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A Seed Of Populism
As a surge of populism is altering the face of politics around the world, a puzzling irony hangs in the air: populism wins approval and votes from a generally hard-working socio-economic sector that often struggles to make ends meet – yet its leaders, once elected, commonly implement policies that slash at programs supporting the education, housing, health and welfare of those same voters, while they hand out juicy perks to the very rich. Despite this, the base supporters tend to remain doggedly loyal.
What are we to make of this curiosity? A look at the emotional appeal of populism is telling – and there can be no question that its draw is based on the kindling of emotions rather than on an appeal to reason. The emotional tinder into which populism tosses matches includes a quietly anguished sense of frustration, betrayal, fear and loss. Once ignited, those emotions are inflamed against some targeted group who are “not like us,” and what is being felt finds its justification in the blame and accusations directed at the group. The strongman leader promises to retaliate against the demonized “others,” and to reinstate a dimly remembered past when everything was better. Of course, if history teaches us anything, it’s that the more deeply such fissures divide a society, the more dysfunctional it becomes.
All of this is relatively familiar. What is not widely recognized, though, is the underlying germ that makes the politics of division so viable. Our culture teaches us in subtle but countless ways that division works – that it is necessary for creating safety and enabling control. We soak up this lesson, learning first and foremost how to divide the self. That lesson is stressed and locked into our bodies by our public schools: achieving success there means suppressing the body’s intelligence and sitting still (and you’d better learn to throttle the body’s energy, or you’ll get in trouble) so that you can fill your head with the right facts and lessons.
Our self-division places the abstracting head in charge. As though in a silo that divides it from the body, its thinking is also divided from the world. From that citadel on high we can observe, analyze and calculate how to leverage control. In the process we become toxically self-centered. The primary job we assign ourselves is to supervise our emotions and body and thoughts and actions; and that means the primary relationship that occupies us is between the self and the self – or more accurately, between the divided parts of the self. Curiously, then, the world to which we indissolubly belong becomes secondary to that relationship – the world is not our most intimate teacher, or our true mother, but merely something to be manipulated to our advantage. In our eyes, it seems as devoid of intelligence as we imagine our bodies to be.
Living in division like this is widely accepted as the normal expression of our humanity. It is also what gives populism and partisanship their appeal. Because we have come to understand division as the necessary means to success, we become susceptible to exhortations to division from political leaders. And of course, the more out of control our lives and the world around us feel, the more fervently we grasp at their promises.
The inner divisions that make our culture so toxically self-centered seem to have intensified in the last few decades. In 1961 John F. Kennedy famously advised: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” I have a feeling that any politician expressing a similar sentiment today would be turfed off the stage. Which is a pity, because a recognition of our indissoluble unity with each other and the planet that sustains us is the ground of truth that will enable us to face our challenges together. But standing in compassionate unity with others will remain elusive so long as you personally believe that division is necessary for success.
This then is the seed of populism: the disconnected head has taken charge of our lives, and retains its power over us by fear-mongering – the language populism picks up on. In our personal lives, we have come to believe that disaster will befall, things will come undone, we will be taken advantage of, unless the roiling vigilance of the head supervises all we do. Meanwhile, its relentless chatter drowns out the intelligence of the body, which so naturally attunes to the world that it recognizes the world as itself. I deeply, deeply believe that harmony with each other and our planet will only become possible when the self comes into harmony. A healthy body politic, then, depends on a state of being that finds the world more interesting than the self, companionship more real than isolation, and embodied intelligence more reliable than the divisions of the restless, segregated intelligence in the cranium.
15 Comments on "A Seed Of Populism"
Cloggie on Wed, 22nd Aug 2018 10:02 pm
If only the North-American Indians had countered their own populism and stopped resisting losing their territory to invading foreigners, who gracefully put them into reserves afterwards.
