February 8, 2006
by Russell Cole

The populist philosophy is really nothing worth elaborating on to any deep extent because it is simplistic, elegant, and intuitively valid.  In short, it just makes sense.

Here are the basic premises upon which the philosophy is generated:  People have a right to self-determination, and should be allowed the maximum amount of autonomy when considering what options are best for achieving the interests that compel their actions.  Another premise is that we live in collectivities, as communities, not as isolated monadic beings, who happen to be in close proximity to one another, as Liberalism would have us believe.  We are social animals with social impulses which drive us to interact with one another and to form patterns of interaction that constitute culture, when conducted between people who have emotive attachments to one another; and, society when the relationship is purely strategic and void of the better qualities of our humanity.

So, what obvious conclusions can we infer from these compound propositions enumerated above that serve as the foundational principles for a populist philosophy.  Well, for staters, we should value community over society.  I say this because community embodies the better side to ourselves; the side that places emotion ahead of pure strategic reasoning calculated in an instrumentalist fashion to maximize our interests. 

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I am not entirely sure that instrumentalist reasoning is entirely possible with which to begin.  I say this because our subjectivities are always a product of our cultural conditioning, so we are promulgating a cultural tradition by merely pursuing objects which are endowed with value, due to the prejudices that we have been socialized to possess.  In other words, we are always implementing evaluative standards when we elect to engage in projects intended to enact consequences, which consist of acquiring the objects that define the telos of our intentionality.  Therefore, any distinction between communal actions versus societal actions is a marginal difference, if one at all.

The Primary relationships involved in community rely upon something that is more profound; more human; more primordial:  it is a longing to be longed for; a desire for a reciprocal exchange of affection and deference.  We want to be a part of something that exceeds ourselves, and provides identity to ourselves through our membership within the entity that transcends the individuals who form the composite of its material manifestation.  In short, we strive for community as opposed to structure and regimentation; instrumental reasoning deployed for the purposes of exploiting others for ones own material or social-semiotic advantage; Gemeinschaft over Geselleschaft.

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Russell Cole [send him email] is a contributing author to the Populist Party of America, and is the coordinator for the Populist Party's Midwest Alliance, the Midwest Populist Party.  Read more from Russell Cole at the Midwest Populist Party blog.