Economics is called the dismal science, but this still does not give license to be an asshole. The key trick of Trumpism, or Mercerism to be more specific, is that any claim that distorts discussion is winning the discussion. By the time one is responding that the comment is off color, pulled out of your ass, bullshit, fake, etc. the thing that should be discussed hasn’t. There is an excellent British made-for-tv movie, Toby Haynes Brexit: The Uncivil War, which should be up on US HBO next week. There is a scene where it dawns on the Remain campaign chief Craig Oliver on how this game has been played, how 3 million people who never vote have been so shell-shocked by social media that the will run to the polls to “take back control” of their destinies. Kevin Hassett is playing the same game. Obviously, losing your house, your creditworthiness, your self-esteem is bad. Why wouldn’t a Trumpster tell you it’s a good thing?
Given the long experience of the UK and US with civil society and rule of law, it’s not surprising that this puerile debasement of public discussion seems foreign to some. It certainly is for those who have spent 16 or 20 years in the public education system. But the Russians have long had a word for it: poshlost. Here are a couple efforts to translate the term:
Another notable literary treatment is Fyodor Sologub’s novel The Petty Demon. It tells the story of a provincial schoolteacher, Peredonov, notable for his complete lack of redeeming human qualities. James H. Billington said of it:
The book puts on display a Freudian treasure chest of perversions with subtlety and credibility. The name of the novel’s hero, Peredonov, became a symbol of calculating concupiscence for an entire generation… [Peredonov] seeks not the ideal world but the world of petty venality and sensualism, poshlost’. He torments his students, derives erotic satisfaction from watching them kneel to pray, and systematically befouls his apartment before leaving it as part of his generalized spite against the universe.
Richard Taruskin summarized poshlost as “highfalutin bad taste,” applying the term to a performance of the Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution (Prokofiev).