What said Indians should have done instead was “connecting to their Higher Selves and suppress the eternal chattering of their own brains” and everything would have been honkey dory. The necessary skills they could have acquired via Philip’s web shop:
https://philipshepherd.com/shop/
Seriously, this globalist jerk Philip Shepherd, who jets between London, NY and Toronto, if he is not biking somewhere in Japan, Labrador or Timbuktu, has the nerve to pontificate about people who are deeply concerned about the very real prospect of losing their homeland’s to invading foreigners, who probably would not even bother to create reserve’s for the indigenous populations (“populists”) they just replaced.
Philip Shepherd represents the globalist cancer that needs to be cut out. Wishing him two flat bicycle tires would not begin to describe my anger against him.
Deplorable on Wed, 22nd Aug 2018 11:03 pm
Yes, another one to be lined up at the wall.
DerHundistLos on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 4:21 am
“There can be no question that populism’s draw is based on the kindling of emotions rather than on an appeal to reason.”
Absolutely correct. American populism as exemplified by Trump requires low information voters. How else to explain people in Appalachia supporting an administration that implements policies in clear opposition to their best interests (ex. tax cuts for the very rich, a dismantling of air, water, pollution, endangered species regulations, government scientists being purged and replaced with mouthpieces for industrial polluters, national parks being sold). Trump and company represent a particularly predatory class of people.
Trump is the personification of the expression attributed to King Louis XV, “Après moi, le déluge” or “After me, the catastrophe”. Trump knows this as well so he’s doing everything possible to take advantage of his position and grab it all before it disappears forever. His congressional enablers could care less about the ramifications. Money and power trump all other considerations.
anon on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 6:07 am
anything that gets rid of this infection of globalist parasites already has one good tihng going for it. Anything that even purports to address this problem will naturally gather a whole lot of popular support. The only danger is that most politicians etc selling a story about getting rid of globalists and their ilk, are usually just as much charlatans as every other sort of politicians, so they probably wont accomplish much of anything to stop the disease. but, big surprise, people are not happy about their homeland, their culture, their history, their independence, being destroyed by the fabian global bulldozer.
they just dont know how to fight back yet.
Antius on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 6:42 am
Populism is the word the globalist elite use to describe insurgent nationalist leaders. The tone is mocking; it basically suggests that the leader is appealing to peasants who don’t really understand the implications of what they are doing. An arrogant mentality indeed.
People are pissed off, in Europe especially. One look at a long term GDP growth chart gives some indication as to why.
https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/gdp-growth
Now consider that the declining Eurozone growth is increasingly unequal, boith geographically and in its distribution with the hierarchy within nations. Consider also that all of the new growth has been accompanied by a truly unprecedented increase in levels of debt. In real terms, the average European is poorer today than he was in 2005. According to Dr Tim Morgan, roughly 10% poorer. And real prosperity is on a continuing downward slide. Things are going to get ugly.
Davy on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 6:46 am
“The Metaphysics to Our Present Global Anguish”
https://tinyurl.com/yco8p7fg
This article has some interesting points on the latent and cyclical tensions of populism and the globalist.
duh on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 4:15 pm
Global warming is good. Global cooling caused by less active sun is not good- you liberal nazi faggots.
Populism: who came up with that fake word? some liberal faggot jew
Sissyfuss on Thu, 23rd Aug 2018 8:05 pm
Duhmass, I think you were looking for the site,” Peak Numb Nuts.”
Dredd on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 8:38 am
“As a surge of populism is altering the face of politics around the world, a puzzling irony hangs in the air: populism wins approval and votes from a generally hard-working socio-economic sector that often struggles to make ends meet – yet its leaders, once elected, commonly implement policies that slash at programs supporting the education, housing, health and welfare of those same voters, while they hand out juicy perks to the very rich. Despite this, the base supporters tend to remain doggedly loyal”
This describes a group dynamic that has infected civilization down through time.
Our modern age gives the dynamic more power than ever before (The Authoritarianism of Climate Change).
