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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Tuesday 26 July 2011
"We live in a fundamentalist culture. Our utopian visions of inevitable human progress, obsession with endless consumption, and fetish for power and unlimited growth are fed by illusions that are as dangerous as fantasies about the Second Coming."
Fundamentalism Kills
Mourners arriving at a memorial service for victims of the Norway mass-killings at Oslo Cathedral.
The gravest threat we face from terrorism, as the killings in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik underscore, comes not from the Islamic world but the radical Christian right and the secular fundamentalists who propagate the bigoted, hateful caricatures of observant Muslims and those defined as our internal enemies. The caricature and fear are spread as diligently by the Christian right as they are by atheists such as Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. Our religious and secular fundamentalists all peddle the same racist filth and intolerance that infected Breivik. This filth has poisoned and degraded our civil discourse. The looming economic and environmental collapse will provide sparks and tinder to transform this coarse language of fundamentalist hatred into, I fear, the murderous rampages experienced by Norway. I worry more about the Anders Breiviks than the Mohammed Attas.
The battle under way in America is not between religion and science. It is not between those who embrace the rational and those who believe in biblical myth. It is not between Western civilization and Islam. The blustering televangelists and the New Atheists, the television pundits and our vaunted Middle East specialists and experts, are all part of our vast, simplistic culture of mindless entertainment. They are in show business. They cannot afford complexity. Religion and science, facts and lies, truth and fiction, are the least of their concerns. They trade insults and clichés like cartoon characters. They don masks. One wears the mask of religion. One wears the mask of science. One wears the mask of journalism. One wears the mask of the terrorism expert. They jab back and forth in predictable sound bites. It is a sterile and useless debate between bizarre subsets of American culture. Some use the scientific theory of evolution to explain the behavior and rules for complex social and political systems, and others insist that the six-day creation story in Genesis is a factual account. The danger we face is not in the quarrel between religion advocates and evolution advocates, but in the widespread mental habit offundamentalism itself.
We live in a fundamentalist culture. Our utopian visions of inevitable human progress, obsession with endless consumption, and fetish for power and unlimited growth are fed by illusions that are as dangerous as fantasies about the Second Coming. These beliefs are the newest expression of the infatuation with the apocalypse, one first articulated to Western culture by the early church. This apocalyptic vision was as central to the murderous beliefs of the French Jacobins, the Russian Bolsheviks and the German fascists as it was to the early Christians. The historian Arnold Toynbee argues that racism in Anglo-American culture was given a special virulence after the publication of the King James Bible. The concept of “the chosen people” was quickly adopted, he wrote, by British and American imperialists. It fed the disease of white supremacy. It gave them the moral sanction to dominate and destroy other races, from the Native Americans to those on the subcontinent.
Our secular and religious fundamentalists come out of this twisted yearning for the apocalypse and belief in the “chosen people.” They advocate, in the language of religion and scientific rationalism, the divine right of our domination, the clash of civilizations. They assure us that we are headed into the broad, uplifting world of universal democracy and a global free market once we sign on for the subjugation and extermination of those who oppose us. They insist—as the fascists and the communists did—that this call for a new world is based on reason, factual evidence and science or divine will. But schemes for universal human advancement, no matter what language is used to justify them, are always mythic. They are designed to satisfy a yearning for meaning and purpose. They give the proponents of these myths the status of soothsayers and prophets. And, when acted upon, they fill the Earth with mass graves, bombed cities, widespread misery and penal colonies. The extent of this fundamentalism is evident in the strident utterances of the Christian right as well as those of the so-called New Atheists.
“What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry?” Sam Harris, in his book “The End of Faith,” asks in a passage that I suspect Breivik would have enjoyed. “If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe.”
“We are at war with Islam,” Harris goes on. “It may not serve our immediate foreign policy objectives for our political leaders to openly acknowledge this fact, but it is unambiguously so. It is not merely that we are at war with an otherwise peaceful religion that has been ‘hijacked’ by extremists. We are at war with precisely the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran, and further elaborated in the literature of the hadith, which recounts the sayings and teachings of the Prophet.”
Harris assures us that “the Koran mandates such hatred,” that “the problem is with Islam itself.” He writes that “Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death.”
A culture that exalts its own moral certitude and engages in uncritical self-worship at the expense of conscience commits moral and finally physical suicide. Our fundamentalists busy themselves with their pathetic little monuments to Jesus, to reason, to science, to Western civilization and to new imperial glory. They peddle a binary view of the world that divides reality between black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. We are taught in a fundamentalist culture to view other human beings, especially Muslims, not as ends but as means. We abrogate the right to exterminate all who do not conform.
