(Endless nameless?)
Wesmorris said:
Once you assume your faith to be correct above all others (which is basically what I think of as "fundamentalist") you inherently exclude all other views.
In terms of religious faith, I tend to agree;
redemptive religion especially locks factual inconsistency and inaccuracy into place at the stake of something asserted to be more valuable than anything the world has to offer--e.g. the soul.
But what about faith in the face of abstraction? Even the atheist hits a faith point in their belief structure, and where the atheist gets credit over the religious is the
theoretic open mind that comes with breaking the shackles of theistic fear.
But that condition aside, as it reaches into a common human aspect, there is a non-theistic faith that brings similar fundamentalism. Political parties, baseball fans, sexual mores: all of these things and more stand on faith. The case of baseball fans is generally benign unless the Yankees are in town and some p.o.s. New Yorker is spilling beer all over children and teaching them new obscenities, or unless you're in Chicago where the league has previously insisted that a pro baseball player in the midst of being assaulted by fans has no right to defend himself. Generally speaking, though, Dodger fans are free to be blueblooded, and attendance in Minnesota and Montreal speak to the importance of "victory" in the houses of the holy.
But politics? In politics, it is "hateful" to point out a political assertion's factual inaccuracy. In politics, it is disingenuous to report what the newspapers say. Case in point: the current presidential election (or the 2002 Congressional elections; or the 2000 presidential primary).
Bush v. Kerry: The Swift Boat advertisement continues to get attention, something that seems the fault of the media; in the meantime, an ad making statements contrary to the factual record is prepared to do something that has always been called hateful--to call the entire armed service and the integrity of its members into question in order to establish a cheap political point. That the ad has been factually debunked (the "
missing medal") has had little effect; SBVT changed tactics to blasting Kerry's postwar testimony. It's an appeal to emotion, at best: What John Kerry said is what the VC tried to torture out of our men, what our men honorably resisted confessing to under duress. It sounds terrible, but history has vindicated John Kerry insofar as we do know that such atrocities as he described did in fact occur in the Vietnam War. So what these vets seem to be upset about is that it was a betrayal of honor to tell the truth.
And yet "the people" respond affirmatively to such hatred; Kerry's numbers have plummeted among veterans; do those veterans share the assertion that truth is a betrayal of honor?
Moore v. Bush: The GOP has called Michael Moore everything from hateful to disingenuous. This perspective generally overlooks the fact that Moore hammers away at the Democrats furiously. Rather, the appearance of hatred comes from the fact that the GOP appears responsible for the story at the center of controversy. Furthermore, the GOP in its fundamentalism has circled the wagons and rails after Moore in a manner not reflective of other parts of the political society. Presently we have journalists standing off the courts in protection of sources about Wen Ho Lee that were apparently damagingly erroneous. Robert Novak is still holding out his source in relation to the Plame blow. Yet in the Moore controversy, Bill O'Reilly has gone on to state that the 9/11 commission report vindicates Bush, and has even gone on to say that the mysterious "phantom flights" of bin Ladens and others didn't happen. So my question is why everybody's mad at Moore, and nobody's going after Kathy Steele for her
October 5, 2001 story. Why are Grossi and Perez, the sources for Steele's story, not being paraded through the public arena as liars? Because it's easier to attack Moore? It's almost a religious cause that asserts a simple truth while ignoring a more complex reality.
In the meantime, a nation that spent forty-million dollars on a blowjob factionalizes over second-tier arguments while ignoring the possible resolutions presenting themselves. It seems downright religious to continue arguing about how best to get out of the rain when the sun is clearly shining from a sky that is clearly cloudless.
And when we stop and think about how these seemingly-stupid political arguments can affect
how many people it's hard to not see an adoption of faith that borders on the fundamentalist
regardless of whether the truth asserted is spiritual/religious or not. It sounds
relatively benign to hear the political assertion that the Bush administration did not plan for the occupation phase in Iraq, but when we consider the toll that failure has exacted--that. at least, is the magnitude of effect at stake in the non-religious fundamentalism of political argument in twenty-first century America.
