Third World dictators such as SekounToure, Mengitsu, Macias, and the rulersnof Rwanda and Burundi whose massacresnfailed to elicit moral indignationnamong otherwise protest-prone moralizingnWesterners.nHe attacks with particular relishnWestern “third worldism,” and what hencalls selective antiracism (“the only truenracism … is white capitalist racism”)nand the variety of anti-Western attitudesnin the West that survived the collapsenand discreditation of communist systemsnand ideologies. He correctly observesnthat there is “nothing to suggestnthat leftists have managed to overcomenthe prejudice that grants to theoreticallyn’progressive’ regimes a social immunitynwhereby they are simultaneously absolvednof responsibility for any absencenof democracy, disregard for humannrights, and lack of food for their citizens.”nHe also demolishes the lingering falsenmeanings and associations of “the Left”n(though this had been done before bynEdward Shils and others) and he correctlyninsists that although Western leftwingnpolitical parties are in decline,nmany of their ideas and beliefs survive.nIn other words, the adversary culturenlives and continues to “project onto liberalnsocieties the very defects [it]nrefuse [d] to discern in totalitarian societies.”nAmerican readers will be greatly interestednto learn that parallels exist betweennthe attitudes and behavior ofnalienated intellectuals in Western Europenand in the United States. If wenhave “multiculturalism,” in French educationna stubborn pro-Soviet and anticapitalistnbias persists. If the charge ofnracism is the ultimate moral delegitimationnin this country, frank discussionnof the problems of immigration fromnThird World countries is a correspondingntaboo in Western Europe among then”liberal” intelligentsia.nAlthough the findings of this volumenare not exactly new even when onencompares the book with M. Revel’s earliernwork, they do usefully and importantlyndocument attitudes and beliefs innan era when the collapse of communismnmay create an impression that these arenthings of the past. In fact, at the presentntime when dreamers of socialism confrontnthe unraveling of its historical institutions,ntheir disappointment onlynreinvigorates their hostility toward capitalism,nWestern culture, and politicalndemocracy. It remains to be seen howngreatly their animus will affect the worldnin the decades to come.nPaul Hollander is a professor ofnsociology at the University ofnMassachusetts at Amherst.nConspiracy innthe Cavesnby Harold O.J. BrownnThe Dead Sea Scrolls Deceptionnby Michael Baigent and Richard LeighnNew York: Summit Books;n268pp., $20.00nFrom the time of their discovery inn1947, the “scrolls from the DeadnSea” have been a source of fascination,nspeculation, consternation, confusion,nand, in the view of these two authors, anfar-reaching religious conspiracy. Deceptionnreads like a thriller, or the best ofnthe many books on the assassination ofnPresident Kennedy. It is furnished withnconsiderable documentation, whichnlends weight, or at least an appearancenof weight, to its thesis. In the authors’nview, the scrolls, properly and fully publishednand understood, would force a virtuallyntotal revision of the traditional historicalnunderstanding of the Palestiniannsect known as the Essenes and, muchnmore significantly, overthrow most ofnthe historical data on which Christianitynis built. The degree to which theirnthesis, if proved and accepted, wouldnchange our understanding of the originsnof Christianity—and therefore, necessarily,nof the truth of Christian doctrines—isnsimilar to the degree to whichnthe revisionists, who claim that the NazinHolocaust of 1933-45 is a fiction, wouldnchange our understanding of those years.nThe scrolls were discovered in 1947,nduring the last days of the Britishnmandate in Palestine, and until the SixnDays’ War they were principally undernJordanian oversight in Arab-held OldnJerusalem. When news about their discoverynbegan to spread, there was a burstnof excitement at the prospect that theynmight destroy the historical basis fornChristianity, and demonstrate that thenFaith was just a variation on a preexistentnJewish sect. However, as their eon-nnntents were released—selectively andnslowly, as Baigent and Leigh pointnout—rather contrary results appeared.nFor example, the scrolls contained extensivenmaterial from precisely the booksnof Isaiah and Daniel that liberal biblicalnscholarship had argued were scissorsand-pastenproductions of a number ofndifferent writers. The scroll texts werenvirtually identical to the traditional Masoreticntext of the Hebrew Scripture, andnthus proved that the material of Isaiah,nfor example, had remained intact for almostna millennium between the datenthe scrolls were stored away and the oldestnexisting Hebrew manuscripts of thenMasoretic text. This evidence lendsnweight to the traditional view that thenIsaiah we have is a unified work goingnback to the great prophet of the seventhncentury before Christ.nThe Dominican-sponsored Ecolenbiblique in Jerusalem, under its celebratednbut extremely strong-willed if notntyrannical head. Father Roland deVaux,nO. P. (1903-1973), quickly established ankind of monopoly on the publicationnand analysis of the scrolls from their discoverynahnost to the present. The thesisnof Baigent and Leigh is that thisnmonopoly was used with calculation, determination,nand scholarly ruthlessnessnto prevent the truth about the origins ofnChristianity, which the scrolls wouldnreveal, from coming out. The RomannCatholic Church, aided and abetted bynnumerous Protestant scholars, is thenchief culprit.nAlthough Baigent and Leigh soundnlike journalists interested only in truth,nit soon becomes apparent that they havensome rather strong preconceptions. Inntheir postscript, they claim that they arenby no means likely to “‘topple thenChurch,’ or anything as apocalyptic asnthat. The Church today, after all, is lessna religious than a social, cultural, political,nand economic institution. Its stabilitynand security rest on factors quitenremote from the creed, the doctrine,nand the dogma it promulgates. Butnsome people, at any rate, may benprompted to wonder whether thenChurch—an institution so demonstrablynlax, biased and unreliable in its ownnscholarship, its own version of its historynand origins—should necessarily bendeemed reliable and authoritative in itsnapproach to such urgent contemporarynmatters as overpopulation, birth control,nthe status of women, and the celibacy ofnthe clergy.”nAUGUST 1992/35n