Fundamentalists have no interest in history, culture or social or linguistic differences. They are a remarkably uncurious, self-satisfied group. Anything outside their own narrow bourgeois life, petty concerns and physical comforts bores them. They are provincials. They do not investigate or seek to understand the endemic flaws in human nature. The only thing that matters is the coming salvation of humanity, or at least that segment of humanity they deem worthy of salvation. They peddle a route to assured collective deliverance. And they sanction violence and the physical extermination of other human beings to get there.
All fundamentalists worship the same gods—themselves. They worship the future prospect of their own empowerment. They view this empowerment as a necessity for the advancement and protection of civilization or the Christian state. They sanctify the nation. They hold up the ability the industrial state has handed to them as a group and as individuals to shape the world according to their vision as evidence of their own superiority. Fundamentalists express the frustrations of a myopic and morally stunted middle class. They cling, under their religious or scientific veneer, to the worst values of the petite bourgeois. They are suburban mutations, products of an American landscape that has been perverted by a destruction of community and a long and successful war against complex thought. The self-absorbed worldview of these fundamentalists brings smiles of indulgence from the corporatists who profit, at our expense, from the obliteration of moral and intellectual inquiry.
Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce’s “Ulysses” acidly condemned all schemes to purify the world and serve human progress through violence. He said that “history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” Dedalus in the same passage responded to the schoolmaster Deasy’s claim that “the ways of the Creator are not our ways,” and that “all history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.” A soccer goal is jubilantly scored by boys in the yard outside the school window as Deasy expounds on divine will. God, Dedalus tells Deasy as the players yell in glee over the goal, is no more than the screams from the schoolyard —“a shout in the street.” Joyce, like Samuel Beckett, excoriated the Western belief in historical teleology—the notion that history has a purpose or is moving toward a goal. The absurdity of this belief, they wrote, always feeds fanatics and undermines the possibility of human community. These writers warned us about all those—religious and secular—who call for salvation through history.
There are tens of millions of Americans who in their desperation and insecurity yearn for the assurance and empowerment offered by a clearly defined war against an external evil. They are taught in our fundamentalist culture that this evil is the root of their misery. They embrace a war against this evil as a solution to the drift in their lives, their economic deprivation and the moral and economic morass of the nation. They see in this conflict with these dark forces a way to overcome their own alienation. They find in it certitude, meaning and structure. They believe that once this evil is vanquished, an evil that extends from Muslims to undocumented workers, liberals, intellectuals, homosexuals and feminists, they can transform America into a land of plenty and virtue. But this fundamentalism, which cloaks itself in the jargon of scientific rationality, Christian piety and nativism, is a recipe for fanaticism. All those who embrace other ways of being and believing are viewed, as Breivik apparently viewed his victims, as contaminates that must be eliminated.
This fundamentalist ideology, because it is contradictory and filled with myth, is immune to critiques based on reason, fact and logic. This is part of its appeal. It obliterates doubt, nuance, intellectual and scientific rigor and moral conscience. All has been predicted or decided. Life is reduced to following a simple black-and-white road map. The contradictions in these belief systems—for example the championing of the “rights of the unborn” while calling for wider use of the death penalty or the damning of Muslim terrorists while promoting pre-emptive war, which delivers more death and misery in the Middle East than any jihadist organization—inoculate followers from rational discourse. Life becomes a crusade.
All fundamentalists, religious and secular, are ignoramuses. They follow the lines of least resistance. They already know what is true and what is untrue. They do not need to challenge their own beliefs or investigate the beliefs of others. They do not need to bother with the hard and laborious work of religious, linguistic, historical and cultural understanding. They do not need to engage in self-criticism or self-reflection. It spoils the game. It ruins the entertainment. They see all people, and especially themselves, as clearly and starkly defined. The world is divided into those who embrace or reject their belief systems. Those who support these belief systems are good and forces for human progress. Those who oppose these belief systems are stupid, at best, and usually evil. Fundamentalists have no interest in real debate, real dialogue, real intellectual thought. Fundamentalism, at its core, is about self-worship. It is about feeling holier, smarter and more powerful than everyone else. And this comes directly out of the sickness of our advertising age and its exaltation of the cult of the self. It is a product of our deep and unreflective cultural narcissism.
