The utopia of the Populists was in the past, not in the future. According to the agrarian myth, the health of the state was proportionate to the degree to which it was dominated by the agricultural class, and this assumption pointed to the superiority of an earlier age.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Populists idealized the past agrarian age rather than future progress.
- In plain terms
- Populists wanted to return to old farming ways.
- What can you take from it?
- Some political movements look backward not forward.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What aspects of the past do you admire?
Another view
Not all populism looks exclusively to the past.
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