To me the argument is clear: If you botch your job so badly, you're generally fired. Now, this speaks nothing of whether the opponent is the best man for the job; that in and of itself is the result of a non-religious faith structure guiding our political elections. (Consider the 2000 election: Bush v. McCain? Gore v. Bradley? Bush v. Gore? Yes, this is the
best the people could come up with. That they chose Bush over McCain is testament enough to the power of the political faith structure.)
In 2000, Bush supporters dared attack McCain's service record, having tacit approval, at least, from the candidate. In 2002, the GOP called Max Cleeland soft on defense, depicted him alongside international villains in attack ads. It's a more complex argument to explain how a man who left three limbs behind in a war might vote against the going defense trend in a time of crisis; it's more complex to explain the way people in Cleeland's position vote on issues. This sense of ignorance is what the campaigns relied on, and it's what the GOP is relying on in the present cycle. Natural apathy is what the folks in charge of the GOP's political campaigns depend on.
Now, nobody's saying the Democrats are linen-white. Far from it. But there is a difference beyond the mere superficial between not understanding the Fourteenth Amendment in all its implications--a common condition in the U.S.--and seeking to obliterate equal protection. There is a difference between Kerry saying he would have invaded Iraq, anyway, and saying Kerry would have done exactly what Bush did in order to build the argument that Kerry has nothing different to offer.
People treat such arguments as fact because of their faith in informational authority. And in politics, that faith is closely-guarded and oft-expressed. The implications are huge. It's one thing to ask the people who have been hurt by our American adventures, another entirely to consider the folks we can't ask because they're dead.
The larger point being that, while I agree with the topic point noted at the outset, I would extend it well beyond a "merely" religious aspect.
How can you consider the perspective of a non-believer, or remotely consider their thoughts/actions valid if you've already assumed they are NOT?
In the case of a fundamentalist, it's an excellent question. But what about certain
ideas that ... well, for instance:
• I cannot prove outright that having sex with a child is bad. I can line up all sorts of reasons, but it is only as a result of this society's priorities that those described effects would be quantified as "bad". In the meantime, if anything makes me fundamentalist at all, one thing that will not be on the list is my insistence that a pedophile is not teaching a positive love to a child in having sex with a six year-old, and neither am I going to willingly allow my child to be a test subject; nor am I going to acquire someone else's child in order to test the assertion.
It's a point of faith. Now, generally considering myself "not" fundamentalist, one of the aspects of my outlook that is difficult to explain is the breadth of any one idea. For instance, I would, on the one hand, assert that the bullet-point of faith above
is correct, and
is superior to all others, but what constitutes "all others"? You don't have to recite it point for point, word for word. There are certain aspects which I have yet to encounter an argument against that I will accept; there are certain justifications for my position that others might offer that I cannot accept for their broader implications.
To the other, while I generally don't consider myself fundamentalist, I'm aware that aspects of my liberalism are damn near. And it's nothing spectacular, but rather a mundane point that my archconservative neighbors can espouse, as well--empowerment and security. Unlike most of my conservative neighbors, I have a thick Sisyphan streak running through me according to Camusite considerations. I see my conservative neighbors as seeking to empower Sisyphus to continue to be happy pushing the rock up the hill, whereas I would encourage the abandoning of the rock despite the gods. And that's all the difference in the world to me. So I insist on it: break but never bend, at least on certain issues.
In the end, I don't think the abstract principle is an evolutionary development to cull the herd, but rather a vestigial evolutionary method to
preserve the herd. Being useless, the vestige asserts itself innovatively; we must purge ourselves of this aspect, just as the vegetarian might assert humanity can survive without animal products, or the mystic seeks to either control or extinguish entirely the inner self.
Bearing in mind the length of what is already in this post, I shall hold off on explaining that last for the time being; it may prove unimportant, anyway.
I wonder how much is actually just insecurity manifesting itself. I mean if they are actually worshipping the same deity why isn't that enough.