Our faith in the inevitability of human progress constitutes an inability to grasp the tragic nature of history. Human history is one of constant conflict between the will to power and the will to nurture and protect life. Our greatest achievements are always intertwined with our greatest failures. Our most exalted accomplishments are always coupled with our most egregious barbarities. Science and industry serve as instruments of progress as well as instruments of destruction. The Industrial Age has provided feats of engineering and technology, yet it has also destroyed community, spread the plague of urbanization, uprooted us all, turned human beings into cogs and made possible the total war and wholesale industrial killing that has marked the last century. These technologies, even as we see them as our salvation, are rapidly destroying the ecosystem on which we depend for life.
There is no linear movement in history. Morality and ethics are static. Human nature does not change. Barbarism is part of the human condition and we can all succumb to its basest dimensions. This is the tragedy of history. Human will is morally ambiguous. The freedom to act as often results in the construction of new prisons and systems of repression as it does the safeguarding of universal human rights. The competing forces of love and of power define us, what Sigmund Freud termed Eros and Thanatos. Societies have, throughout history, ignored calls for altruism and mutuality in times of social upheaval and turmoil. They have wasted their freedom in the self-destructive urges that currently envelope us. These urges are very human and very dangerous. They are fired by utopian visions of inevitable human progress. When this progress stalls or is reversed, when the dreams of advancement and financial stability are thwarted, when a people confronts its own inevitable downward spiral, dark forces of vengeance and retribution are unleashed. Fundamentalists serve an evil that is unseen and unexamined. And the longer this evil is ignored the more dangerous and deadly it becomes. Those who seek through violence the Garden of Eden usher in the apocalypse.
This article was originally posted on Truthdig.
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ABOUT Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges is a weekly Truthdig columnist and a fellow at The Nation Institute. His newest book is “The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.”
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42 comments on " Fundamentalism Kills"
August 01, 2011 5:45pm
Breivik was NOT a Fundamentalist Christian, he was probably not even a practicing Christian and did not consider himself so (read his Manifesto). He was merely stating that he was a Cultural Christian in order to identify himself as NOT something else for his Swedish compatriots.
Crazy, misled, irrational people are crazy, misled and/or irrational and do wrong and stupid things. True Christianity is based in complete love--God IS love and does not tolerate killing of any type since His communication portion (The Word) visited this world in the form of a God-Man and completed the Covenant He began with Israel (Jacob from the Bible was renamed Israel and covenants were made with him).
You intellectuals who think you are progressing to or have already attained the "wisdom" of God, good luck! You are your own god and therefore should be able to control yourself and all around you. How's that working for you?
At least my "myths" no longer encourage killing unless they are perverted!
July 30, 2011 12:22pm
So true--and it is older than the Greek translations--Aramaic were some of the first. I remember when very old documents were found in Aramaic that were closer to the time when Christ supposedly lived. The Catholic hierarchy tried to suppress them because they undermined the current dogma! On top of difficulties in basic translation, there is also the difficulty of the changes in the meaning of words over time and the totally different context of cultures that existed 2000 years ago.
July 30, 2011 9:56am
Fundamentalist don't believe in entitlements, yet they are entitled. They have a COMPLETE lack of empathy for others, are incapable of seeing the Big picture, and believe themselves to be Chosen, and therefore invincible. They take no responsibility for the negative consequences of their actions and they have No remorse about lying or deceiving to get their way because they believe God holds a special place for them. Fundamentalist (and the lobbyists and politicians they employ) are SOCIOPATHS. In Mental Health we call this pathological connection to God Religiosity.
July 30, 2011 9:58am
Why is this page posting EDITS as New posts?
July 30, 2011 9:57am
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July 28, 2011 6:23pm
This article, entertaining as it is, makes more sense if you replace the word "fundamentalist" by "human," for there - in human nature - surely is where the problem exists.
July 28, 2011 3:16pm
Yes, we're all chosen people or we wouldn't manifest here on the the great seed nursery. To speak of 'universal truth' while we're still in the baby crib is childish.It's not politics or religions that are at war here, it is capitalism at the root of all skirmishes from time immemorial. Ever since the word 'mine' was coined.To see people grinning like idiotic apes at the the 'holy books' that say the streets of heaven are paved in gold miss the point. That being our most noble element is only worthy of pavement in heavnervana. What does that speak of to our souls?We don't interrogate our leaders enough. Remember, they are only servants.Some are now pushing the rule of law, good guys bad guys, shadow wars such as drugs, poverty, terrorism etc. All the while, the Earth pays the price. But since we have no other planet to escape to, I think we should hold a healthy environment as supreme. It might even eradicate all of these clever monstrosities.I don't see Chris Hedges having an axe to grind that is any less dull than any of the axes we commentators are using him to grind our axes against. When I look at a person, I tend to see a person. That's something I respect.
