That Liberal “Elite”, and Why Republicans Attack It

When Democrats talk about the elite they are up against, they have in mind the people so rich and so powerful that politicians do practically whatever they want. Republicans hear this talk about the wealthy elite and declare that Democrats are preaching “class warfare”. Republicans, for their part, also talk about an “elite” that they are warring against. But the nature of that “elite” is less defined.

My bet is that, because Republicans are authoritarians, they are referring primarily to an intellectual elite. You see, intellectuals engage in critical thinking and analysis, not reverence. Critical thinking and analysis by intellectuals eventually leads to ideas which conflict with authorities held dear by Republicans. Such criticism presents a threat to the authoritarian worldview of Republicans. They cannot live with questions or doubts concerning their authorities, and they will resent and fear anyone who creates questions or doubts concerning their authorities. Thus, Republicans see intellectuals as the enemy “elite”, and they will do anything they can to neutralize intellectual threats from that elite.

I think the clamoring by Republicans on behalf of creationism and “intelligent design” is really an attempt to neutralize one such intellectual threat. Evolutionary theory provides an intellectual explanation for how creatures developed on this planet, and it doesn’t center on belief in God or The Bible. In fact, the theory conflicts with a literal reading of The Bible concerning how creatures, including humans, came to be. For Republicans, this is intolerable. But they can’t torture or excommunicate Darwin. They can’t make his ideas “illegal”. So they try to create doubts about evolutionary theory and present their religious beliefs as an alternative “scientific” theory. Republicans believe that this gives their assumptions of divine intervention at least equal validity. But it doesn’t. Darwin didn’t arrive at his theory of evolution based on a religious belief, but by application of the scientific method. The scientific method determines validity based on successful tests of hypotheses, not by assuming something is valid. But you can’t test for divine intervention or non-intervention, so there can't be a “Scientific Theology” or a “Theological Science”. And that means ID theory is valid only for those who already assume its religious perspective is valid.

One final note: ID proponents identify the Intelligent Designer at work in the world as “God”, because they want to prop up their theology. But why couldn’t this Intelligent Designer be someone or something else? The truth is that our world and everything in it was an experiment designed by an intelligent alien from another universe. I defy other ID theorists to prove the contrary!