I came across a delightfully elitist quote from the great Oscar Wilde today:“By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community,” he wrote.
Oscar was talking about journalism and you can see what he meant. Reportage has a role in journalism – telling us what is happening and what the great unwashed is thinking. And if you back that with “consumer research” you can give the research a statistical credibility. “Seventy percent of the population supports the Monarchy” – that sort of thing.
Wilde references education and ignorance suggesting that the opinions of those with a deficiency of the former and plenty of the latter we (regrettably) have to take note of. Or at least least “keep in touch” with.
Politicians do it all the time ‘The people support what we are doing” a populist politician will say to justify some illiberal policy. This reduces every issue to a pseudo referendum. Manifestos become less a statement of what is right and more a response to collective opinion whether right or not.
As Bismarck put it politics is the “art of the possible” – a matter of pragmatism, instead of idealism. The EU Referendum was a classic example of this. Those who understood the subject were overwhelmingly pro Europe. The higher the level of education a voter had the more likely they were to vote “Remain”. The converse of this, Wilde’s uneducated and ignorant, was also true.
Reducing political complexity by presenting the voter with a simple binary choice is a technique as old as the hills. At its most venal it descends into prejudice and blame throwing. This Nazi poster denigrates the WW2 allies implying that it was Jews who were behind them:
And yet the obscenity of Nazi ideology did not teach us to be more careful. This poster from Farage and the “Leave” campaign was only half a step removed from Goebbels:
One of the variants of Conservatism being peddled at the moments is “National Conservatism”, another is ‘Popular Conservatism”. They are both unashamedly populist movements in the tradition of hard Right parties of the past like the National Front and UKIP.
In the upcoming Elections in the United States and here we can expect Trump (if it’s him) and Sunak punting a “reductio ab absurdum” message full of faux-patriotism and blame calling. We’ve been there before. A political campaign based on nationalism and populist xenophobia is no doubt being carefully planned in Tufton Street and CCHQ.
Paddy’s Blogs in a crazy world 
Yes, depressing is it not? The level of political debate on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s easier to follow that Oscar Wilde quote today. Just read the level of debate on internet forums or read newspapers such as The Sun or The Mail. Journalists we assume educated to a higher level writing “reductio ab absurdum” almost every day.
It strikes me that Starmer and the Labour Party are looking distinctly old compared with all the new popularist Tories popping up everywhere and appearing to be squeaky clean, fresh and new. Amazing what recycling can achieve
In America, Biden looks positively ancient whilst Trump, who is heavily made up appears vibrant, capable, and strong. Such is the power of illusion. Uncle Joe should never have stood for a second term. It breaks my heart to watch such a good man struggle so much.
The “ignorance of the community” so well described by Wilde will thrive as the two elections warm up and daggers are drawn. I read Johnson may yet reappear to marshal the Red Wall back to the fold. There will be much blood on the floor.
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