Populism Against Progress

Robert Corfe is a prolific author who has written extensively on the benefits of social capitalism. He is a political scientist and businessman, with considerable experience of political life, and in this book he elaborates on the ills of populism in undermining standards in many spheres of life, and how aspirational values may be promoted in meeting the challenges of an increasingly dangerous world. For many years he was a senior manager in manufacturing industry, and later a management consultant advising SMEs, usually in the engineering sector. He is also the author of two autobiographical books under different pseudonyms: Death in Riyadh dark secrets in hidden Arabia (Geoff Carter), based on his experiences as a businessman in the Middle East in the 1980s, and, My Conflict With a Soviet Spy the story of the Ron Evans spy case (Eddie Miller), based on his adventures in Scandinavia in the 1960s. In 1987 he founded the Campaign For Industry, to which he was elected Chairman, and for which he wrote many pamphlets on the problems of contemporary business. His broad experience, frequent travels overseas, and years of residence in Continental Europe have given him a unique perspective of socio-economic issues.

A sociological study of populism as a major influence in undermining standards in many spheres of life, through false values promoted either through or resulting from political activity, etc., or through corporate marketing forces. The book is of particular relevance to educationalists with regard to its criticism of relativism and post-modernism.

Dangers of populism

The increasing complexity of industrial society, together with the prospect of economic and environmental threats on a scale never before experienced, entails an ever-great demand on the educational and citizenship-skills of the ordinary individual. An appropriately educated public is needed to ensure effective democracy, and also, that suitably qualified men and women are elected to power – and this is something which transcends the narrow factor of party politics.Unfortunately, as this book demonstrates, in the industrialised world today we live in a society where standards of education and good citizenship are declining, relative to the increasing complexity of the financial-industrial infrastructure, and the prospect of unprecedented threats on the horizon. The author attributes this decline to what he identifies as populism, defined as the short-termism of the easy option which compounds rather than resolves the issues of life. These are traced to two main sources: firstly, the faulty values promoted by or arising from political decision-making; and secondly, from the malign influence of marketing forces on public attitudes in dumbing-down standards in so many spheres of life.Whilst a new perspective is put on politics, of most significance is the emphasis placed on education. The question of maintaining high culture, and correlating this with the needs of a classless and democratic society, is a theme which dominates the book. The appeal for raising aspirational standards in a heterogeneous society, challenge some of the totemic ideas in contemporary education, such as the questionable value of relativism and post-modernism as a preparation for good citizenship.A sociological analysis of populism reveals it as the cancer of democracy. The breadth of the subject matter covers such issues as Islamic fundamentalism in barring the path to progress; the self-destructiveness of Western politics through a facile view of our real condition; and a glance at the arts. A broad canvas, covering many disciplines in the social sciences, is evoked in furthering the crucial arguments in this interesting book.

