There’s a lot of smart people in the world.
One of them is Kevin D. Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation. He recently appeared in IMPRIMIS, the Hillsdale College publication with an essay “Populist Conservatism and Constitutional Order.”
I read his essay twice, and was reminded of a blog I wrote in 2012 entitled, “What are we Talking About?” I said:
Acceleration in business, while necessary, causes extreme stress, and sometimes painful change – change that doesn’t always turn out for the good. For example, how do you “redefine yourself” when you face unpredictable, complex markets? Can you, in fact, redefine in the face of such conditions? Create a definition, and by definition of business acceleration, your definition is instantly obsolete. Sartre’s Nausea comes to mind.
One thing seems to be clear: these new definitions or redefinitions as they are called must extend beyond traditional channels into what is being called multi-channel areas. The “clearly defined” somewhat stagnant single channels are being forever disrupted into a kind of free-for-all, or first-come, first-serve atmosphere.
So, current wisdom states that winners in such an environment have to be above everything else, resistant to disruption. What are we talking about?
Of course, that was about business, my business of marketing. Kevin Roberts is writing about our political climate. But the same question applies, perhaps more so to his essay: What is he talking about?
Aristotle was Right
Aristotle taught us to define our words if we expect to be understood and communicate. If you read Roberts’ essay, respectfully, he forgot what Aristotle taught him.
Consider the following examples.
- “Despite being discredited, the elites do offer a critique of populism that deserves to be taken seriously: the claim that populism is all style, lacks substance, and cannot be trusted.”
Doing business in Texas, the way that thought is expressed is “He’s all hat.” But is that what Roberts means? He goes on to say “Populism, according to this view, is a rhetorical Trojan Horse…and to be sure, history is full of corrupt tribunes of the people who abuse their power and enrich themselves at the nation’s expense.”
Is he talking about Joe Biden, who certainly can’t be called a “populist” which he hasn’t defined yet (but I will shortly). Biden never reflected the “popular” will of anyone as near as I can tell except his own corruption.
- “…legitimate and enduring change in democracies come neither from philosophers nor rabble-rousers. It [legitimate and enduring change] only comes by strategically fusing populist energy and principles ideas.”
Pardon me, but what does that mean? He cites Regan doing “it” as he “harnessed popular frustration…to a positive agenda of conservative reform.” Also Nixon and Clinton who “channeled populist frustrations and aspirations toward their policy aims.” But he still hasn’t defined populism or what a populist really is. He keeps using the word “legitimate” or “enduring” talking about change, and that such change “will only be accomplished through the Constitution,” implying that young people reject the Constitution as an “artifact of liberal, Enlightenment errors.” Again, note the language.
My first response was: has Roberts read philosophy? Heraclitus said all things are a flowing…that you can’t step in a river in the same place twice. Everything changes. That beautiful document, our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, doesn’t change, does it? People who read it do, and perhaps their interpretation does. But anyone with “common sense” reading it, the meaning is pretty simple and clear I’d say. The founders took a lot of time writing it!
Roberts frames his arguments quoting Gustav Mahler, a composer, who said: “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” What? How is worshiping and preservation connected by anything?
He says preservation of fire is a metaphor for conservatism, but really never defines conservatism as near as I can tell. “It’s [conservatism] not rose-tinted nostalgia of an idealized past. It preserves the best of the past and applies its lessons to the present – maintaining a controlled burn as a way to a better future.”
I looked up the definition of “conservatism” and found this: 1. commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation; and 2. the holding of political views that favor free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas. Nothing in here about nostalgia or controlled burning.
What IS he talking about?
Populism
The term populism emerged in the English language in the late 19th century from what I can find out, specifically around the 1890s within American politics. Populism derives from the Latin populus, meaning “the people.” The word “popular” comes to my mind, so I looked that up: 1. liked, admired, or enjoyed by many people or by a particular person or group. 2. (of cultural activities or products) intended for or suited to the taste, understanding, or means of the general public rather than specialists or intellectuals.
That makes sense, especially when I further read that as a political movement in the 1890s, populism sought to represent the interests of farmers and laborers against what they perceived was dominance of industrialists and bankers. Over time, populism seems to have evolved to represent a broader range of political movements and ideologies from what I read, and more words like “left-wing” and “right-wing” crept into our vocabulary, all claiming to be for “the people.”
So that’s the problem: words are thrown around without context, and used over and over again until their meaning becomes lost or mangled. Moreover, populism is one of those intangible words; like freedom or love, you can’t see it, taste it, hear it, feel it or smell it. Or can you?
Humpty Dumpty
In another blog – Pick a Word, Any Word – I wrote:
In Through the Looking-Glass, Humpty Dumpty and Alice are having a discussion. He says to her, “And only ONE for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!” Alice replied, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory.” Humpty smiles and tells her, “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”
The remainder of the conversation makes the point:
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
The essence of communication is just that: do we use language that everyone kinda understands, or do we make words mean what we want them to mean, and to heck with everyone else? The essence of communication is to be understood; this is why simple is always better.
And I believe that, don’t you? I once worked for a guy who said, “Why use ten words when 100 will do?” Complexity for the sake of complexity spoils understanding. Life is complex enough, and words often add to the confusion. We make up more words to try to explain our realities. So Roberts make a critical mistake: he’s not writing to the populist.
