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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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Evolution only hurts the right if the right actually is run by what Richard Hanania refers to as the Retard Right. The base truth of evolution does no violence to preferences for hierarchy, order, meritocracy, or limited government as political inclinations. As has been covered in plenty of depth by Catholic scholars, there isn't even an inherent contradiction between Christianity and evolution, although there is an obvious tension that needs to be resolved to avoid cognitive dissonance. The extent to which current year conservatism fights teaching evolution is the extent to which the Retard Right is in power. Speaking as a reformed shitlib, we build a better American right coalition if the Retard Right is disempowered - the kind of people that reject evolution because there are still monkeys are the kind of people that turn away the brainpower that's required to build a meaningful political project that builds rather than just destroying.

If you don't find that compelling, look to the facts of the history instead. The person I most associate with fierce opposition to teaching evolution was William Jennings Bryan, a Progressive that served as Wilson's Secretary of State and dedicated himself to nanny-state projects like Prohibition. Fighting about evolution predates the rise of quasi-Republican intelligent design advocates and it wasn't coming from the perspective of rightists - that it could be read as implying hierarchy is exactly why there was Progressive opposition to evolution.