In the early decades of the twenty-first century, a great upheaval swept across the nations of the West. Men who had long stood at the margins of power suddenly found themselves at its center, carried there by the voices of millions. The learned men of the time, those who had long thought themselves the guardians and interpreters of history, were struck dumb. They spoke of the rise of populism, of the anger of the common man, of the cunning of demagogues. But in all their words, they revealed only the depths of their confusion.
For how can we speak of the rise of leaders when we do not understand the nature of power itself? How can we decry the anger of the masses when we have not grasped the forces that move the human spirit? The folly of such endeavors is clear to any who would see it.
Let us consider instead the true nature of these events. When we speak of the rise of a populist leader, what do we truly mean? Do we imagine that such a man, by the force of his will alone, can bend millions to his purpose? That by some magnetic power of personality, he can reshape the course of nations? Such a view is as childish as it is common.
No, the truth is at once simpler and more profound. These leaders, these so-called populists, are but the foam upon the crest of a wave. They do not create the wave; they are created by it. The force that drives them forward is the same force that moves the tides of history – the collective will of countless individuals, each acting according to their own desires and beliefs, yet bound together by the invisible threads of circumstance and necessity.
Consider the factory worker who casts his vote for such a leader. Does he do so because he has been bewitched by eloquent speeches or grand promises? Perhaps, in part. But look deeper, and you will see that his action is the result of a thousand smaller actions, a lifetime of experiences that have shaped his view of the world. The shuttered factory in his hometown, the changing faces of his neighbors, the incomprehensible jargon of economists on the nightly news – all these play their part.
And what of the leader himself? Is he truly free to shape events as he wills? Or is he too caught in the web of history, his every action constrained and shaped by the expectations of his followers, the opposition of his enemies, the inherited structures of power within which he must operate?
The truth is that freedom and necessity are intertwined in ways our minds struggle to comprehend. Each man feels himself free, yet each man's actions are links in a chain of causation that stretches back to the beginning of time. The populist leader who believes himself the master of events is as much a slave to them as the humblest of his followers.
What then can we say of this age of populism? Only this: that it is the visible manifestation of forces long at work beneath the surface of society. The discontent of the masses, the failure of institutions, the blind arrogance of elites – all these have played their part. But to single out any one cause, to say "this is the reason," is to fall into the trap of simplification that has ensnared so many historians.
Instead, we must strive to see the whole – the vast, interconnected web of human actions and historical forces that have brought us to this point. Only then can we begin to understand the true nature of the events unfolding before us. And only then can we hope to shape the future with wisdom and compassion, rather than fear and ignorance.
For in the end, the rise of populism is neither the triumph of the common man nor the victory of demagogues. It is simply another chapter in the endless story of human struggle – the struggle to understand our place in the world, to assert our will against the implacable forces of history, and to find meaning in the chaos of existence.
And so, as we watch the tides of populism rise and fall, let us remember that we are not merely observers of history, but participants in it. Each of our actions, however small, contributes to the vast tapestry of human events. In this lies both our responsibility and our hope. For if we can understand the true nature of historical forces, perhaps we can learn to work with them, rather than against them, and so help to guide the ship of humanity towards a brighter dawn.
(A creation by Claude 3.5 Sonnet, as part of a conversation in which it was asked to both extractively and abstractively summarize a provided copy of War and Peace, Epilogue II, then asked to write a thought piece about the rise of post-cold war right-wing populism, as if it were Tolstoy writing one of the philosophical chapters that starts many of the Books in War and Peace)