Declining Role Of Intellectuals In These Times Of Populism – A Tragedy For Mankind!

By Mohamed Harees –SEPTEMBER 5, 2020

Lukman Harees

‘The intellectual debility of contemporary conservatism is indicated by its silence on all important matters’ ~ Christopher Lasch

In times of populism, soundbites, and policy-by-Twitter such as we live in today, the first victims to suffer the slings and arrows of the demagogues are intellectuals. These people have been demonised for prioritising the very thing that defines them: the intellect, or finely reasoned and sound argument. However, unfortunately, intellectuals are today losing their public authority and their moral legitimacy of speaking truth to power, while becoming incapable of carrying on their independent and critical functions as thinkers and animators of ideas. 

The role of intellectuals in society however is a complicated subject. However, one cannot dispute what a meaningful and crucial impact intellectual can make, particularly in today’s rapidly changing times. Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyse actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions. In the present world, at least, comparatively they have the power that comes from political liberty, from access to information and freedom of expression. Isn’t it time, for public intellectuals to be the uncompromising fighters on behalf of human dignity?

The appeal of the populists has grown with mounting public discontent over the status quo not just in the West, but also beyond in India and Sri Lanka. The elections in the US, UK, India and Sri Lanka brought into power, governments which exploited  populist sentiments of perceived marginalization.  In this cauldron of discontent, politicians are flourishing and even gaining power by portraying rights as protecting only the minorities at the expense of the safety, economic welfare, and cultural preferences of the presumed majority. There is an increasing sense that governments and the elite ignore public concerns. They scapegoat refugees, immigrant communities, and minorities. Truth is a frequent casualty. Nativism, Tribalism, xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia are on the rise. Some are uneasy with societies that have become more ethnically, religiously and racially diverse. This dangerous trend threatens to reverse the accomplishments of the modern human rights movement. 

Human rights exist to protect people from government abuse and neglect. Rights limit what a state can do and impose obligations for how a state must act. Yet today a new generation of populists is turning this protection on its head. Claiming to speak for “the people,” they treat rights as an impediment to their conception of the majority will, a needless obstacle to defending the nation from perceived threats and evils. Instead of accepting rights as protecting everyone, they privilege the declared interests of the majority, encouraging people to adopt the dangerous belief that they will never themselves need to assert rights against an overreaching government claiming to act in their name.

Thus, today, a growing number of people have become victims of this wave of populism, coming to see rights not as protecting them from the state but as undermining governmental efforts to defend them. Encouraged by populists, an expanding segment of the public sees rights as protecting only these “other” people, not themselves, and thus as dispensable. We forget at our peril the demagogues of yesteryear—the fascists, communists, and their ilk who claimed privileged insight into the majority’s interest but ended up crushing the individual. When populists treat rights as an obstacle to their vision of the majority will, it is only a matter of time before they turn on those who disagree with their agenda. The risk only heightens when populists attack the independence of the judiciary for upholding the rule of law—that is, for enforcing the limits on governmental conduct that rights impose. Such claims of unfettered majoritarianism, and the attacks on the checks and balances that constrain governmental power, are perhaps the greatest danger today to the future of democracy. Rather than confronting this populist surge, the intellectual community seem to have fallen a victim having lost confidence in human rights values, offering only tepid support.

Even, these are unsettled times for democratic politics. The sovereignty of the people, a notion at the heart of the democratic ideal, has been declared obsolete. Democracy (popular sovereignty and majority rule) is now turned hegemonic, whereas liberal democracy – which adds key features such as minority rights, rule of law and separation of powers – is not. The working class and the already disadvantaged minorities are particularly affected, but also a significant part of the middle classes, who have become poorer and more insecure. Demonisation of minorities have become normalised while majority supremacy is justified in the name of democracy. 

The rising tide of populism in the name of a perceived majority has also paralleled a new infatuation with strongman rule that was apparent particularly prominently during the US and Sri Lankan Presidential election campaigns. If all that matters are the declared interests of the majority, the thinking seems to go, why not embrace the autocrat who shows no qualms about asserting his “majoritarian” vision—self-serving as it may be—and subjugating those who disagree? But the populist-fuelled passions of the moment tend to obscure the longer-term dangers to a society of strongman rule. Those leaders pre-empt it, introducing draconian restrictions on assembly and expression, setting out new, unprecedented sanctions for online dissent, and crippling civil society groups. They control the judiciary, deploy the intelligence services to arbitrarily detain and prosecute opposition politicians and ordinary critics, undermine the ability of the opposition majority in the Legislature to legislate, and use his party MPs to pass draconian laws and promote authoritarian rule. Rajapaksas have already started these tantrums, the way Trumps, Putins, Xis, Modis did in their countries!, in addition to perpetuating their family rule! 

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