UC Irvine professor Shawn Rosenberg’s paper explains the rise of Right-wing populists the world over by saying it’s part of the process of democracy failing.
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Why avoid saying that the vast majority of people are not well educated and can’t understand the complexities of various subjects. There are how many fields of science and how many members of the public actually have any in-depth knowledge of these subjects? You could list endless examples but just for a few… How many people amongst our population has any training, knowledge or wisdom about the infrastructure that supports a society? What about agricultural practices, electrical engineering, structural engineering, ? Mechanical, chemical, industrial and electrical engineers….. Very few. Without these skills how can the public vote for polices?
I haven’t read the original paper and may never read it. However, if this review is anything to go by, I get a feeling that the paper was written to prove a pre drawn conclusion. First of all, the belief that democracy remains democracy only if it toes a certain line (the contours of which are, well, totally subjective) is erroneous. The “of-for-by” test determines whether a specific government is democracy or not. By applying this test one can definitively say that Pakistan is NOT a democracy as the government is clearly not by the people. India, which passes the test on all three counts is very much a democracy. Democracy and all its variants have some or the other form of built in self correcting mechanism. If right wing populism becomes a menace, people will reject it during the next hustings. BTW, populism is not the sole preserve of the right wing. In fact, it’s the left wing that has taken populism to the status of a fine art (pun intended). Indeed the Left’s primary building block is populism.
Based on the above review, I’d describe this paper (which I have not read – and likely will never read) as scare mongering, along side papers predicting climate driven impending doom.
The words of an elite snob! The author and those like him live in a bubble. The U. S. Has survived because it was focused on the efforts, drive and morals of the every day worker who did not look to the politician for guidance. Post WWII nanny state policies have winnowed their way into the machinations of every day life exposing the failure inherent in government overreach. We don’t need pin heads like this author. We need LESS government and more individual responsibility.
85 year old father asked “what’s this Brexit mess? What’s wrong with the UK?” I replied: It is not about UK, but about democracy showing its ugly side.
How about this counter-hypothesis: It’s not the people who are too stupid for democracy, but the elites who are distached from reality because they only talk to others in the bubble and don’t know anymore what is really important. It makes perfect sense and much more so than the opposite. If you assume incompetence, but it’s not possible to get rid of the elites by elections, you need other means to drive them out of their positions, hence “populist uprises”. Perhaps Mr Rosenberg should read “de re publica” by Cicero, in which this process has been sufficiently described some 2000 years ago. But perhaps and in difference to many “far-righters” in the “mob that destroys democracy” like myself, Mr Rosenberg simpy doesn’t speak Latin. Perhaps that’s the underlying problem and with that the lack of understanding the past and therefore constants in the human condition.
I tend to agree with this finding. People are inherently biased and prejudiced. How else will you explain the Modi and Trump phenomenon in such well-established democracies? These people are swaying public opinion and making people believe in obscurantism and abominable prejudices. How is it possible? My explanation as of this professor and Dr. Ambedkar, who was behind the Indian Constitution, is MAN IS VILE.
I would trust the people infinitely more than the right wing populist leaders. They will get a fair shot at power. If they fail to deliver, people will see through them, vote them out. Unless, as in Russia, the process of free and fair elections breaks down. Then people will come out on to the streets.
I partly,agree with his research.
When the psyche of common people are corrupted,the democracy cant survive.
Its upto our hard working leaders,how they take a country forwards.
We need to pull our democracy out of superficial glitz and glamour of democracy created by corrupt media,influencing people to isolate themselves from eachother.
Why avoid saying that the vast majority of people are not well educated and can’t understand the complexities of various subjects. There are how many fields of science and how many members of the public actually have any in-depth knowledge of these subjects? You could list endless examples but just for a few… How many people amongst our population has any training, knowledge or wisdom about the infrastructure that supports a society? What about agricultural practices, electrical engineering, structural engineering, ? Mechanical, chemical, industrial and electrical engineers….. Very few. Without these skills how can the public vote for polices?
I haven’t read the original paper and may never read it. However, if this review is anything to go by, I get a feeling that the paper was written to prove a pre drawn conclusion. First of all, the belief that democracy remains democracy only if it toes a certain line (the contours of which are, well, totally subjective) is erroneous. The “of-for-by” test determines whether a specific government is democracy or not. By applying this test one can definitively say that Pakistan is NOT a democracy as the government is clearly not by the people. India, which passes the test on all three counts is very much a democracy. Democracy and all its variants have some or the other form of built in self correcting mechanism. If right wing populism becomes a menace, people will reject it during the next hustings. BTW, populism is not the sole preserve of the right wing. In fact, it’s the left wing that has taken populism to the status of a fine art (pun intended). Indeed the Left’s primary building block is populism.
Based on the above review, I’d describe this paper (which I have not read – and likely will never read) as scare mongering, along side papers predicting climate driven impending doom.
The words of an elite snob! The author and those like him live in a bubble. The U. S. Has survived because it was focused on the efforts, drive and morals of the every day worker who did not look to the politician for guidance. Post WWII nanny state policies have winnowed their way into the machinations of every day life exposing the failure inherent in government overreach. We don’t need pin heads like this author. We need LESS government and more individual responsibility.
85 year old father asked “what’s this Brexit mess? What’s wrong with the UK?” I replied: It is not about UK, but about democracy showing its ugly side.
How about this counter-hypothesis: It’s not the people who are too stupid for democracy, but the elites who are distached from reality because they only talk to others in the bubble and don’t know anymore what is really important. It makes perfect sense and much more so than the opposite. If you assume incompetence, but it’s not possible to get rid of the elites by elections, you need other means to drive them out of their positions, hence “populist uprises”. Perhaps Mr Rosenberg should read “de re publica” by Cicero, in which this process has been sufficiently described some 2000 years ago. But perhaps and in difference to many “far-righters” in the “mob that destroys democracy” like myself, Mr Rosenberg simpy doesn’t speak Latin. Perhaps that’s the underlying problem and with that the lack of understanding the past and therefore constants in the human condition.
I tend to agree with this finding. People are inherently biased and prejudiced. How else will you explain the Modi and Trump phenomenon in such well-established democracies? These people are swaying public opinion and making people believe in obscurantism and abominable prejudices. How is it possible? My explanation as of this professor and Dr. Ambedkar, who was behind the Indian Constitution, is MAN IS VILE.
I would trust the people infinitely more than the right wing populist leaders. They will get a fair shot at power. If they fail to deliver, people will see through them, vote them out. Unless, as in Russia, the process of free and fair elections breaks down. Then people will come out on to the streets.
I partly,agree with his research.
When the psyche of common people are corrupted,the democracy cant survive.
Its upto our hard working leaders,how they take a country forwards.
We need to pull our democracy out of superficial glitz and glamour of democracy created by corrupt media,influencing people to isolate themselves from eachother.