It’s a clear sign of the parlous state of the British economy that even the Prime Minister cannot afford an umbrella. Either that, or yesterday’s announcement was somehow intended to communicate that only woke elitists bother with such things, whereas true men of the people will get their expensive suits soaking wet to demonstrate their authenticity and representativeness. True, the acquisition of genuine empathy with the people of Britain would involve being soaked in substances other than rainwater, but it’s the thought that counts.
At least the announcement was made yesterday about ten minutes before my train disappeared into the Channel Tunnel, so I didn’t have to endure any great suspense and could enjoy the spectacle in real time. But it might have been so much better a day earlier, when I was in Zürich discussing the theme of populism ancient and modern with colleagues from the Zürich Centre for Ancient Studies (ZAZH), and it didn’t occur to me or anyone else to discuss the present UK government when there are so much better examples on offer.
The question would be – now I think of this – whether one might learn more from the study of successful populism (certainly it’s the rise of populist parties that’s stoked anxiety about the health of global democracy) or from failed attempts at populism. Does P.G. Wodehouse’s Roderick Spode in fact reveal as much about mid-C20 populism as Mussolini or Hitler? Rather than debate whether populism should be understood as a tactic or a thin ideology or a moralising conception of politics, should we rather recognise that actually all these things might be encountered, on a spectrum from heartfelt, instinctive loathing of those who act like they’re better than us to the cynical adoption of divisive rhetoric about woke lanyards in the hope it might win a few extra votes? Rather than attempt to determine whether Kleon, say, was actually a populist (and if ‘populism’ is a concept that remotely makes sense in the context of C5 Athenian democracy), we could simply label him a Johnson rather than a Braverman.
Obviously Zürich would have been the ideal place to discuss this. One of the things I especially liked about the volume that we were launching and discussing (Riedweg, Schmid & Walter, Hgg., Demokratie und Populismus in der griechischen Antike und heute, De Gruyter 2024) was its flexible engagement with contested concepts. Attempts at applying modern social-scientific ideas in ancient history are often bedevilled or hobbled by the problem of finding a balance between acknowledging the complexity and disputed nature of most modern theoretical concepts and dealing with the inevitable Well what’s the point of it, then? reaction. In this case, the very process of exploring whether different versions of ‘populism’ had more or less purchase on the ancient polis, and if not why not, yielded the most interesting insights, simply by raising new questions about e.g. the nature of ‘the people’ and the sovereignty of the demos or the actual role of demagogues in this context.
So, the haplessness and patent inauthenticity of Sunak’s gestures at populism don’t contradict the idea that we remain within a ‘populist moment’ – yes, it’s gone on for much too long to be labelled a moment. The genuine/shameless/natural/committed (delete according to taste) populists have shifted the terms of political discourse so that something like their style, the performance of ‘authenticity’, and indeed their content (hey, Labour Party on the subject of immigration), is expected of anyone who wants to play politics seriously. They’re just not necessarily very good at it. As the joke has it: Just be yourself. No, not like that.
Anyway, despite the terrifying cost of a cup of a coffee and the remarkable flatness of Switzerland (Alps? I didn’t see any Alps anywhere…), I had a marvellous and intellectually stimulating time in Zürich, with excellent and hospitable colleagues. Having given my talk (to time, and without rushing the last couple of points, which hasn’t happened for at least a decade…) and thought through responses to a couple of really good questions, I now have a clearer idea what I should have talked about – but thankfully also an obvious place to talk about it, as I am just about to move onto the Mytilene Debate chapter in my Thucydides book-in-progress, just as soon as I’ve got through the email backlog and piles of marking.
In the meantime, I enthusiastically recommend the volume, which is a really excellent example of the power of collaboration (different approaches to Altertumswissenschaft meeting political theory and political science around a common, stimulating and sufficiently flexible theme) – and which seems to epitomise the general approach of the ZAZH; certainly I’m going to be watching out for future events there. And maybe next time the Alps will show up.
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