Philodemy

I started wondering today about a phenomenon that I'm pretty sure is a real thing but I don't know if it has a name. My questions to you are therefore first, Is this a real thing? and second, Does it have a name?

The phenomenon I have in mind is the envy of -- or perhaps even the fetishization of --  the common man or the simple man or the uneducated man on the part of the urbane, the sophisticated, and the intellectual or cultural elite. (Compare, for example, this post where I talk about the flattery of the poor by the rich.)

When I say "envy or fetishization" I am thinking of the idea (sometimes not consciously articulated) that this simple, common man is somehow more in touch with Real Life than the person making the judgement or any of his friends. And I think, for example, of Lady Chatterley's Lover, where it is the lower-class gamekeeper who brings Lady Chatterley's sexuality alive, … because, I don't know, maybe upper-class people don't have sex? (Don Juan would like a word.)

By Margaret Brundage - Scanned cover of pulp magazine, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8091452

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples that I'm just too lazy to think of right now. And I think the phenomenon is also related (a little more distantly) to the way that Europeans, for example, fetishized their colonial subjects; or the way that Americans in the 20th century were sold an image of Mexico as (in the words of Tom Lehrer, who was of course satirizing this very attitude) "that Magic and Romantic Land South of the Border."

Anyway, this is why I think it is a real thing. Now, what's it called? 

I've been playing with names like Philodemy or Philoplethy (which looks harder to say), because ὁ δῆμος and τό πλῆθος both mean "the common people." But I have this nagging fear that there is some more obvious word that I am blanking on, and that I will feel like an idiot for not thinking of. Still, if you can think what it is, I'd like to know. (Grin)

I started thinking about this because I saw a play-reading this morning over Zoom. The play was called "Human Error," and it's basically a comedy. The set-up is that an infertility clinic goofs, and accidentally implants the fertilized ovum from Couple A into the wife of Couple B. This brings the two couples into each other's lives. But of course (since this is set in more-or-less-modern America only without COVID-19), Couple A are liberals and Couple B are conservatives. And the playwright goes out of his way to make them solid representatives of their type. Couple A is an interracial couple: he works at a research institute and she's a yoga instructor. Couple B are both white: he owns a small business and a big truck and goes hunting, while she is a stay-at-home mom who is active in her church. But what I began to notice was that -- to my eyes, at least -- the liberal couple didn't seem as likeable as the conservative couple. I say this even though I'm morally certain that the playwright himself has more in common with the liberal couple than with the conservative couple. So what's the deal? Why would he write His Own Team to be less nice than the Other Guys?

To be clear, the differences are subtle. None of the people are saints, and none of them are terrible. If this is a case of philodemy, I don't consider it blatant or overt. I would call it a very subtle shading. But I do think it's there. 

Anyway, I've been mulling over this today. As usual if I'm full of it please feel free to say so.