A friend recently expressed the wish that people could share their thoughts and feelings about religion without pushing their convictions onto one another "and getting into physical, emotional, intellectual, ethical, moral, or verbal shoving matches."Yes, that would be nice. But it appears that many, if not most humans are unable to do that. I think the main reason people push their convictions is that they need the reassurance of others' believing as they do, they are so frightened by the thought that God does not exist, that they will not live forever, that the good will not be rewarded and the bad not punished. They may be even more afraid that, without God, they and other people will not be good.
Fear is a powerful emotion. It engages people's reptilian complex1 and disengages their cerebral cortex, which must be engaged if people are to share as my friend would like.
Unfortunately, more is at stake than getting lovey-dovey about religion. Today in The New York Times, both primary op-ed columnists cite the ominous turmoil in America today.
David Brooks, in "The Tea Party Teens," writes:
The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy—with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation.And Bob Herbert, in "An Uneasy Feeling," writes:
The tea party movement is mostly famous for its flamboyant fringe. But it is now more popular than either major party. According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 41 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tea party movement. Only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of the Democrats and only 28 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party.
One in eight Americans, and one in four children, are on food stamps. Some six million Americans, according to an article in The Times on Sunday, have said that food stamps were their only income.Fear, it seems to me, is the common denominator underlying the turmoil, the shoving and the pushing. It governs fearful people's thoughts and actions. This is understood well enough by Glenn Beck, that master of reptilian entertainment. (Google on "glenn beck fear" to see what I mean.)
This is a society in deep, deep trouble and the fixes currently in the works are in no way adequate to the enormous challenges we’re facing....
Just getting us back in fits and starts over the next few years to where we were when the recession began should not be acceptable to anyone....
We’re not smart as a nation. We don’t learn from the past, and we don’t plan for the future....
We keep talking about how essential it is to radically improve public education while, at the same time, we’re closing libraries and firing teachers by the tens of thousands for economic reasons.
The fault lies everywhere...
Now we’re escalating in Afghanistan, falling back into panic mode....
In a real sense, the one thing we have to fear is fear itself. Thanks to Mr. Beck for the apt phrase.
_______________
- Jim Rix writes insightfully about the reptilian/cerebral dichotomy in his book about the criminal justice system: Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out. Particularly the chapter titled, "Catch-22: The Gila."
From a fellow reader of Jim Rix's book:
ReplyDeleteHuman beings certainly have reptilian responses to perceived dangers built into some portion of their brains. Luckily, evolution has brought about a brain in humans, which, if awakened, exercised, and used can conquer fear when it threatens to overwhelm reason. Unfortunately, many people in this country are so lazy, narcissistic, undisciplined and unschooled in learning how to engage this very important part of themselves that they rarely do so. When someone mentions tea party to me in a political context I think of the Mad Hatter's tea party described in Through the Looking Glass. The self-absorbed and short-sighted creatures described by Carroll fit right in with the tea party devotees of today. Narcissism precludes these people from having any regard or concern for the thoughts or concerns of others. It's the "I want what I want and I want it now" crowd and they hate anyone who presumes to tell them how out of touch with reality they are. They are ruled by self-righteous pridefulness that convinces them that if only everyone else could be like them the world would be perfect. Unfortunately, this crowd does not even have the foresight to engage their reptilian fear that they could be swept away by forces more powerful and far less ludicrous than they are. They remind me of nothing so much as the French aristocracy and the Catholic Church hierarchy in the three to four years preceding the French Revolution. They were so enamored of their own status and position that they did not have the sense to fear the future enough to make the necessary changes to forestall the disaster (at least as far as they were concerned) that followed.
I think you're partly right—that some/many are nervous & insecure about what "might NOT be." But I really think a lot more feel smug & so darned convinced that they're right—that's BELIEF, remember: unfailing faith despite any possible evidence to the contrary, or any possibility of anything otherwise—and they feel it's absolutely THEIR job to CONVINCE, SWAY, PERSUADE, & CONVERT as many nonbelievers as they possibly can to ensure absolute salvation now & at the end. *choke* *blech* *bleah*
ReplyDelete