CONSERVATIVE

The Benevolent Elitist
Edouard Chanot
A professor of political philosophy at University of
Paris-Est and a member of the Institut de France, Chantal
Delsol is undeniably one of France’s most remarkable
contemporary scholars. Her latest volume—on the
controversial subject of populism—reveals much
of her character. It shows her to be a member of an
intellectual elite, who has mastered both political theory
as well as the French language like few others have; at
the same time, it demonstrates her willingness to defend
the legitimacy of the voice of the people.
In the past decade, all European countries have
seen the rise of populist, anti-establishment parties.
For a long time, Germany was the exception; but even
there, the migration crisis has now started to challenge
the structure of the political parties. The problem is
that populism is a controversial and rather undefined
concept. It is used by European elites as an insult
against those who would defend the interest of the
people. But in a democracy, all parties claim to do just
that. As Delsol puts it: “The contemporary obsessive
fear of populism becomes the most pernicious aspect
of contemporary thought”. Indeed, she adds, “[t]here
is a certain strangeness in defining a political trend
by its imbecility—especially in a democracy, where
pluralism and tolerance, in theory, reign despite diverse
opinions”. She then asks: “[W]hy do our democracies
recuse themselves from their founding principles?”
Going beyond this apparent contradiction, Delsol
delves into a well-crafted study of contemporary
populism. And in doing so, she teaches the reader a
few things about the importance of roots (enracinement),
emancipation, and the search for truth.
The idiotès
To better grasp the current populist phenomenon
that now seems to be spreading on both sides of the
Atlantic, Delsol begins with a careful examination
of what the Ancients thought about similar popular
movements. According to the Greeks, “someone
who belongs to a small group and looks at the world
solely from his own perspective, lacking objectivity
and distrustful of the universal”, is an idiotès. In such
situations, the demagogue chooses to flatter the idiotès,
finding ways to nourish the base passions of ‘the many’
instead of aiming at the higher good. In contrast to this,
the real citizen “gazes at society according to a common
[shared] point of view”.
Plato identifies ‘the many’ with chaos, mediocrity,
and the whims of the crowd. Instead, he argues for
the superiority of ‘the few’, for which critics have
accused him of elitism. Aristotle, in turn, bases his
idea of government on phronesis—that is, prudence—
which takes into account popular wisdom. Delsol
argues that Plato’s apparent elitism is quite similar to
the contemporary view of populism. Indeed, she says
Populisme, les demeurés de l’histoire
Chantal Delsol
Paris: Éditions du Rocher, 2015
that “today, a unique [universal] moral truth determines
the ends of politics”, while those “who would defend
‘particularisms’ against such an imposed universal” are
considered idiots. Thus, like Plato, today’s elites make
no distinction between ‘the many’ who reject the need
to pursue the common good, and on the other hand,
‘the many’ who are, in fact, guided by prudence, but
dismiss the possibility of a priori knowledge—of a
“truth provided in advance”
Enlightenment ideology
Delsol then addresses the powerful shift in
thinking that occurred with the Enlightenment.
Under the influence of Kant, a new understanding
of reason acquired the force of absolute, universal
truth. The fleeting, questioning reason of the ancients
became Reason itself—a so-called truth without any
real questioning. In other words, both ideology and
abstraction prevailed.
The European Conservative 27