Of Umberto Bianchi

Source: Heretically
At the end of a decidedly close electoral contest, the verdict that came out of the polls has, indiscutibilmente, rewarded all those formations that, somehow, they imitate or are themselves considered “populist”. The reference applies to both the League and the Movement 5 position, US President Trump, the transalpina Lady Marine Le Pen, That, in the most recent past for the Forza Italia of the golden times and, really, in very recent times, as if by someone risky, also for Renzi of the original "scrap" version. A term whose meaning has included a bit of everything and its opposite.
But what exactly do we mean by “populism”?? What is the exact political meaning in which this term should be placed, very fashionable nowadays? If we want to refer to the letter of the history of political movements, by “populism” we mean a series of movements that, at the end of the nineteenth century they developed in disparate contexts. In Russia, Populism was represented by the “narodnjki”, whose most authoritative exponents were the colonel and mathematics professor of the Military Academy Pyotr Lavrovič Lavrov, supporter of populism in a socialist key, together with its popularizer and idelogue, the sociologist and literary critic Nikolai Konstantinovič Mikhailovsky, having as its object the emancipation of the peasant masses, starting from the rural/"obscina" community. France instead, began with Paul Deroulede's League of Patriots, che unitasi ad un altro movimento populista di massa, Boulangism (named after Georges Boulanger, charismatic general of the French army) he became an advocate of a radical and revanchist nationalism, always connected to the increasingly widespread discontent of the masses, towards the young French parliamentary republic, much to achieve in 1888-89, after obtaining the support of the monarchists, of significant electoral victories. In the United States it was the People's Party (People’s Party), also known as Populist Party (Populist Party), summarily called "Populists”, which party was established in 1891 in the United States of America which, during the “populist” period, took hold towards the end of the 19th century. Supported by the lower classes, especially by cultivators hostile towards elites in general, had its peak between 1892 and the 1896.
All these movements, with their respective historical and ideological variations, they shared a common destiny: that of disappearing or, at least, as in the case of Russian populism, of ending up reabsorbed in the "mare magnum" of an ideology, in the Russian case precisely, the Bolshevik one. Both in the case of the populisms that preceded the Second World War and, in the case of those subsequent to it, populism carries a charge of strong hostility towards the elites. A hostility that, generally it remains generic, as it does not bear any specific ideological demands of which, but, it can be a springboard, as in the case of Peronism or the subsequent Chavista Bolivarianism. Therefore, of populism it can easily be said that it constitutes the political moment immediately preceding the birth of any political formation framed by solid ideological foundations, or, constitutes the final phase, dissolutoria, “liquid”, as in the case of today's European populism, in the case of the League, but also, than that of the various Northern European anti-immigration movements, like the French Front National, the Swedish Democratic Party, Alternative for Germany, the Austrian FPO,the Dutch Lista for Pym Fortuyn and many others.
All these movements arise either, at least, they hire, a populist connotation, with the gradual dissolution of the great totalitarian and revolutionary ideological narratives of the twentieth century, represented by the two great ideological families of Marxism and Fascism, in all their variations. This is because, in the face of the impetuous advance of the Techno Economy, both totalitarian ideologies have demonstrated an ontological inadequacy and inability to adapt to the Techno-Economic process and, therefore, to give answers, precisely because of that tendency that unites its fate to its Globalist counterpart, suitable for approval, working as one "totalitarian" "reduction to one", aimed at precluding, in this way, any type of openness to the multiple that, Instead, would have allowed a more complete understanding of reality, allowing its political survival.
Faced with the tendency towards planetary homologation, a marked counter-trend towards diversity is increasingly manifesting itself, to the multiple, to differentiation yes and yes, to the escape from any instance of pre-established intellectual rigidity and this both positively and negatively, with the repercussions on that "liquidity", in that fluid instability, in that state of precariousness that makes everything vain and uncertain, except for just one factor: that of a compulsive desire for profit, expanded beyond any human limit. Populism, acting as spokesperson for requests that embody a generic "common sense" of the masses, initially devoid of a defined ideological connotation, (and therefore of that intellectual rigidity that, we have already seen, determine its overcoming and overtaking by Globalization, sic!), it can become the instrument, the launch platform from which to launch the attack on the heart of the global system.
