worsened.
True, I definitely think these things get blurred when in fact both the left and the right each contain half a dozen factions, some of which seriously hate each other, although there seems to be more coalitional strength on the right, probably due to the fact that free speech absolutism has become a right-wing value, and more internecine venom on the left. But I agree, distinguishing these various categories is crucial to understanding what they represent and what each one is attempting to offer.
I may write a post in the next few days discussing populism, its history and current trends. But I’m keen to hear your take. If you don’t think Trump is a right-wing populist then how would you describe his politics?