Actually, Carrol, to my ear "ordinary" often has the opposite connotation. It means people unlike us, the intelligentsia, who nevertheless have a claim to our attention. *All in the Family* is a good example of this meaning of "ordinary people."
Bob --- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> ravi wrote:
> >
> >
> > But I am not aligning myself with populist beliefs
> -- I am (to use
> > the supplied word) just plain populist. My
> dictionary says of
> > 'populist':
> >
> > a member or adherent of a political party
> seeking to
> > represent the interests of ordinary people.
>
> *As soon as you use the nonsensical phrase "ordinary
> people" you are a
> bigot of some sort, & "pseudo-populist" is as good a
> label as any for
> the variety of bigotry. The label implicitly denies
> full humanity to a
> huge proportion of the human species who don't fit
> someone's private
> belief of what it means to be "ordinary."
>
> And it pisses me off royally. Otherwise I could
> mostly sympathize with
> the arguments you have been offering.
>
> Carrol
>
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