Don’t be fooled … it is a deadly toxic brew.
joe on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 9:31 am
Oh how you forget the past America. The Dems lost not because Trump was popular, they lost because of corruption in the DNC (q the paid Dem troll to question me) who used big money superpacs to oust the truly popular Bernie Sanders who would have mopped the floor with Trump. People are not low information voters, they know exactly that globalism, wage competition against third worlders and fake news msm helps the m.i.c keep America fighting. Thats why the institutional bureaucracy (aka the deep state) does not want the legitimate voice of the American people to rule the day. If it did they would vote for things like universal healthcare etc, the wealthy don’t want that. If the Dems had run anyone other than superpac Killary Killton (whoes health and judgement were both so obviously questionable in every way) then there would be a Dem potus. So they invented Russiagate to make the party faithful look the other way.
Suddenly the Dems are taking a higher moral stand than f@^kin Pat Robertson did against Slick Willy. Who Trump fucked is his own fucking business!!!
How could you not vote Rep, the Dems don’t have any polices, they are preaching like the new catholic church or somthing.
Antius on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 9:54 am
““The Metaphysics to Our Present Global Anguish”
https://tinyurl.com/yco8p7fg
This article has some interesting points on the latent and cyclical tensions of populism and the globalist.”
An interesting read. Utopian idealism always seems to ruin everything doesn’t it? There seems to be a persistent malfunction in the human brain that leads us to believe that we are evolving or should evolve towards some sort of utopian, perfect, one-size-fits-all solution to all the problems in the world. A world in which there are no barriers or restrictions on human beings of any kind.
This sort of utopianism has been tried again and again and the results are always brutal oppression, as the ideologues force the poor bastards under their yoke into the narrow and simplistic mould that they have created for them. The more the real world fails to conform, the more violent and oppressive they end up becoming. How many times does a bad idea need to fail before we finally decide to drop it?
DerHundistLos on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:22 pm
Joe-
Epitomizes the fantasy land populated with kooky Republicans. Ex: “The Dems lost not because Trump was popular, they lost because of corruption in the DNC (q the paid Dem troll to question me).” Democratic corruption? Cite non-conspiracy based fake stories as examples (q the paid Republicon troll to invoke fake news stories). Your point about universal healthcare…… I have no idea what you are attempting to say. Try using a translator next time.
In November, a Blue wave is coming as sanity returns to America, thereby making moot your entire nonsensical diatribe.
DerHundistLos on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:30 pm
Oh yeah. The Trump true believers saw him as the ultimate mastermind. They perceived the man’s every move, every word uttered, every breath taken as a masterful move to crush his opponents and implement a plan well beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. The master 4-D chess player, hell 12-D chess player.
Nowadays, the bright bulbs of this collection of idiots have just shut up, hoping nobody else remembers their Trump boot licking. However, some idiots are still too stupid to see they were duped by a hustler, or they will do the idiot thing of doing anything to save face. These folks will be the loyal indentured servants of those with two brain cells to rub together.
Trumptards behave like a person who got left with a crappy divorce who cannot stop obsessing over their ex. EVERYTHING in their life is defined by what their ex-did, what their ex is doing, etc.…
Replying to any criticism of Trump’s stupidity with this tired shit about Hillary, Obama, and crew is how children debate and argue.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:48 pm
DerHundistLos
I agree my enlightened comrade..
Here is tonight’s Bill Maher show
[FULL] Real Time with Bill Maher – August 24, 2018 (HBO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeQOycshH4Q
On the house! Enjoy!
DerHundistLos on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 6:07 am
MASTERMIND:
Thanks for thinking of me!!!!
I love Bill Maher and faithfully watch his interesting and humorous program every week on HBO, although I miss the Politically Incorrect days when he had a nightly one hour show on ABC.
I like how he welcomes and is quite polite to Republicans who want to appear.