"I'm not with stupid": false consciousness stories for a post-Brexit age

Lorna Finlayson (University of Essex)

Abstract: What do we say, when some political event occurs which we regard as highly unwelcome, but which seems to be an expression of popular will (or at least, subject to popular acquiescence)? One very prevalent response - uttered with or without a tongue in the cheek - is to lament the stupidity of people in general, or of certain populations in particular.  Certainly, this was a common reaction among 'Remainers' following the referendum of June 2016, in which a majority opted for Britain to leave the European Union (and, with a minor adjustment for national stereotypes, it has also been a widespread response to the rise of Donald Trump in America).  A slightly more sympathetic variant holds not that people are 'stupid', as such, but that they are misguided or 'brainwashed' by various forces (one of the most significant of these being, of course, the mass media).  Either way, this type of reaction to political developments perceived as unwelcome is undeniably redolent of a way of talking usually associated with those who stand in a Marxist tradition: a way of talking which explains political failure in terms of popular 'false consciousness'.  The trouble is, however, that the reaction I've described is by no means restricted to Marxists; if anything, it is especially visible among self-styled 'liberal' and 'progressive' elites - and the Marxist idea of 'false consciousness' is widely disparaged among those same circles as embodying an unacceptably patronising or condescending attitude towards people in general (and towards the poor and working class in particular).  This seems to pose a dilemma.  Assuming that the resemblance to false consciousness holds, liberals must either give up their resistance to false consciousness stories; or reform their reactions to political events they find unwelcome.  This paper argues in favour of seizing both horns at once.  There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of false consciousness, properly understood; but there are bad ways of invoking it as well as good ones.  Political theorists need to be able to distinguish between the two.