This though, as long as that same platform knows, over time, transform those same instances mentioned above, in ideal contents and proposals, such that they can take on a role as a counter to Globalism. Otherwise, the risk is to remain stuck on the emphasis of an initial protest which, as such and precisely because of its inherent generic nature, would end up exhausting itself. Two examples above all: in Italy the end of Giannini's Everyman who, after the war he managed to obtain exceptional electoral results, precisely by leveraging the discontent that, even then it spread among our local public opinion but what, precisely because of its empty generic nature, he disappeared from the political arena as quickly as he had appeared. The second example is that, also post-war, from France Pierre Poujade, which lasted a few years and would instead have constituted the trailblazer for a more ideological and long-lasting brand of Populism, represented by Jean Marie Le Pen's Front National.
Populism, as we have already said, therefore constitutes, a fundamental methodological transition phase, a moment of transition, collection of generic instances, from which it will then be necessary to move on to a phase of more specific answers , capable of uniting all the multifaceted variety of human components around a common motif, political and social, typical of more developed societies. In the more recent past, Populism has constituted that platform around which all those forces have coalesced, in certain realities of the Third World, they then gave rise to real national revolutions, as in the case of Nasserism in Egypt, of Peronism in Argentina or of the various Bolivarian revolutions in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Ecuador itself. In reporting here what has already been previously mentioned, it remains to be seen whether the current swarm of populist formations in Europe, will give rise to concrete opportunities in the fight against Globalism, or it will end up resulting in the nothingness of genericity and inconclusiveness that have characterized and continue to characterize so many, too many, European political experiences.
And here too Europe shows, one more time, if ever there was a need, its own peculiar and centripetal multiformity which makes it a true geopolitical and geo-spiritual "unicum". Populism and nationalism are all the rage in Eastern Europe, in countries like Poland, Hungary (and why not?Even in Putin's Russia...), indelibly marked by decades of Soviet Bolshevism, while in Western Europe they are struggling, remaining too often confined to the state of simple and unresolved protestant aspirations. The famous Iron Curtain, in truth, it has never fallen. Physically dismantled, however, it remained in the spirit of those peoples "beyond the Curtain" who, remained orphans of Real Socialism, today they find it completely natural to search for populist identity and national issues, a counterbalance to the inanity and lack of meaning that characterize liberal democracies today. And then, the question we should all ask ourselves, it is towards "what" to direct Populism...
The answer directs us towards a political category, today apparently fallen from grace. It's about Socialism, much praised in past years and now, following an uncontrolled euphoria under the banner of globalist liberalism, hastily put aside. The communitarian schools of thought in the Anglo-Saxon area, with the various Sandels, Mac Intyre, waltz, Taylor, but also those of an anarcho-community type, like that of a Nozick, or the more “pauperistic” ones of a Piketty, the same reflections carried forward for decades, by various exponents and magazines of our "non-conforming" thought, they direct us decisively towards the irresolute contrast between the Individual and the Community and, even more, between Economy and Community, for whom the answer can only be Socialism. If from all these reflections it is clear that, never like now, Liberalism and the liberal democracies themselves have entered an ongoing crisis, even more, becoming more and more profound and irresolvable, through an increasingly frenetic alternation of crises and moments of market euphoria, on the other hand though, a 21st century Socialism, it could never again have the characteristics of bureaucratic agglutination, typical of certain 20th century models, nor even less, end up identifying and identifying with the whiny, do-gooder progressivism of the various Bernie Sanders or the British labor-do-gooder Jeremy Corbin.
It's about returning to giving meaning to the life of the Individual and the Community, to reconfigure the relationship between the latter and the Economy as a relationship between an end and a means and not vice versa, as happens now. Not without forgetting that, cement and glue of this project, it can only be that Identity, that profound soul of a people who, to date, Globalism is trying to eliminate, to give way to an anodyne and commodified model of society, approved to the common Tecno Economic denominator.
E, beyond any detailed and meticulous reflection or intellectual analysis, whatever you want, faced with what appears to be an issue attributable to a mere political dimension, the only way out, apparently linked to a logic of the absurd, it seems to be the one deriving from that "Epochè/Suspension" of our pre-established coordinates of thought. And from here identify with that Heideggerian “Ereignis”, in that “Parmenidean” coincidence between Being and Action, which translates into that “poiesis”, of which that “poietein/create”, of Man is a primary attitude. And create from Nothing, the same possibility of making Being emerge from Non-Being, the possibility, even just on a theoretical level, of being able to undermine the rational coordinates of Western-centric thought, makes the Individual a Magician. And "magical" can only be that thought that, from now on, will have the task of opposing the global monster, to restore meaning, beauty and harmony to a world, to date, obscured by global grayness and uniformity.