Enlightened Populism Explained

Enlightened populism is presented as a healthy alternative to the two dominant behavioral patterns of communication in today’s world, “Blind Elitism” and “Ignorant Populism”; it may help provide the essential infrastructure for human beings to dismantle tribalism, cronyism, polarization, toxic competitiveness, oppression, systemic bigotry…

This is the first part, composed of direct messages, without any insinuations or double entendres, with the primary focus on the factors that helped create and maintain the status quo. 

These lines are not included in the book:

On polarization

For political polarization to thrive as a divide and conquer strategy, it can’t be based on complicated political ideologies that a few number of people may understand; it gains its power from cultural elements that most people may understand and/or maintain feelings towards.

“Their problems are not mine”

The segmentation process is typically analyzed from a horizontal perspective, stating that human beings are divided based on race, religion, gender, social class, cultural background… when it might be more helpful to view the criteria for these segments as filters set consciously or subconsciously as nets in a vertical manner, with various degrees of importance.

For certain people, a common religion brings them closer together than a common gender or race, for others, the priorities might be set in a different manner. Another problem with the typical approach toward analysis of divisions is that Nationality is often overlooked as one of the means for segmentation and that is mainly due to the normalization and dominance of the notion of Nation Statehood.

When people in a certain country respond to the refugee crisis by saying “let’s help our own first”, and then reject calls for helping the underprivileged who live in the same country, they’re often described as hypocrites by those who are interested in helping both, the refugees and the less fortunate within their own country.

As a matter of fact, this sense of prioritization helps highlight the need to understand how these filters work. In this case, there is an upper net of nationalism enforced by the dominance of the Nation State as a sociopolitical construct, followed by social class as a lower net enforced by cultural norms and perceptions of underprivileged communities.

When politicians try to make use of these filters, they mostly would not seek to address the roots of the immigration crisis or the long term benefits of strong social safety nets for everyone living in a country, it is much easier to rely on feelings. 

Fear is a powerful feeling, a convenient way for a politician to rise in a polarized world is to manipulate people’s fears from foreigners and let xenophobia strengthen the first filter. The same politician may also use fear to empower classism, by presenting social safety nets as opportunities for some lazy people to gain benefits at the expense of the rest of the population.

Filters may logically be set in a different order by different individuals, each filter excludes some people, with the last filter representing the ultimate state of selfishness; “their problems are not mine”.

In each society, all agents of socialization play a role in enforcing one or more of the mentioned filters. Religious institutions provide a certain interpretation of a religion, with a certain philosophical approach on the meaning of life and the core objectives that shall be achieved by those who believe in this religion.

In many cases, these institutions may play a powerful role in formulating the identities of individuals, which may lead to the religious filter being placed above all the rest.

Christian Zionism in the United States may serve as a good example, for many Christian Zionists achieving the goals of Zionism which are typically aligned with the goals of Zionists in the state of Israel might be set as the first filter. This explains why they would mostly encourage any decisions made by the US government to provide the Israeli government with weapons, financial aid, diplomatic support… In such case, their own perception of religion is placed above nationalism or patriotism, race, cultural background and other influential filters.

Nationalism is typically enforced by most agents of socialization; kids in schools get to sing the national anthem, while paying respect to the flag, before learning about some real or mythical achievements accomplished by their great nation, whatever this nation might be. They learn to take pride in accomplishments that they did not help achieve, just because those who did achieve these real or fake accomplishments were born in the same place years ago or used to live there.

This sense of collective identity is primarily based on the concept that people are “special” just because they were born in this specific country, as human beings, we appreciate being praised for anything and when the indoctrination process is handled successfully, a strong connection is built between the individual and the nation state, with all of its figures and in an ideological sense, they become almost inseparable.

This may help explain why it is a touchy topic for many people in England to discuss Winston Churchill’s racism. For some people, the man was a national hero, and his achievements provide a personal sense of pride for them, criticism or attacks on his legacy are considered attacks on their identity and pride. This collective sense of identity is often enforced by parents, peer pressure, and other agents of socialization, with the media playing an influential role.

Tribalism takes other relevant shapes, while a person is being taught to take pride for being born in a certain country, they are also being taught to take pride in being born in a certain city or district, for certain parents, who belong to a certain race, and that they should claim credit for real or mythical achievements accomplished by those who belong to the same tribe.

Tribalism is the prime foundation for polarization and when it is based on trivialities and illogical associations; it becomes one of the main factors that fuel a meaningless sense of toxic competitiveness.

Polarization helps form weak individuals, who may feel a great sense of achievement by chanting for a football team that beat another, or by conquering their competitors in some video-games… self-actualization becomes associated with a feeling that a human being is better than others and weirdly achieved through trivial competitions.

On Toxic Competitiveness

Competitiveness is also nurtured by various agents of socialization in multiple societies, it may start with activities at school, such as making the kids play “musical chairs”, and help build the idea that they cannot all win together; for some to be winners; there must be a loser and then multiple losers.

The curve grading system is presented in the British Education System as the best way to maintain fairness and was accordingly copied and integrated in other Educational Systems around the world.

The idea is to attribute a certain percentage of students to each grade, for example if 5% of the students should be awarded the grade “A”, the top 5% of the marked papers will be awarded this grade, regardless of how difficult the exam might be, “fairness” here represents shielding all students from getting grades lower than what they deserve because of the exam’s difficulty and maintaining some level of comparative normalization between the results obtained by current students and previous ones, by insisting that only 5% of students can score an “A”, regardless of how easy the exam might be.

This system only allows for comparative fairness among students, instead of acknowledging that the top performers for a certain course this year may compose 7% of students and next year 3% of students. Ideally, one may expect the education system to be promoting for the idea that all students can get an “A” score and allow them to obtain the score based on the knowledge and skills they gained from a certain course, instead of how they may fare in comparison with their colleagues. This is another example, in which there must be losers, in order for others to be named winners...