July 28, 2011 2:43pm
Hm, my original comment disappeared. Anyway, I think Hedges' bizarre conflation of the ideas of the "new atheists" [I continue to wonder who the "old atheists" might be] with fundamentalism is not only curious, illogical, and supposed without proof, it also points to a conflict going on in Hedges' own mind. Hedges is against religious fundamentalism and is a very accomplished intellectual liberal who has worked in the middle east, etc., but he is also scared of Harris's and Hitchens's ideas because they threaten his worldview. Now he has been humiliated and has had his poor little ego badly bruised after debating with them. So this article is his strange way of getting revenge on Harris and Hitchens, by equating their ideas with that of Christian fundamentalism, for which few (if any) readers of Truthdig or Nation of Change will have any sympathy. Of course, equating Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens with the likes of Osama bin Laden and Pat Robertson just doesn't work, and in fact Hedges proves himself to be somewhat closer to a fundamentalist than either Harris or Hitchens through his black-and-white, us vs. them kind of arguments. For Hedges' sake, I hope he can one day grow up and grow out of this schoolyard bully mindset.
July 28, 2011 1:07pm
Chris Hedges provides a classic false equivalency between atheist intellectuals and religious fundementalists in this article. He seems hostile to the scientific method, and dismissive of some of the real grievances critics have of Islam. There is no doubt in both the Bible and Quran that violence is accepted and permitted under certain circumstances. Hitchens and Harris simply point out that these circumstances are usually irrational in nature, and that society needs to be honest and forthright about this fact. Secularism may happen to be an extreme point of view in our current world, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be mainstream. ie: the environment and gay rights apparently are left wing extreme issues that don't get a lot of attention in government-to rational people people they should be mainstream. Al Gore and Glenn Beck are not the same sir!!!
July 28, 2011 12:53pm
Yes, we're all chosen people or we wouldn't manifest here on the the great seed nursery. To speak of 'universal truth' while we're still in the baby crib is childish.It's not politics or religions that are at war here, it is capitalism at the root of all skirmishes from time immemorial. Ever since the word 'mine' was coined.To see people grinning like idiotic apes at the the 'holy books' that say the streets of heaven are paved in gold miss the point. That being our most noble element is only worthy of pavement in heavnervana. What does that speak of to our souls?We don't interrogate our leaders enough. Remember, they are only servants.Some are now pushing the rule of law, good guys bad guys, shadow wars such as drugs, poverty, terrorism etc. All the while, the Earth pays the price. But since we have no other planet to escape to, I think we should hold a healthy environment as supreme. It might even eradicate all of these clever monstrosities.I don't see Chris Hedges having an axe to grind that is any less dull than any of the axes we commentators are using him to grind our axes against. When I look at a person, I tend to see a person. That's something I respect.
July 28, 2011 12:52pm
Well said!!!
July 28, 2011 10:43am
Query to Mr. Hedges, or Nation of Change --
The sentence, "We abrogate the right to exterminate all who do not conform," is in direct contradiction to the thesis of the article. To the best of my knowledge, and in accordance with all dictionaries consulted, "abrogate" means "to annul, repeal, do away with, give up, or surrender, especially by authority; to treat as non-existent." Reformulating the sentence by expanding "abrogate" to any of its definitions produces something like this: We give up the right to exterminate all who do not conform. Surely, what is meant is, "We appropriate the right..." Is "abrogate," here, an editorial malapropism? If not, can you explain what is meant by this very confusing statement?
July 28, 2011 7:14am
The other side of c0-creating with conditional free-will, is Unconditional, Infinite, and Eternal. If there is a God, IT would have to be Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent 3(OM's). It would thus be Superconsciousness. Few humans see Manifesting Reality, as 3(OM's), especially fundamentalists, or faith-based religious believers. Human reality, is defined by conditional conscious frameworks.
To discern otherwise, would ultimately force people to accept EVERYTHING, as being Divinity. That is a concept conditional, co-creating human perspectives, cannot cincture with their minds.
