n a 1956 essay, the British writer Aldous Huxley wrote, `At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and by the great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and the proselytising zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.` Huxley wrote these words just 11years after the end of World War 11. The memory of the horrors of that war would have still been fresh in his mind such as the memory of an idealistic programme in Nazi Germany to create a `1,000-year Reich` founded on the supposed intellectual, spiritual and physical `superiority` of the white `Aryan race`, which was `destined` to rule supreme after vanquishing `inferior` races.

Such beliefs were concocted by the Nazis to motivate a polity that was struggling to come to terms with the `humiliation` that their country had suffered in the First World War. Then, in the late1920s, Germans became victims of a rapidly crumbling economy. So, a lot of them quite liked the idea of being told that they were a superior race, led by a `strongman` (Hitler), who shaped himself not only as a `fearless leader`, but also as a messianic figure whose impulse, will and wisdom would put in place the building blocks of the coming1,000-year Reich.

Therefore, the core theme in most of Huxley`s post-war writings was the manipulation of whole societies through ideologies that harden to become dogmas. These dogmas are then given a sacred status. Huxley was most concerned by the fact that this process diminishes the ability of critical thinking in societies because the education that is imparted in schools is more about indoctrinating ideologies and dogmas rather than about sharpening and expanding the intellect.

But doesn`t it take the indoctrination of one ideology to dislodge another? Soon after World War 11, democracy was pitched and romanticised (by the West) as andisruptions in established democracies (in Europe, the US and India) imagine what it may end up doing in developing democracies such as Pakistan. Actually, one has already seen what it did before it was uprooted not by another ideology but by an `-ism` that is often not considered to be an ideology as such: (political) pragmatism.

Ideologies are systems of beliefs and values that shape understanding of the world and guide actions. Political pragmatism is an approach focused on the practical consequences and usefulness of ideas and actions. Idealists and romantics detest it. They call it `centrism`. They do so because they can`t help but view things through an ideological lens alone. Centrism is an ideology, but it is different from political pragmatism, which isn`t one.

I will try to demonstrate this by making a case for political pragmatism as an effective deterrent against populism in Pakistan. This political pragmatism is manifested by what we now call the `hybrid system` that produces `hybrid regimes.` Hybrid regimes at least inideology against those ideologies that stifle thinking and `natural rights`. But what the world has been witnessing from the 2010s is an adverse reaction to democracy. This reaction is manifesting a renewed interest in many people in stiffer ideologies, even to the extent of them desiring to be ruled by messianic figures and `strongmen`.

This is mostly emerging in the shape of populism. Populism is often described by political scientists as a `thin-centred ideology`, or an albeit clumsy, theatrical style of politics that borrows from other ideologies. Nevertheless, today it is gleefully devouring democracy.

Interestingly, there is a school of thought that suggests that by borrowing heavily from the right, clumsy modern-day populism has even begun to erode mainstream conservatism and conventional right-wing politics. However, the other (more alarming) view is that, clumsy or not, populism will lead to the return of systematic fascism and totalitarianism.

Keeping in mind the way populism is causing some serious social, economic and politicalthe context of Pakistan are governments that are `democratic` but in which state institutions such as the armed forces are `allowed` to become important stakeholders in the decisionmaking process.

Ever since the 1990s, Pakistan has had hybrid regimes. But the hybrid system that the military establishment (ME) began weaving from the early 2010s was almost officially declared as a recognised system in 2018.

It had serious teething problems, though, mainly because the ME chose to pick populism as a `useful idea.` Ideologies, including thincentred ones such as populism, do not gel well with pragmatism.

Therefore, by 2019, the populism-centred hybrid system began to trigger deep structural conflicts, until the ME decided to pull out the system`s populist drive and replace it with the experience of established mainstream parties that are inherently pragmatic.

The hybrid system was not discarded. It remained in place but, this time, instead of pretending to be based on an `ideology`, it is justifying itself as a necessity to maintain economic and political stability, something It has somewhat succeeded in achieving. It does not have any idealistic pretensions, other than that of the textbook nationalism kind. It is largely pragmatic and antithetical to any kind of populist politics.

Of course, as expected, those who were ousted by it, and the usual cast of idealists and romantics, are constantly castigating it. A lot of their criticism does carry weight. But, I also believe, there is nothing so terribly flawed in the argument that the hybrid system as it is today is indeed a necessity at least until threats posed by populist politics, economic fragility, insurgencies in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and by India, are largely warded off.

This needs to be done (and is being done) in a realistic and pragmatic manner. We can all return to play with ideology later, when actual threats are actually mitigated.