Populism needs to be understood to be beaten. It brings to the surface the true mechanisms of human belief…
Populism needs to be understood to be beaten. It brings to the surface the true mechanisms of human belief and knowledge. A mechanism of trust, not of understanding. We trust others, in all areas of life, to know things. And they trust us in turn, for things we are expert in. /1 https://t.co/xGzghipE1K
Populism is the endgame of this trust mechanism. Where it becomes obvious, as is often noted for Trump supporters for example, that ‘reality’ is whatever the populist leader says it is. Followers TRUST the Great Leader to decode and determine all of reality, for them. /2 https://t.co/jEF4eDU5A9
It’s important to note that this isn’t because people are stupid. Trust is the currency of all social life. What populists do is attack trust itself, launching continuous assaults on all of society’s trusted institutions and other sources of trust. Leaving only themselves. /3
Humans are social, first and last. They don’t do the Enlightenment ideal of examining the world around them, trying to decode and make sense of it. Even science doesn’t do that, peer review is an obviously social process, not epistemological. /4
Societies wouldn’t function otherwise, the world and societies are far too complex for any person to be able to make sense of and negotiate alone. We have to rely upon others to do things we can’t, we have to trust. But intrinsically this means we have to trust LOTS of people. /5
Because reality is far too complex for any individual or even group to have any sort of meaningful handle on, alone. And this is where populism is easily identified. Any time all of life is routed through the views of one person or group alone, you have populism. /6
When they are the only trusted arbiters of reality, you have a hijacking of trust, and therefore of society itself. When every other voice of expertise is rendered as an ‘elite’ to be ignored. It’s classic cult behaviour. /7 https://t.co/K2xwCPlRHj
We won’t beat cults by just saying people in them are stupid. It’s not about intelligence. It’s about the continuous removal of all other sources of trust. And those not in cults use trust to regulate their social lives as well. They just trust lots of people, not one. /8
This makes social change a very different job to countering misinformation and disinformation, of providing facts. It makes it about restoring trust. Trust at all levels of society, to dismantle the hijacking and re-routing of it through only a Great Leader. /9
Or to use Covid or climate change as an example, to restore the complex web of trusted expertise that informs those topics, rather than allow influencers and populist politicians to hijack those networks and re-route them through themselves. /10
Again, this is not about providing facts or information, or countering misinformation and disinformation. It’s about focusing on the *social* ways trust is established and also stolen. Why are vast numbers of people abandoning society’s complex webs and networks of trust? /11
This is something we can all target in our own lives. Instead of slugging it out with facts and factoids every day, ask the basic question - why don’t you trust the people who know this stuff? Always bring the question back to trust. /12
Identify which people cultists/populists still DO trust, outside the Great Leader. Their dentist, for example, or plumber. And talk to them continuously about why they trust those people, but not others. I find talking about trust restores the idea of RESPECT. /13
That we need to respect other people, and their expertise, and if a populist doesn’t, ask them why they aren’t respecting others. Sometimes people they know personally. Always bring it back to the social relationships in play, not the facts. /14
Disrespect is rudeness. The team sports of political populism relishes the conflict of beliefs, that’s its fuel. But you can short-circuit it by bringing the attention always back to basic human decency and respect, the trusting of others. /end