July 27, 2011 10:44pm
Chris Hedges has gone completely insane with this article, accusing Christopher Hitchens of being a terrorist psycho like Anders Breivik or Sam Harris. Read the article by Christopher Hitchens. The most he does is slightly emphasize the Islamic problem. Otherwise, he's completely rational. What is this B.S. about Chris hating the "New Atheists"? And putting them in the same camp with Christian fundamentalists? And he doesn't define "secular fundamentalism." The whole article is the ravings of a madman. I've always felt ambivalent about Chris Hedges, but no more. I will never read him again. He goes off on the apocalyptic Christians, quite reasonably, but then substitutes his own version in "the tragedy of history." I don't get his criticism of Hitchens at all
I also don't understand how anyone can defend Sam Harris here. Whatever other schizophrenic voices for justice and reason are coming out of Sam Harris, these quotes are determinative of a certain kind of Samuel Huntington "Clash of Civilizations" type thinking. First strikes always indicate a neocon.
July 28, 2011 2:45am
It's easy to defend Sam Harris. He's being selectively quoted by Chris Hedges, which has been going on for years. Sam Harris was speculating, not advocating, far from it. Go to his blog to become informed, and see his response to Hedges' maniacal attack: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-chris-hedges/. Better yet, read Sam Harris's books. He's harldy a neocon. As for calling him a schizophrenic, yours is just another slur, which puts you in company with Hedges.
Otherwise, re: Hedges' crazy article, I agree with you.
July 27, 2011 10:41pm
Chris Hedges has gone completely insane with this article, accusing Christopher Hitchens of being a terrorist psycho like Anders Breivik or Sam Harris. Read the article by Christopher Hitchens. The most he does is slightly emphasize the Islamic problem. Otherwise, he's completely rational. What is this B.S. about Chris hating the "New Atheists"? And putting them in the same camp with Christian fundamentalists? And he doesn't define "secular fundamentalism." The whole article is the ravings of a madman. I've always felt ambivalent about Chris Hedges, but no more. I will never read him again. He goes off on the apocalyptic Christians, quite reasonably, but then substitutes his own version in "the tragedy of history." I don't get his criticism of Hitchens at all.
But I don't understand how any of the posters here can defend Sam Harris's statements. Whatever other schizophrenic voices for rationality might be coming out of him, these quotes are determinative of Samuel Huntington "Clash of Civilizations" type thinking. First strikes always indicate a neocon.
July 27, 2011 5:22pm
What would happen if the fact that the Bible is NOT a historical, eye witness account was revealed? The gospel writers were Not the apostles. They Never knew Jesus! There's also overwhelming evidence that the New Testament has gone through countless revisions since it was first compiled, including the concept of the Divinity. What fundamentalist take as fact is a game of Telephone with -Thousands- of players, many with their own agenda. Millions have been murdered over the millennia over what might now be more myth than fact.
And then there's the matter of translation, as in from Greek to English (King James), where many Greek words had no English counterpart.
Fundamentalists have No idea that their beliefs are based on hearsay and and intentional tempering.
July 27, 2011 10:46am
Yes, we're all chosen people or we wouldn't manifest here on the the great seed nursery. To speak of 'universal truth' while we're still in the baby crib is childish.It's not politics or religions that are at war here, it is capitalism at the root of all skirmishes from time immemorial. Ever since the word 'mine' was coined.To see people grinning like idiotic apes at the the 'holy books' that say the streets of heaven are paved in gold miss the point. That being our most noble element is only worthy of pavement in heavnervana. What does that speak of to our souls?We don't interrogate our leaders enough. Remember, they are only servants.Some are now pushing the rule of law, good guys bad guys, shadow wars such as drugs, poverty, terrorism etc. All the while, the Earth pays the price. But since we have no other planet to escape to, I think we should hold a healthy environment as supreme. It might even eradicate all of these clever monstrosities.I don't see Chris Hedges having an axe to grind that is any less dull than any of the axes we commentators are using him to grind our axes against. When I look at a person, I tend to see a person. That's something I respect.
July 27, 2011 10:18am
The simple fact that Chris Hedges and others can openly challenge the self-annointed omnipotence of the sacred cows by fencing them in with facts to a common herd with out the overtly institutionalized threat of being burned at the stake for blasphemic heresy proves that humanity has made progress towards a more rational, equitable and peaceful world. Surely we have a long way to go to achieve a world of selfless co-existence, but it's at least a premise to base hope upon. With out such hope, then Mr. Hedges op-ed and indeed all opinions contradicting inequity and absurdity would be insubstancive and irrelevant. The irony is of course that the hope for a better day, a better place and a better way has led ultimately to a greater ignorance and self-inflicted suffering than the religions, sciences, governments and civilizations instituted in the quest of that hope initially tried to avoid and wished to prevent. Nonetheless, the hope that there can be a better world to live in gives meaning to our dismay with the ignoramnity of it all. Maybe it's time to redefine what that better world would be and how to get there in the light of us seeing ourselves as we truly are, and by all means not make the same mistakes over and over again.
