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Political Science Populism is tendency among politicians to operate with very simple psychological techniques for wining public support. The history of it can be traced all way back to ancient Greece and Rome. After Roman Empire began to decline, populist methods for pleasing crowd and thus securing its own rule became increasingly popular among Caesars. They were well aware that masses only wanted bread and entertainment, and they used to exploit it in their own interests.
But why populism as psychological tool is also getting more and more popular among modern politicians? What causes masses of people to close their ears to the words of reason and favor obviously false, but sweet sounding socio-political concepts? In Michael Kazins book The Populist Persuasion: An American History he argues that populism is more an impulse than an ideology meaning that its roots go deep into human subconsciousness. I totally agree with this thesis the political activity in every particular country is defined by the quality of its population. In Roman Empire populism only became widely used after its masses had lost much of its spiritual virtues through the process of continuous demographic degradation. In the last centuries before being sacked by barbarians, Romans found themselves in possession of great culture but they didnt need it.
Their ability to think logically was considerably reduced and this is why only populist ideas could influence Roman people in that period of their history. In our present times we can witness populist techniques not only becoming very popular, but also totally replacing the traditional politics of reason. Kevin attributes populism to mostly right wing politicians but this is far from truth. The most prominent feature of todays politics is the fact that classic political terms cannot be used effectively to describe the essence of political situation.
Today, economy defines politics, so wed be much better off using economical terms when we discuss politics. In its turn, people associate economy with security, more then with anything else. Such shift of definitions creates good ground for populism to become dominant ideology among people, regardless of whether it uses right or left wing ideological labels. Presently, we cant talk of American politics as anything else but populism in its purest form.
If Romans wanted entertainment at any expense Americans want security. Theyre even willing to waive their constitutional rights for the sake of. For many political observers, this signifies the decline of America as a nation. Only then the concept of Good vs. Evil have chances of becoming very popular among people, just as it happened in todays U.
S. There is no doubt in my mind that populism is a synonym of degradation and it is wrong to think of it as just of the ways to psychologically manipulate groups of people. Degradation is dangerous not just because it reduces the quality of masses the most horrible about this is that it becomes irreversible, if not stopped in time. It is like drugs people will never want to start thinking in the terms of logic, once populist rhetoric has been used on them. What is so unnatural about populism is that it tries to convince people not to use their brains in times when they should be doing this.
Its only during great social stresses like war or some natural cataclysm; people need to rely on their instincts rather than on their analytical abilities. But when simplified ideas are being used as mean of peoples political stimulation, itll only lead to corrupting them. I think that political populism is nothing but a symptom that there is something wrong with society. Nothing can be effective while dealing with its harmful effects, but going to the root of the problem. This means that in order to raise the quality of political activity in every particular country, one has to strive to improve the quality of society first. This will require government to come up with an extended strategy of to do this.
American and European politicians can still be rational, but there has to be a social demand for this
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