Populismo epistemico o della tirannia del buon senso

Gloria Origgi (1)

1 IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod

Epistemic Populism, or the Tyranny of Common Sense Post-truth politics recruits epistemic populists in order to spread in our contemporary societies. I will present a brief phenomenology of the «epistemic populist» by describing some of their fundamental attitudes, such as naïve realism, methodological individualism, monism, nostalgy, arrogance, etc., to highlight some of the features that make them appeal to the virtues of common sense against the technocratic élites. Then I discuss what common sense means and how it relates to the Greek notion of koiné, as a set of beliefs that are commonly held by an entire population. The epistemic populist reacts against a technocratic management of power that doesn't respect this koiné. Technocracy is of course highly problematic in democracies as it has been discussed at length by many philosophers and there are reasons for the epistemic populist to oppose its power. Nonetheless, the quest for a «pure» non-mediated relation to knowledge and power is naïve and is easily manipulable especially in the era of social media. The paper analyses the mixture of empowerment and frustration that social media elicit in the epistemic populist by stressing the shift from an ideal struggle for recognition on social media to a struggle for reputation, that is, for a measurable visibility on the Web through digital features such as likes and retweets. I conclude by a note on what can be done on social media in order to diminish that competition for reputation, and make the design of conversations more suitable for a democratic exchange of opinions that doesn't exacerbate the clash between the people and the élites.

Mots clés: Epistemic populism; Common sense; Technocracy; Social media; Post-truth

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Gloria Origgi. Populismo epistemico o della tirannia del buon senso. Teoria politica, 2022, 11, pp.113-122. ⟨hal-03510603⟩