Repubs Using Typical Fundamentalist Tactics

I missed this post by Juan Cole last week. It is extremely informative. Here is a key excerpt:

” The cynical use by the US Republican Party of the Terri Schiavo case repeats, whether deliberately or accidentally, the tactics of Muslim fundamentalists and theocrats in places like Egypt and Pakistan. These tactics involve a disturbing tendency to make private, intimate decisions matters of public interest and then to bring the courts and the legislature to bear on them. President George W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders like Tom Delay have taken us one step closer to theocracy on the Muslim Brotherhood model.”

These tactics and the thought that leads to them are not irrational. They are the result of a very different world-view and methods of reacting to the uncertainties, unpredictabilities, and to the lack of a human dimension that modern society inflicts on all of us.

If you want to understand the world-view of the fundamentalists, both here in America and in the Middle East, I strongly suggest that you read Steve Bruce’s book “Fundamentalism” which is shown on the right hand side of this blog. It is clear and will explain the reasons and methods of the fundamentalists’ world-view. You will find that the world view of the fundamentalist is not a "left-over" from the agricultural past. It is a new and very modern social creation designed to deal with the stresses inflicted by modern industrial society.

If you are more historical-minded, then look at Karen Armstrong’s uttely fantastic analysis of the history of Europe and the Middle East from the point of view of the conflict between religion and modern society. I started with Bruce and went to Armstrong, and found the transition extremely easy. Bruce explains the social mechanism of Fundamentalism, and Armstrong places it in historical context.

That is why I have those books listed there. You will not regret reading either of them.

The book on risk is related to Karen Armstron’s view of religion as based on past-oriented mythos and modernism and the Enlightenment being based on future-oriented Logos. The measurement and manipulation of risk is somewhat arcane but it is at the core of modern ways of dealing with future events. It is a world-view so different from that of fundamentalists as to be largely outside their understanding. While they will use insurance, for example, they will not consider the ideas of risk measurement and risk management as essential to their world view.

The book is a readable explanation of the extremely different way of thinking that makes modern western society such a massive shift in world-view from prior conservative agricultural societies. Read it after Karen Armstrong’s book, once you have absorbed her concepts of Mythos and Logos and their application to modern society.

And if you are wondering, yes, I am very excited about the ideas presented in these books. They have given me the best "AHA! Moment"* I have had in several years.


*Anyone old enough to remember Martin Gardner from the Scientific American will know what I mean.