Populism as Bogey-Man

...Given these facts of American history, the rise of the anti-democratic components of populism becomes more intelligible...

...First, what are the sources for a high tolerance of ambiguity...

...that is, an element of uncertainty or ambiguity is introduced in regard to one's beliefs...

...After all, it was De Tocqueville writing a hundred years before the current hue and cry about pop ulism who pointed out the American propensity for strict conformity, and who identified it as an inherent evil of democracy...

...Some of the factors involved are mentioned by Shils in connection with hyperpatriotism but are not applied to the problem of populism...

...Where there is "institutional autonomy" there will be groups with different value systems and patterns of behavior...

...they are actually better than their rulers and better than the classes—the urban middle classes —associated with the ruling powers...

...Therefore, when in his committee work he deals with bureaucrats, who are often more knowledgeable and competent than he is, the ground is prepared for a frustration and resentment released in investigations and general harassment of the bureaucrats...

...the continual westward movement of the frontier indicates the absence of tightly knit communities...

...This means that one's own values and behavior are constantly challenged by the presence of alternatives...

...Lumping this face of populism with its anti-democratic face obscures the problem of why this conflict is channeled into anti-democratic patterns, and defends the status quo by making populism nothing but Knownothingism or McCarthyism...

...Edward A. Shils, a prominent sociologist who teaches at the University of Chicago, has written a skillful and provocative book which investigates "the background and consequences of American security policies...

...But when there is a denial of the legitimacy of diversity...

...To become too tightly bound in a web of social relationships injures one's chances of emulating the Horatio Alger hero...

...At this point the private is perceived as something secret and hidden, and, therefore, dangerous— something which must be swept out into the open for inspection by all...

...Tuss RAISES two questions...

...Finally we can point to urbanization with its well known concomitants of segmental living and social isolation...

...These investigations, pricked on as they are by resentment, end in attempts by the legislature to usurp the functions of administration...

...he is an agent of ambiguity...

...A quick glance at American history shows that this is to be anticipated...

...Similar resentments occur when the legislator is confronted by scientists and intellectuals...

...It is no accident that in a time when labeling oneself a "conservative" is a sign of grace Shils choses to concentrate on the evils of populism...

...The populist suspi cion of "overeducation" combined with the belief that all intellectuals are Communist or New Dealers—terms synonomous in the current lexicon of politics—make the intellectuals fair game...

...And as Richard Hofstadter has point ed out in The Age of Reform, the American farm community never had the "communal" character of European peasant villages...

...Shils tells us that the tradition of hyperpatriotism indicates a "general looseness of ties which bind people to localities and corporate bodies...

...Shils is equally worth reading when he surveys the consequences of the breakdown of privacy and the politicizing of all spheres of life...

...Nor is it merely fortuitous that the yardstick he uses to measure the decline of privacy in this country is Great Brittain, a "bulwark of privacy" founded on a comparatively rigid class structure, "an acceptance of hierarchy," and the "feelings of affinity which members of the elite" have for one another...

...The populist tradition has scant respect for the rights of privacy because it is obsessed by privacy's idiot twin, secrecy...

...Privacy is the voluntary withholding of information about "one's own business" supported by an indifference of others to this information...

...The average Congressman, caught in the cross pressures of conflicting group interests and with an ambiguous social status because he is a "politician," lives in fear and anxiety...

...This indifference implies a willingness to accept wide diversities in thought and behavior...

...YET SaILS' WORK suffers from a major flaw which is as symptomatic of our age as the phenomena he examines...

...Deprived of the sources of social support which allow one to bear the uncertainties of life in a democratic society, groups under excessive strain fall prey to an anxiety most easily alleviated by a devil or conspiracy theory of history...

...To live in a society in which intellectual freedom and different cultural patterns are seen as legitimate requires a high degree of tolerance of ambiguity...

...Conversely, since the world is a dangerous place, whatever resources one's own group possesses must be jealously guarded...

...Second, what are the chances for cohesive groups to form in American society...

...Unless we understand these social and historical conditions which are the roots of the anti-democratic face of populism we are forced into thinking that these anti-democratic patterns are inevitable and indigeneous to democracy...

...But, as Shils himself notes, "populism has many faces...

...This clearly pathological obsession with secrecy finds political expression through populism...

...The significance of the policies lies in the fact that they attempt to enforce a single standard of loyalty as the only standard, and undermine the basis for multiple and conditional loyalties...

...Moreover, Hofstadter informs us, the farmer constantly sought to sell his land at a profit and move on...

...In a recent study of social mobility W. Lloyd Warner characterizes the process as constant "arrival and departure," and finds that the most mobile individuals are those who do not permit themselves to form close attachments to individuals or groups...

...Intellectual work functions toward the same end...

...Shils' use of Great Britain as a standard and his concern with the solidarity of the elites point up the significance of his emphasis on populism...

...The intellectual, whether he is a scientist, artist, or philosopher, serves to make the world problematic...

...They support ideologies which demand total homogeneity and single standards of conduct and thought to which all must be made to conform...

...To put it more bluntly, we are left with the position that only a limited degree of democracy is possible, which means to maintain a social system in which broad inequalities are institutionalized and defended...

...Shils skillfully demonstrates how this tradition functions and culminates in such atrocities as McCarthyism and the loyalty-security program...

...Unless we are aware that it is not inherent but something with determinate historical and social antecedents we are left with no alternative than the one adopted by Shils and by Talcott Parsons in a recent essay...

...This is not to deny that there is an American political tradition which "proclaims that the will of the people as such is supreme over every other standard," and that such a tradition fed by hyperpatriotism, xenophobia, and fundamentalism has resulted in the worst kinds of anti-democratic action and thought...

...Scientists, of course, are by definition crazy, living in a world far beyond the ken of the average Congressman, yet occupying a power position which the legislator must acknowledge...

...Populism is tinged by the belief that the people are not just the equal of their rulers...

...a society in which the elites of all institutional spheres respect each other and are "bound together not only by law and interest, but by a permeative sense of affinity...

...when a need is felt for social uniformity because diversity in thought and behavior creates anxiety by lending support to suppressed impulses—then an obsession with secrecy begins to influence political behavior...

...He is valuable because he is critically aware that the loyalty program has little to do with realistic threats to the nation's security...

...That is, we must try to main tain "equilibrium" and "stability" by supporting elite rule and strengthen the values which encourage "deference to hierarchy...

...Two manifestations of the latter are a denial of "the autonomy of institutions" and a hostility to intellectuals and education generally...

...In addition to this geographic mobility there has been the relatively high rate of social mobility...

...The resentment this situation causes culminates in a loyalty program which, in turn, culminates in an Oppenheimer Case...

...Because it denies the "autonomy of institutions" and automatically "identifies the will of the people with justice and morality," populism ignores the legitimate boundaries between the public and the private, thus subverting the foundaLions of a "pluralist society...

...This is an invidious way of stating that populism represents a movement and a protest—if somewhat inchoate— by those close to the bottom of the class structure who do not accept or are forced into conflict with a social order which keeps them near the bottom...

...Nor, again, is it wholly coincidental that Shils' picture of the good society is the "liberal society" in which "the economy is not run by the government and government is not run by the owners and managers of the economy...

...it exists wherever there is an ideology of popular resentment against the order imposed on society by a long-established, differentiated ruling class, which is believed to have a monopoly of power, property, breeding and culture...

...If personality factors are ignored, one of the sources is found in the degree of social cohesiva, the degree to which there are strong bonds between individuals which serve as means of social support...

...According to Shils, these policies result from the populist tradition in American politics...