The God Complex and the Prospects of Technocracy
From Republican anti-intellectualism to postmodern incredulity
One of the ways Democrats pride themselves on being different from Republicans, especially after Donald Trump’s term as president, is in the liberals’ greater public respect for knowledge and expertise.
Whereas Trump governed the executive branch the way he ran the Trump Organization, as a kakistocracy that defrauded his investors and customers and that was meant mainly to inflate Trump’s narcissistic self-image, Democrats expect Joe Biden will return to the responsible party’s practices of listening to scientists, following the data, and simply understanding the difference between fact and fantasy.
Conservative Anti-Intellectualism
Indeed, conservatives have always been wary of intellectuals and of scientific experts because knowledge threatens the religious and political dogmas that mystify and obfuscate rather than enlighten. Conservatives are apt to revert to barbaric traditions and can appeal mainly to religious myths or to economic sophistry for rationales that have a facade of respectability. The theocratic myths have their great age to recommend them, while neoclassical economists’ obfuscations seem authoritative because of their loose association with…