July 27, 2011 9:20am
The issue confronting earth-human reality is an inability to understand the cause-and-effect universe in which people co-create. People co-create with their free-will, within what they know to be, a conditional, consciousness perspective.
They have such wonderful co-creating tools-- like intellect (to think), emotion (to feel), ego (controlling a vast array of capabilities) etc., with which to work. Unfortunately, most people misperceive and incomprehend the responsibilities connected to these karmically controlled abilities.
Rather than seeing reality as a Unity, they see it as a duality. They see it as a yin/yang perspective and themselves to be separate from everything else. It is not entirely their fault, as that is all they ever have known or been taught. But alas, ignorance of the law, is no excuse.
The universe is a Unity of One Manifestation, with Illimitable Potentiality in Perpetuity. People cannot infuse conditional influence without a cause-and-effect (karmic) result. This is merely the nature of Mother Nature. For every cause there is an effect.
So, as long as people continue to blindly co-create conditional hubris into the Immaculate Parchment of Mother Nature, God, Allah, Four Directions, Nothing, Everything...Karma will have no choice but to force people to sort, wash, press, dry, fold, and put away the diapers of their conditional karmic imbalances, incarnation after incarnation until their unique laundry is done. What does one think, Mother Nature will do their laundry for them?
July 28, 2011 2:30am
Chris Hedges has a personal axe to grind vis a vis Sam Harris, which seriously undermines his thinking. To call Sam Harris a secular fundamentalist is an outright slur that should not be tolerated in this magazine. I was in the audience when Sam Harris trounced him soundly in a one-on-one debate years ago @ UCLA, about just these issues, and clearly, he has yet to recover. This article is mostly an ego vendetta, and suffers from the same intellectual confusion evidenced on his side of that debate all those years ago.
Sam Harris's point, as I understand it, then and now, has been about the integrity that is lacking in religious discourse when it comes to acknowledging the limits of human knowledge about what IS; and the costs we incur, personally, and collectively, when we deny truths in favor of fantasies, and allow ourselves to be tyrannized by them. Harris insists that to pretend to know things that we don't know, which is the core psychological stance that supports all belief systems (denial), has its perils for any society hoping for peace, well being, authentic connection, and the chance to assume adult responsibilities vis a vis ourselves, and all other living creatures.
In Norway, where the killer happens to be a Christian fundamentalist, we have the full-on example of the soundness of Harris' arguments, not the opposite. In fact, I would say that, based on this article, Hedges appears to share the same kind of malignant and confused thinking that the Norwegian assassin does--a muddle of ideas that does not stand up to scrutiny.
With respect to Islam, for instance, what Sam Harris warns us about are the dangerous lies that feed that belief system, and the poisonous justifications those lies provide for horrific assaults on other human beings by vulnerable victims of that system who cannot tell the difference between a lie and a truth; who have, in fact, been trained by it to not make any such distinctions—which is why children are inculcated with beliefs as early as possible, before their cognitive skills are developed enough to question them.
The lies are there for all reasonable human beings to see. There is no denying them, or the pain that they have caused over the centuries, and continue to cause. They are found in all religions, including Christianity and Judaism, and so one has to ask why this is so upsetting to Hedges, who prides himself on his intellectual acumen, and who has made stunningly provocative, powerful, and useful arguments for the progressive cause in the past? For Hedges to conflate Harris', or Hitchens', positions with fundamentalists of any stripe is to not have read them, or heard them.
So what is Hedges' article really about, if not about Chris Hedges, himself, and his continuing unresolved personal issues about his religious beliefs? It must be the dishonesty at the core of his beliefs that fuels his rant.
July 27, 2011 5:22am
I agree with the comment by Richard Myron Lapham. I too had great problems as a youth with the concept of a chosen people. If a being created people and all other things would not all be chosen? It seemed to me that that the chosen people chose themselves without any help from anything other than their own sense of self importance. In a sense of simplicity years ago while musing in church the thought came to me that if you took the fun out of fundamentalist you would have left a dumbmentalist.
July 26, 2011 10:22pm
I found this article in essence to be sadly accurate to the human condition, but was disappointed to find the author as fundamentalistic in his opinions as those he was attacking. I found nothing in this authors presentation of his beliefs that was any less militant and intolerant than the beliefs expressed by the extremists he is so quick to condemn. Labeling people and putting them into pre-conceived ideology groups because they do not agree with your point of view, without considering the individual, is the quickest way to end up a judgmental extremist. In essence, 'the pot calling the kettle black'. I have found that if a person is truly secure in themselves and what they believe, they have the ability to dialogue with people they do not necessarily agree with and learn from them.
