>James Farmelant noted:
>>Richard Lewontin a few years in an article in the New York Review
>>of Books pointed out that fundamentalism and support for creationism
>>is strongest in those parts of the country where Eugene Debs's
>>Socialists had been strongest, nearly a century ago. Lewontin went
>>on to suggest that much of the appeal of creationism stems from
>>a backlash against the ruling economic and political elites. Whereas,
>>a century ago such an anti-elitist populism was given expression
>>by the Socialist Party, now a days it tends to take the form of
>>opposition to ideas that are rightly or wrongly associated with the dominant
>>elites, such as Darwinism or "secular humanism." Lewontin of
>>course thinks that can indeed take an anti-elitist stance without
>>bashing either Darwinian biology or secularism but that is not
>>likely to occur without a revival of the left.
1. Debs was popular in certain areas more than 75 years ago. 2. Creationist sentiment is strong in those same areas 3. Therefore, creationism is socialism or at least anti elitism by other means?
This seems quite dubious though I understand Lewontin, like many a student of cultural studies, may have been able to glean latent resistance in forms of popular culture. Sometimes it's necessary to be as rigorously critical of popular culture as Lewontin is regarding ideological assumptions in science (fascinating analysis by Lewontin and Levins in the latest issue of Jim O's Capitalism, Nature and Society). That is, perhaps this modern anti-elite backlash will doing nothing more than have the oppressed themselves strengthen the cords by which they will be hung.
Yours, Rakesh