Preface; CHAPTER 1; The Hidden Poison of Populism; 1 The ultimate threat to civilisation; 2 The fragility of democracy; 3 Populism as the cancer of democracy; 4 Deceptive tendency of representative government; 5 Democratic sovereignty is an amoral mechanism; 6 Self-deception of proponents of democracy; 7 Democracy vital for technological progress; 8 Symptoms of populism; CHAPTER 2; The Beneficent Power of Culture; 1 Culture as the bonding mechanism of society; 2 The rise and fall of cultures; 3 Categories of world cultures; 4 The absorption and annihilation of cultures; 5 The hidden power of smaller cultures; 6 The benefits of civilisation as a moral problem; 7 When benevolent intervention incites political collapse; 8 Whem dominated peoples pull down the props of their own culture; CHAPTER 3; The Populism of Islamic Fundamentalism; 1 Incompatibility between the Islamic and Western civilisations; 2 A Conflict arising through moral values rather than economic factors; 3 Distinctive characteristics of Islamic civilisation; 4 Imperialistic success of Islamic fundamentalism; 5 Idolatry and materialism of the West; 6 The Faustian alchemy of the primitive West; 7 The stasis of Chinese civilisation in the 15th century; 8 National rivalry drove forward Western technology; 9 Fundamentalism is the destructive populism of Islamic civilisation; 10 Liberal attitudes towards Islam are not reciprocated. 11 When accusations of Islamophobia are based on false premises; 12 Islam's successful conquest of the Roman Empire; 13 How Islam should have responded to alleged Islamophobia; CHAPTER 4; The Battle for Freedom through Education; 1 Freedom must begin with defining individual needs; 2 How Socialist modes of thought undermined the understanding of freedom; 3 Function of education to maximise the free fulfilment of the individual; 4 But relativism is undermining this task of education; 5 Importance of Heroic role models in education; 6 Absurd methods used in thought-stimulation; 7 How relativism in education makes for boredom; 8 The humanities as a universal study subject in the egalitarian society; 9 Suggested reading matter on the school curriculum; CHAPTER 5; Social Bonding through Cultural Education; 1 How history should be taught; 2 Critique of contemporary history teaching; 3 History texts should aim for memory retention; 4 Success of the great historians of the past; 5 The teaching of history should be all-inclusive; 6 Resolving the memory of international conflict through history teaching; 7 Explaining but not excusing past conflict; 8 Importance of presenting diverse views in stimulating thought and discussion; 9 Totalitarian values of no benefit in the teaching of history; 10 Pictorial representation as a stimulus to the study of history; 11 Early education should be guided by the rule of obedience; 12 Teaching citizenship and democracy; 13 Early teaching of practical life in the home; 14 Excessive bureaucracy and the failure of educational standards. CHAPTER 6; The Failure of Class-based Politics to Resolve Our Needs; 1 Populism and the crisis of Western culture; 2 The progress of egalitarianism; 3 How party politics sustains the class divide; 4 Class-based politics has led to the electorate's disgust; 5 Why the left is incapable of creating the classless society; 6 How the left's class prejudice is influenced by cultural rather than economic factors; 7 Need to differentiate between a Working Class and a Classless society; 8 Left/right party politics is no longer capable of advancing democracy; CHAPTER 7; The Self-destructiveness of Contemporary Politics; 1 The parliamentary left has never challenged the malign aspects of rentier capitalism; 2 Weighing the philanthropy of the left and right; 3 In the near future the right may promote the classless society no less than the left; 4 Inescapable movement towards the one-party state; 5 The spirit of collectivism is now hindering social progress; 6 The need for individualism in an upwardly-aspiring society; 7 Labour's downward-enforcing egalitarianism in education; 8 The historical divide between high and low culture; 9 Downwards and upwards egalitarianism compared; 10 Why high culture should be for all; CHAPTER 8; Corporate Power and the Corruption of Society; 1 Why advertising is an insolent intrusion on private life; 2 How corporate advertising appeals to human weakness; 3 How marketing degrades products and services. 4 Discrimination and taste is degraded by corporate power; 5 The corrupting power of corporate marketing; 6 Personalisation policies are an alternative to the "privatisation" of the right and the "statism" of the left; 7 Benefits of direct democracy and developed power; 8 A universal proprietorial class would repudiate populism; 9 The alienated give rise to the populist society; CHAPTER 9; The Debasement of Culture by Marketing Forces; 1 Practicality of high culture shared by all economic groups; 2 Differentiation between Anglo-Saxon and Continental middle class attitudes and values; 3 High cultural egalitarianism on the Continent and in the Far East; 4 Cultural decline of BBC TV since the 1950s; 5 The failure of historical realism in BBC drama; 6 Degradation of contemporary television; 7 Idealising the sad, the bad, and the mad; 8 How marketeers insult the less privileged; 9 The self-deception of marketing promoters; 10 Egalitarianism: notional and real; CHAPTER 10; Reversing Social and Cultural Decline; 1 Permanence of human physicality but impermanence of culture; 2 Contrast between young and mature cultures; 3 When maturity turns to decline; 4 Distinction between Creative Reflection and Pedantic Reflection; 5 The cultural problem in maintaining artistic standards; 6 The gap between the ideal and the actual in socio-political life; 7 The urgent need for integrative theory; 8 Value of Constructive philosophies past and future; 9 New Idealism is the key to social progress; INDEX.