July 26, 2011 9:07pm
I just want to point out an error in Mr. Hedges' understanding of Freud's drives. Hedges seems to understand Freud's concept of Eros versus Thanatos as struggle of love against power. In actuality, Eros is the pleasure drive, which encompasses much more than love. Eros is ultimately about the struggle for survival; Freud was trained as a biologist when Darwin's theory was first becoming popular. Thanatos is the "death instinct." Freud postulated it to try to account for self-injurious behaviors and suicide, behaviors that make no sense if psychological life is based solely on the pleasure principle. Power is a psychological notion separate from Thanatos. Power is not something negative in itself. It certainly is not inherently against love. In fact, we talk of "the power of love" "empowerment" and the power to do good in the world.
July 26, 2011 8:11pm
I had a bumper sticker custom made for my car 20 years ago that said "Fundamentalism Kills." Muslim, Christian, Facist, Communist and etc. - it doesn't matter. It's all the same animal. I hate to use that cliche' because of the intrinsic innocence of animals , but it saves time and words. The fundamentalist is infantile. He never matures enough to stand on his own intellectual feet and make his own decisions. He never outgrows the need for parents. He wants an authority with a codfied set of rules to tell him what to do. Bible. Koran. Lawbooks. Hoyle. Book of Morman. Any ideology or religious prescribed creed and dogma you can think of . Take your pick. The seduction is that you don't have to do the work - and think for yourself . Just look it up in "the book." It's mental - and spiritual - sloth. The easy path. Marx was right when he said "Religion is the Opium of the people," but he didn't take it far enough. Any ideology is a kind of religion and that includes Ayn Rand ultra-narcissistic Free-Market Capitalsm - AND Marxism! All the same animal - just different fur.
All hate crimes come out of the extreme right and findamentalists are invariably right-wingers. Fascism ( Hitler) is the most extreme form, and i cannot find a case of any man ever having been lynched by a liberal. It's the "cornered-rat" syndrome. That innocent animal will fight to the death if you corner it and it feels it's life in danger, no matter how loving your intentions.
Likewise the fundamentalist - the ideologue - is constantly living cornered as it's precepts constantly bump up against the facts of the universe. They tend to live enclaved within their "own kind of people" who will reinforce whatever belief system they've become committed to, but "inconvenient facts of reality" have a way of getting in. Rather than learn from this, the indamentalist will kill you lest you let these facts upset his world.
There is no point wasting time on these people. They are a sub-species among us, just like Jonathan Swift's "Yahoos" - hard-wired to live by an external authority of whatever sort and no amount of logic and persasion can ever reach them. Just walk on by and avoid them. But if the come at you by all means defend yourself as you would against any animal or criminal attack. The fewer there are of these, the slight bit closer we come to realizing the distant dream of an ellightened civilzation.
July 26, 2011 5:55pm
Hedges demonstrates his own fundamentalism in this badly flawed piece. He shows contempt and distain for those who do not hold to his post modernist French philosophical school of thought, that of "absolute" relativism. He demonstrates an alarming lack of understanding of the philosophy of science in his attacks on Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens. He selectively quotes a sentence from Harris to paint him as a fanatic when he knows that the book is an appeal to insight through knowledge rather than belief. This is the arrogance of the arts intellectual who is willfully ignorant of science. In the complexity of the human condition we cannot give equal validity to all belief systems. In the brief history of our species only science has provided "progress" and a trend towards civility and acceptance of our common humanity.
July 26, 2011 5:26pm
Dear Chris Hedges,
When you write without ego, drama and or any IDENTITY, then and only then will YOUR writing be authentically informational, until then your writing is "entertainment" related, too.
July 26, 2011 5:16pm
It is not complex. As within, so without. It is the consciousness of separation--the belief that God (or Source, or Intelligent Infinity) is OUTSIDE of us that leads to evil and injustice. The system cannot correct itself, as it is born of sick separation-mind. The sickness is progressive. Heal the heart--one person at a time--and humankind is healed.
July 30, 2011 3:52pm
I have typed a reply emphasizing that God is the energy of the Universe, that everything in the Universe is energy and that therefore we are all connected, all part of the same whole. THREE TIMES IT HAS DISAPPEARED! It was, in my humble opinion, a very good comment, but I'm not up to recreating it a fourth time, especially since my left wrist is broken and it's very hard to type with one hand.
