Book Club Bullies
Book club bullies
The point that I found absorbing from this article is the last two lines: "... we need to have a greater appreciation of why bullies become bullies. Fundamentalism can only be defeated if we understand it."
Can fundamentalism be defeated? What is the positive approach of understanding fundamentalism so that it can be defeated? The writer correctly points out that in most cases, fundamentalism resides in places with low literacy, "For all their emphasis on the sacred text, fundamentalists are generally unfamiliar with the culture of books." -- if only they could delve into the richness of world literature, perhaps there wouldn't be any fundamentalism.
"Fundamentalism flourishes in places of instability and social vulnerability. It is the desire for solid foundations in a world in which the vulnerable are tossed about like flies to wanton boys. Often this is associated with poverty, but not always. Students I see arriving at Oxford for the first time are pitched into a new and uncertain world. In such circumstances students commonly find refuge in a church that gives them the security of a singular message believed with absolute and unquestioning certainty. For those at the rough end of global capitalism or American imperialism, the instinct is considerably more urgent." -- absolute certainty, absolute belief that mortality does not mean the end of human beings, there is an afterlife, perhaps this fear of death drives us to hold on a religious belief system, for comfort, for reassurance of not becoming non-existent "hereafter", and men cling to it, like the last shred of straw clutched by a drowning man in a stormy ocean.
Exactly at this precise place, at this place of perpetual vulnerability that is intensified in a place of abject poverty, unemployment, and lowest literacy where fundamentalism, the other F word takes its iron clad hold. Perhaps the stubborn head on collision between fundamentalism and modernity would only tilt the balance toward the fundamentalists, it would only place more explosive causes to further their inflexible ideologies among the poor, dispossessed and grievously dismayed. With long term approach in eradicating poverty, creating jobs, curbing violence and human rights violations, and giving the desperate folks voice in the political process would slowly, but surely loosen fundamentalist's strong grip from any given society. War could only produce but war and more fundamentalism in the end.
The point that I found absorbing from this article is the last two lines: "... we need to have a greater appreciation of why bullies become bullies. Fundamentalism can only be defeated if we understand it."
Can fundamentalism be defeated? What is the positive approach of understanding fundamentalism so that it can be defeated? The writer correctly points out that in most cases, fundamentalism resides in places with low literacy, "For all their emphasis on the sacred text, fundamentalists are generally unfamiliar with the culture of books." -- if only they could delve into the richness of world literature, perhaps there wouldn't be any fundamentalism.
"Fundamentalism flourishes in places of instability and social vulnerability. It is the desire for solid foundations in a world in which the vulnerable are tossed about like flies to wanton boys. Often this is associated with poverty, but not always. Students I see arriving at Oxford for the first time are pitched into a new and uncertain world. In such circumstances students commonly find refuge in a church that gives them the security of a singular message believed with absolute and unquestioning certainty. For those at the rough end of global capitalism or American imperialism, the instinct is considerably more urgent." -- absolute certainty, absolute belief that mortality does not mean the end of human beings, there is an afterlife, perhaps this fear of death drives us to hold on a religious belief system, for comfort, for reassurance of not becoming non-existent "hereafter", and men cling to it, like the last shred of straw clutched by a drowning man in a stormy ocean.
Exactly at this precise place, at this place of perpetual vulnerability that is intensified in a place of abject poverty, unemployment, and lowest literacy where fundamentalism, the other F word takes its iron clad hold. Perhaps the stubborn head on collision between fundamentalism and modernity would only tilt the balance toward the fundamentalists, it would only place more explosive causes to further their inflexible ideologies among the poor, dispossessed and grievously dismayed. With long term approach in eradicating poverty, creating jobs, curbing violence and human rights violations, and giving the desperate folks voice in the political process would slowly, but surely loosen fundamentalist's strong grip from any given society. War could only produce but war and more fundamentalism in the end.
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