Populism is a direct consequence of progressivism
Greater social progress means ever more people are being “left behind” because they simply cannot cope with the rate of social change. Is it any wonder “populism”, which is inherently conservative, rises as more and more social progress occurs?
It’s no coincidence that nationalistic populism is again rearing its ugly head worldwide, just as the global community is finally starting to recognize the needs of so many previously ignored and marginalized people, the strengths of diversity, and the advantages of culturally rich communities.
Humans have evolved to prefer safety and security — because this is how we survive. Humans have also evolved to be curious — because this is also how we survive. Those who prioritize safety will miss opportunities that can significantly improve their survival. Those who prioritize curiosity will expose themselves to greater risk and thus greater chance of premature death. Between these two extremes, there is a Goldilocks Zone where safety and curiosity balance, and where a global optimum of survival exists.
However, no two people are alike. Based on their neural wiring and their life experiences, each person will have a slightly different “sweet spot” where their own personal safety and curiosity balance. Each of us will, whether we know it or not, seek a life that exists in that individual sweet spot. One person may prefer a greater degree of security, while another may exhibit greater curiosity; neither is “better” than the other. This diversity is just helps ensure the survival of the species — which is, after all, what evolution is all about.
This means that the trade-off between security and curiosity will vary naturally across a population. It will tend to vary as a normal distribution around some mean for a sufficiently large population. The value of the mean will depend on many factors. What’s more important, though, is the standard deviation — the “spread” of the curve.
The wider the standard deviation, the greater the difference between the most progressive (i.e., curiosity-driven) and the most conservative (i.e., risk-averse) members of the population. The greater the difference between the members at the extremes, the less comfortable those members will become with one another, and the fewer the people in the centre.
The large, central majority is a necessary mediating force to stabilize the overall population. This majority is also the most satisfied with the state of their society, and so are least likely to voice any particular concerns. Those at the far progressive end of the distribution will want more and faster progress and are most likely to be very vocal about it. Similarly, those at the far conservative end will want to regress back to a previous state that they recall as superior to the current one, and will be equally vocal about it.
The media will tend to amplify the voices of the most vocal members of the population, which means the fewest number of people (those at the extremes of the distribution) will get the greatest amount of media attention. This will produce a bias in the general population, who will naturally tend to assume that the extremists constitute a much larger fraction of the population that they do actually, based on their “loudness”.
The people in the centre will feel this loudness as a pressure pulling their society away from their (perceived) stability. This will drive the centrists to want to restore that stability by moving slowly away from the centre and towards an extreme they expect to restore the balance they prefer. A slightly progressive person will tend to become more progressive to offset the perceived increase in conservatism, and a slightly conservative person will tend to become more conservative to offset the perceived increase in progressivism.
There are two important outcomes here. The first is that the standard deviation of the population will become larger as greater and greater degrees of extremism become tolerated — for the sake of offsetting the extremism at the other end of the population. The second result is that, in time, as more people drift away from the mean, the distribution itself will split and become bimodal. Ultimately, this will result in a societal schism that could destroy it completely.
For the last several decades, social progress has accelerated significantly. Since the 1960s, when I was a child, I have seen tremendous advances in the rights and equality of women, people of colour, people of non-binary genders, “disabled” people, etc. These advances are well documented in the literature.
In other words, society has for the last several decades skewed distinctly towards progressivism. That is, more people today are content with a faster rate of change than in the past. However, the faster social progress occurs, the more people are left behind. The further behind they get, the more regressive they seem.
Now, this is important: we, the progressives, are the ones who are leaving them behind. They are not lagging behind progressives intentionally. Rather, they are literally incapable of keeping up, because their nature is to be more risk-averse than the rest of the population. This is not a shortcoming of theirs; it’s just how they are.
Sure, some of those left behind are misanthropes and quasi-psychotic trolls, but so are some progressives. Assholes are everywhere, but they’re not the problem. The problem is everyone else: if we progress too fast, many people will benefit more and faster, but society will eventually fall apart; if we progress too slow, many more people will suffer, but society will remain more stable in the long term. Catch-22.
Of course, extremists on neither side see it that way, because they’re both dogmatic in their beliefs, which only makes things worse. And though the extremists are the ones most willing to sacrifice themselves and others for their ideologies in the short-term (and may also often wield significant power over others) they are usually few in number. If we (the vast majority) had the education and courage to do it, we could drown them out completely.
The real discussion needs to be about the paradox of social progress: progress implies long-term instability and risk; regress implies greater harm. Between them lies stagnation, which is its own kind of death sentence. While it seems a mug’s game, I refuse to accept that this is as good as it gets. We need to find a way to create stable progress — a way to help ensure the future will be better, while minimizing the harm that will happen while getting there.
In the meantime, one thing is certain: while many (perhaps even most) nationalistic populists may not be intentionally undermining the true progress of the last several decades, the harm they are causing is significant. Somehow, they must be stopped.