July 27, 2011 10:08am
Well stated, Randje K Randje! People need to see outside the whelping box of their own conformed, conditional thought, to fully grasp the depth of your message.
July 26, 2011 5:49pm
Is that your real name ?
July 26, 2011 3:43pm
The hegemonic economic discourse pervades and infiltrates all thinking about progress. I agree that the will to power and at the same time the reluctance to engage with complexity and critical reflection lead us all into ways of thinking and doing that remain unconscious to the weak signals of change that I see emerging..... in the yearnings of people for peace, harmony and a sense of wellbeing, in the grass roots movements that abound across borders and nations and fundamentalist beliefs and in many of the new generations of young adults who sense it. I hope that we can support their efforts to be willing to question, to challenge and to stand firm in the face of fundamentalist views that tragically express their own yearnings for peace of mind, harmony and a sense of wellbeing, arising and urged on through the hegemonic discourses that keep us all asleep from time to time and sadly continue to contribute to disharmony, pain and disconnection within ourselves and with one another.
July 26, 2011 3:16pm
"Societies have, throughout history, ignored calls for altruism and mutuality in times of social upheaval and turmoil"
Correction: 'Western societies' have ignored calls, that is to say, male hierarchal order- the societies put to death were often put to death because of altruism:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57557073/Taking-Whorf-s-Hypothesis-Forward
July 26, 2011 2:08pm
Gees -- documenting it is easy. Turn on your TV and listen to the fundamentalists talk.
July 26, 2011 2:40pm
yes that is one of the Utopia machines, Facebook is trying hard and succeeding in also forming a Closed Utopian Society through a wider variety of devices, Zuckerberg has created a monster.
July 26, 2011 1:32pm
This author misrepresents new atheism in aligning it with other fundamentalist creeds. Hitchens and Stenger are right to suggest that we question all religious dogma and should not let religions get away with lying to people. Science is not a religion and by equating the two Chris Hedges shows a basic misunderstanding of the world. BTW, the norweigen was not an atheist, but a god fearing church going fundamentalist. I doubt sincerely if an atheist would do such a thing.
July 26, 2011 1:11pm
Fundamentalists have no interest in history, culture or social or linguistic differences. They are a remarkably uncurious, self-satisfied group. Anything outside their own narrow bourgeois life, petty concerns and physical comforts bores them. They are provincials. They do not investigate or seek to understand the endemic flaws in human nature. The only thing that matters is the coming salvation of humanity, or at least that segment of humanity they deem worthy of salvation. They peddle a route to assured collective deliverance. And they sanction violence and the physical extermination of other human beings to get there.How would someone ever cite such a finding without being a bigoted neanderthal? Progressive...your name is arrogance. Whatever anecdotal data that Mr Hedges subscribes to is Fundament-ally flawed.
July 26, 2011 12:46pm
SS and Medicare pay for themselves in 2011. If we deduct $1Trillion for SS/Medi care income and $1Trillion for their outgo, in 2011,we are left with: Tax Income---about $1.4Trillion. Cash outgo---About 2.6 $Trillion. One can then easily see that all this garbage about running out of money is simply because our taxes are TOO low! Defense, if you include VA, spy agencies, Atomic energy Commission for Navy comes to $1Trillion. Canceling P Bush tax cuts would bring in $4T over 10 years---The same amount, $4T that the Bowles-Simpson 18 man study came to after 10 months of work. AND, they never mentioned a tax increase
July 26, 2011 12:31pm
Although I still believe in God, discerning His will is getting more difficult for me. As a child, I didn't understand the concept of "the Chosen People." If God made everyone, this seemed to be rather unfair to the rest of the "unchosen" people. I don't know enough else to comment intelligently on this article, but I am rather put off by the term "undocumented worker." Either one is in a country legally or illegally. Yes, there is much more to immigration policy but my view is any country has to have limits.
July 26, 2011 5:19pm
To understand the concept of "Chosen Ones", you will (brace yourself) have to get into the history of humankind's interactions with ET's (passing themselves off as "God"). That may stretch your paradigm to the breaking point, but such are the times we are presently in. Nothing about human history makes sense until you connect the Space visitors dots. Prepare to vacate your limits!
July 30, 2011 3:58pm
This only works for me if by ET's you mean any energy form of the Universe, not necessarily BEM's. (BEM's? ask your friendly local sci-fi fan.
July 26, 2011 2:42pm
his? this is not meant to be aggressive but merely to point out an underlying assumption that Utopian language often glosses over, language is the link to the ability to plant ideas in minds.