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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Populism and John Dewey Convergences and Contradictions Populism Versus Technocracy in the 2008 election season A new triumphalism in technocracy is evident in many settings, recalling today Walter Shepherd’s call from 1934 for “men to brains [to] seize the torch.” For instance, it is expressed in the zeal of many scientists to roll back the purported delusions afflicting people of faith.

Thus the Fiftieth Anniversary issue of the leading British science journal, The New Scientist, in 2006 began with description of a large California conference of scientists that had all the flavor of an old fashioned camp meeting - in this case going on the offensive against religious belief.

In 2006, the evolutionary biologist Robert Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, a best seller on the New York Times list, launched a ferocious attack on religious conviction of all varieties and also on the “Neville Chamberlain School” of scientists lacking what he thought was requisite zeal for the anti-religious crusade. As H.

Allen Orr observed in the New York Review of Books, Dawkins demonstrated a “mission to convert,” that was intolerant, refused ambiguity or doubt, lacked engagement with any of the sophisticated views of adversaries, showed a cavalier attitude toward historical evidence, and demonstrated a strikingly Manichean bent of mind. Dawkins embodies the rectitude of ideological zealots of any variety.[^103] In high level politics, the technocratic bent is also pervasive.

As one policy leader in Washington told me during our New Citizenship effort with the White House Domestic Policy Council from 1993-95, “the contempt in the Washington beltway toward the American people is often breathtaking,” a pattern Joan Didion detailed in her campaign coverage from 1988 through 2000 for the New York Review of Books.

Technocratic trends culminate in high level presidential campaigns, now based on treating citizens as customers and candidates as rock stars and superheroes.[^104] Yet under the surface of degrading and elitist trends, a manipulative culture “littered by disposable remains,” there are also signs of a new movement. Here, I conclude by looking at how a populist perspective can reframe the coming election.