how popular is populism?

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(question formulated while listening to a susan sontag speech, but don't talk about her)(much)

― m., Sunday, 14 March 2004 20:38 (twenty-two years ago)

you have to factor in the processes of popularisation

― run it off (run it off), Sunday, 14 March 2004 20:50 (twenty-two years ago)

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 14 March 2004 20:52 (twenty-two years ago)

there's an interesting point buried in this question that is not covered in the hostility to/celebration of popular culture divide: the popular has become a political category that is independent of the empirically popular. Popular Conservatism, for instance, invoked a conception of the popular that opposed the Left-wing conception of itself as rooted in popular experience. There is, if you like, a contest over what counts as popular. So much so, in fact, that populism (in mass culture or whatever) might be described, by a rival theory, as having anti-popular effects or stemming from anti-popular economic motives or whatever. So, maybe populism isn't that popular...

― run it off (run it off), Sunday, 14 March 2004 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

N- In the other thread, what did you mean in that bit abt 9/11?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 14 March 2004 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Ned in the other thread: Are we internal reformists or external terrorists? ;-)

something's changed

― run it off (run it off), Sunday, 14 March 2004 22:15 (twenty-two years ago)

This actually creeps me out more. Consider the first paragraph; I wrote it in July 2001.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 14 March 2004 22:22 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm not much of a fan of most 'supposed' presience, but that is quite something, ned.

ANYWAY tho, while i do think that though there's possible overlap with that thread (which kinda ended prematurely anyway), the pinefox was asking a different question there. things i was wondering about: possibly changing definitions of populism as an attitude (run it off is getting somewhere i think), how we cultivate our (possibly catholic) tastes without necessarily prizing 'difference' (and i know populism doesn't = "not making choices")(or do i?)

― m., Sunday, 14 March 2004 22:49 (twenty-two years ago)

that is quite something, ned

It grew out of a conviction that SOMETHING weird was going to happen, something bad. But I didn't know where from and I didn't know why, beyond a hedged guess that our past ten years' worth of dealing with Iraq wasn't much fun. Regardless, back to this thread's topic.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 14 March 2004 22:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i should've put something about posting pictures in the thread title.

― m., Monday, 15 March 2004 18:22 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

i wanted this to get somewhere.

― m. (mitchlnw), Sunday, 30 May 2004 17:31 (twenty-one years ago)

If we're talking popism, which we're not, I'd just like to say I like it. Sometimes, only now and then you understand, I find myself thinking OMFG I HATE THIS LEFTIE FEMINIST HIPPIE/PUNK/POSTPUNK/ROMO BARTHES'S ASS-SUCKING CRYPTOFASCIST BRAINDEAD PREPUBESCENT TASTE-WORSHIPPING SELF-HATING EX NME-BLOG WRITER'S IDEOLOGICAL FOLLY ANTI-MUSICAL SOCIAL-CRITICISM-MASQUERADING-AS-MUSIC-CRITICISM DESPERATION FILLED POLITICALLY CORRECT PASSIONLESS SOUL-DESTROYING POLYTECHNIC POPIDOL GRACELESS CHART-STUDYING GAMBACCINIESQUE WATERMANLOVING FUCKING GARBAGE but then I right myself, say "calm down old chap", and I'm my own poploving self once again. Phew!

― Krankenhaus, Sunday, 30 May 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

pop·u·lism n.

1. A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.
2. The movement organized around this philosophy.

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populism != anything to do with popularity

― Pack Yr Romantic Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 30 May 2004 22:07 (twenty-one years ago)

i see it used as a non-political term. i remember philip sherburne calling the sfj arthur russel article part of a 'good day for populism'. i suppose i mean popularism then.

― m. (mitchlnw), Sunday, 30 May 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Only because everyone gets it wrong.

It comes from populi, which I think is Greek for 'of the people.'

― Pack Yr Romantic Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 30 May 2004 22:16 (twenty-one years ago)

polyesterism? poplar riddim? polyp risen?

― m. (mitchlnw), Sunday, 30 May 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

There's nothing to stop someone being a populist elitist, is there? I think what annoys me is when people try to set those up as on opposition. Procrustean philistines!

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 31 May 2004 12:53 (twenty-one years ago)

twelve years pass...

My latest: "populism" has increasingly become a catch-all designed to lump people asking for single payer in w/nazis https://t.co/M62QIwoBgP
— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) May 18, 2017

“Authoritarian” and “populist” are both leveled arbitrarily against politicians a writer doesn’t like. Useful in theory, in practice these terms serve to indemnify more traditional power brokers.

Hence “populist” was used to smear Democratic presidential candidate Sanders as simply a variation of Trump, with countless writers lumping the two together using superficial similarities. Yet there were approximately zero comparisons between Trump and mainline Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, despite Sanders having virtually nothing in common ideologically with Trump, and Rubio backing Trump’s candidacy as well as the bulk of his policies.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-johnson-populism-20170518-story.html

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 May 2017 16:18 (eight years ago)

I don't think that argument makes very much sense. It describes "populism" as a smear -- whereas I see it used almost entirely as an aspirational description used by liberals desperately ashamed they attended an expensive college.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 18 May 2017 18:55 (eight years ago)

we must be seeing different blogs

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 May 2017 18:56 (eight years ago)

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