Posted by
jokadlecek on Sunday, November 7th 2010
On Monday, November 2, Associate Professor of History Steve Alter joined other Gordon faculty members in a cross-disciplinary panel discussion about the Tea Party movement. The event—sponsored by the Jerusalem and Athens Forum—was held the day before the midterm elections, with over a hundred students, faculty and community members attending. The following is an excerpt from Alter’s remarks:
The Tea Party is often described as a “populist” phenomenon, and so it will be helpful to define this term. First there is populism with a lower-case ‘p’, the generic kind of populism that has become a constant factor in American political life. This term describes a protest against powerful (and perhaps corrupt) elites who supposedly are out of touch with the concerns of everyday people. It reflects a call for a return to grass-roots democracy in which the common people regain their voice.
In this sense, populism is a return to what American politics is supposed to be all about. Not surprisingly, certain movements or political candidates routinely seek to portray themselves as populist in character, even if they don’t actually use that label. The concept is admittedly vague; sometimes it’s a matter of style as much as substance. To some extent, presenting the image of oneself as “regular folks” is a necessity for political success in this country. Still, when we use the term populist it usually denotes this principle: a commitment to giving voice and economic fairness to the people as a whole.
Andrew Jackson, a true man of the people, was America’s prototypical populist leader. Jackson is also remembered for setting a populist tone for the Democratic Party as a whole, seen in its ongoing appeal to farmers and labor unions. A more recent individual example would be Huey Long, the outspoken Louisiana politician from the Great Depression of the 1930s. In Long’s case we should note that a populist can be “redneck” in style yet radical in the economic policies he advocates.
Then there is Populism with a capital P, the name of a social and political movement active in the 1890s.
Read the rest of this entry »
After the Athenian crisis of the early 80’s, which saw the ancient city held hostage between an Anatolian military expedition (whose leader at least claimed some intellectual credentials from the Athenian schools) and a renegade Roman with only the most cynical interest in heritage or culture, the schools of Athens – especially those less famous than Plato’s Akademe – faced a desperate challenge.
