Tag: Extremism

The calls are going out, and have been for to long, under the guise of free speech, as they have throughout our history, and carried across the modern media outlets without shame nor guilt association.

I certainly agree with the jist of Something The Dog Said’s currently front-paged essay . . . the grand OLD ?Party? is sucking itself into a black hole of self-immolation, at least on the national level. Their base won’t support anyone who has the slightest chance of getting elected outside of the South and/or the Mormon belt out West; and they despise moderates who might ostensibly have a shot at it.

While in certain way, this of course fills me with glee, I think there’s potential downsides that need to be addressed as well.

I’ve always considered  the Hindus to be the endearing exception  to my “all religions are dangerous to others” rule. I mean, how dangerous can a religion be when they have a god who  has an elephant head? Apparently I was mistaken about our Hindu brethren and sistren: they’re as nuts as the rest. I look at the lunatics of  every major religion, and somehow the fact that my pagan Celtic ancestors went in  for the odd bit of headhunting  and human sacrifice seems almost benign. (and yes, I recognize that this organization is purportedly a “nationalist” or “cultural” organization, but this sort of “defend the culture” madness is always driven by deep wells of religious lunacy. Always.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new…

Militants belonging to a group called Sri Ram Sena, who claim to be custodians of Indian culture, said Valentine’s Day is un-Indian.

The threat comes days after the group’s activists stormed a bar in the south western city of Mangalore, dragging out and beating women they accused of acting obscenely and “going astray”.

The attack led to fears an extremist “Hindu Taliban” was on the rise in India.

Gangadhar Kulkarni, an activist in the group, which is a radical wing of the Hindu nationalist movement, said: “If people celebrate the day despite our warning, then we will definitely attack them.”

“Valentine’s Day is definitely not Indian culture. We will not allow celebration of that day in any form,” added Pramod Mutalik, the group’s founder.

“The first duty of the philosopher in our world today is to fight against fanaticism under whatever guise it may appear.”

-Gabriel Marcel

Listen to what Marcel is saying here. He is saying that we don’t get to pick which fanaticisms we oppose and which we embrace. He is saying that fanaticism as such must be opposed. Given that every “ism” is a fanaticism” more or less cleverly concealed, are we then to oppose all of them? Must we always be “reasonable”?  Or do some things demand a level of commitment from us that cannot be described as anything less than “fanatical”? If so, then on what ground do we base our triage? How to decide which “isms” to oppose and which to champion? Everyone can agree that the fanaticisms of communism and fascism should  be opposed wherever they present themselves. Many would say that capitalism (especially of the uncontrolled, freebooter variety) should equally be opposed.  But what about those “isms” of which  we approve? What about internationalism? Humanism? And what about that most problematical of fanaticisms, idealism? If these fanaticisms are not also to be opposed, then we need to evolve a “truth test” for good vs. bad fanaticisms, a truth test that by the nature of its structure and content would command assent from any rational moral agent. This truth test would require a lot more rigor than “Well, this fanaticism is nice to people and this fanaticism is mean to people.” That’s  the truth test of the schoolyard, and is useless.

This subject demands an expanded essay in itself. More: it demands a book. Maybe some day when I hit the lottery I’ll have the free time to  write it. 🙂