One of the things populism gets accused of by Roberts (he says the “elites” make a good argument against it as I mentioned ) is oversimplifying complex issues. But what, in your own opinion, or in Roberts’ opinion, is a complex issue? Saying the war in Ukraine is complex is probably true. But saying that millions of people have already died because of the war in Ukraine isn’t complex, is it? Or that avoiding war if you can is a good thing. That’s not complex. What about these things?
- When you can’t define what a woman is because you say you are not a biologist, are you just simply stupid? Or is it so complex you have a hard time understanding the statement because as a woman yourself you don’t know yourself?
- When you protect people from a maniac by subduing him, are you just a simply a hero? Or do you have to be put on an exhibition and a trial with made up charges to show how complex the issue of saving people is, and debate if you are a hero or not?
- When you get up from being shot and without a weapon to return fire tell people to fight, are you simply brave? Or, do have others try to put doubt in what you saw with your own eyes by saying there was a possibility that the bullet that hit your ear was maybe shrapnel?
You can give hundreds of other examples of simplification for what your senses tell you in observing the actions of people, but none of that has anything to do with populism. We judge people by the actions we can see, and hear, and feel with our senses. We use simpler words for our observations – good, bad, stupid, brave, duty, honor, country. We don’t need complexity from academia to understand it is simply wrong to light a sleeping person on fire. Or have we all become beasts?
Elites
The problem with Roberts and all of his ilk is that they prefer complexity to simplification, confusion to clarity.
For example, what is an elite? From language usage, elite simply means “a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.” My cardiologist is elite; not many people I know can do what he does. And within cardiologists, there are probably elite ones. You can parse words as much as you want, but like Humpty, the more we make words mean what we want them to mean, the more we lose communications.
Besides, being elite is a state of mind. Aren’t we all elite? Just check out the Constitution Roberts cites so much.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
That’s a pretty simple statement, wouldn’t you say? Because if we’re all equal, we’re all elite, no? Besides, who can forget Machiavelli:
There are three different kinds of brains, the one understands things unassisted, the other understands things when shown by others, the third understands neither alone nor with the explanations of others. The first kind is most excellent, the second also excellent, but the third useless.
Roberts’ insists that “legitimate and enduring change in democracies come neither from philosophers nor rabble-rousers.” What were our founding fathers but philosophers and rabble rousers? Surprisingly, Roberts has degrees in history and American history and missed that point. I majored in English with both B.A. and M.A. with minors in philosophy and theology. I read Thomas Paine, one of the finest rabble rousers I ever read. I’m certain Roberts didn’t miss Common Sense.
Besides, who is to say what is legitimate? Is pardoning 37 murders who committed heinous crimes and found guilty in courts of law legitimate because you are the President of the U.S.? Is making up novel variations of law to throw at people legitimate because you have the power to do so?
Of course we need law and order, government, but what Roberts is talking about is so abstract, so “philosophical” that it is difficult to follow exactly what he is trying to say. Or, perhaps I’m just one of those brains that “understands neither alone nor with the explanations of others.”
Conclusion
Usually in an essay, the ending sums up the point you are trying to make. Roberts starts his conclusion like this: “American conservatism exists to serve the people and the nation through the Constitution.” I think he has it wrong. He really means the Constitution exists to serve the people and the nation. American conservatism has nothing to do with it: people do.
He continues saying that “elite institutions have become the people’s and the nation’s enemies.” Elite here is used as an adjective to modify institutions, so what institutions is Roberts talking about? Fortunately, he listed them: Department of Homeland Security, the EPA, the Federal Reserve, the FBI, the Department of Education, the military industrial complex, and FEMA. He also notes the institutions are Big Government, Big Business, Big Banks, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Labor, Big Ag, Big Media, and Big Entertainment. When he listed them earlier in his essay, he noted, “these institutions function as anti-American, anti-constitutional predators, serving their own interests at the expense of the national interest.” Earlier, right up front, he noted, “public trust in the vaunted institutions that our elites control—political, scientific, journalistic, educational, religious—has evaporated.” He says this is why populism is on the rise.
Wow. People comprise these institutions. If we strip all of them away, are there any people left?
One might argue that he did talk about other “good” institutions, which included institutions we need to revive—marriage, and family, church and community, private enterprise and public spirit. Somehow that confuses the issue further. For example, “marriage” as an institution lies within the other “bad” institutions he mentioned, as does “family.” Besides, is “family” really an institution? See how defining your terms is so important?
So exactly what IS Roberts trying to say?
He continues: “They [the elite institutions] are openly waging cultural war on those they ostensibly serve. They cannot be negotiated with or accommodated. They must be defunded, disbanded, and disempowered. The rewards for doing so – for putting American families first again – will be greater than we can know. This is the fight before us. If we thoughtfully and tenaciously combine populist energy with conservative principles, it is a fight we can win.”
My question for Roberts is who is “they” and who is “we.” It sounds like he wants “we” to overthrow “they” – those elite institutions. But if you strip society of all that Roberts points out as “they,” who is really left?
Roberts, it seems, is a rabble-rouser at heart. But instead of simplicity to do his rabbling, he used complexity to express a much more powerful expression from the guy who got shot in the ear: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
As it turns out, the way it’s spelled out here, “populism” is just another institution after all. We’re not in an “ism” fight; we’re in a morality fight. Simple words: good versus evil. Now let’s define those terms Mr. Roberts! Thank you for your thoughtfulness.