The Irish Times, OpEd, Aug 21st 2015, Joe Humphreys writes:
There was once a time when popularity was viewed as suspect. “Popular culture”, for example, was what you called stuff that people liked but was generally rubbish. It was distinguished from actual culture, which people had to learn to appreciate and which could be measured by objective standards.
Similarly, popular – or populist – governments were what you called jingoistic if not dangerously nationalistic entities which pandered to citizens’ basest instincts. The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire captured some of the wariness of a previous generation of populism when he said: “The multitude is always in the wrong.”
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Joe Humphreys 