One set of beliefs though which you define yourself. Is this fundamentalism? That set of beliefs is also a formulae. A code in a sacred text; the ordinances of the ordinated; a belief in the reward of rightness. Happiness to be on the one path to salvation, whatever it may be. In every movement, surge of social beliefs, group with a purpose, religion, are fundamentalists. Those who place whatever doesn't agree with their creed into a category of evil to be opposed with all force, vehemently. Fundamentalism is the opposite of acceptance. Fundamentalism takes the complexity out of living. It replaces a sensitive tuner, an ethic of compassion, a cognizance of difference, shades of infinite grey, with certainty. Instead of the vast and perplexing mystery of living, one set of beliefs through which a person defines themselves and others. One path to walk. One goal to achieve.
One perspective on those who follow the "illumined path" and those who don't. Fundamentalism is an escape from the responsibility of living. Of living in the impossibility of time, with uncertainty, in the flux of ideas, events, emotions, unpredictable happenings with a mass of people who are equally unknown. Fundamentalism is like the virus that invades to overtake the whole system and make it its own. In its success it kills the very spirit that gave it life.
One set of beliefs though which you define yourself. Is this fundamentalism? That set of beliefs is also a formulae. A code in a sacred text; the ordinances of the ordinated; a belief in the reward of rightness. Happiness to be on the one path to salvation, whatever it may be. In every movement, surge of social beliefs, group with a purpose, religion, are fundamentalists. Those who place whatever doesn't agree with their creed into a category of evil to be opposed with all force, vehemently. Fundamentalism is the opposite of acceptance. Fundamentalism takes the complexity out of living. It replaces a sensitive tuner, an ethic of compassion, a cognizance of difference, shades of infinite grey, with certainty. Instead of the vast and perplexing mystery of living, one set of beliefs through which a person defines themselves and others. One path to walk. One goal to achieve. 
One perspective on those who follow the "illumined path" and those who don't. Fundamentalism is an escape from the responsibility of living. Of living in the impossibility of time, with uncertainty, in the flux of ideas, events, emotions, unpredictable happenings with a mass of people who are equally unknown. Fundamentalism is like the virus that invades to overtake the whole system and make it its own. In its success it kills the very spirit that gave it life.
Perhaps because I love words, I resent the way they get coopted. I aspire to being fundamentally loving. It is a set of beliefs through which I define myself, a formula, a code, a path, but -- fundamentally -- it does not put all who disagree with me into the category of evil. This is different, of course, from what you are talking about. But still, the word thing always trips me up.
ReplyDeletemb, it is semantics, but the adverb, fundamentally I believe in love, or the adjective, my fundamental belief is in love, are quite different to fundamentalists, which is a noun and doesn't refer to, or describe love or the action of loving in any way. Grammatically, even in your comment, fundamentally loving is entirely another experience to what is essentially political extremism.
ReplyDeleteNow if you believed that everyone ought to ascribe to your particular brand of loving and that anyone who didn't should be shown that your way is the right way and so on then you would have slipped over the line into fundamentalism.
But you don't, so we're okay. -:)
I think we do construct a formulae in which to live, but the trick would be in allowing the ever expanding element of transformation into that formulae not only to grow and to expand with it, but to prevent constriction of the human spirit. There is a growing, and quite egotistical, psychology in these present times to insist on a singular viewpoint without abstraction and to ignore grand paradox and emerging possibilities. In the United States, especially, there is a movement toward absolutism, which empowers fundamentalism which, in its most brutal form, attempts to slay the heresy of curiosity, thus, the very essence of the human spirit as you rightly conclude.
ReplyDeleteThe longer I live, the more I grasp the freedom of Tao, perhaps because I experience it as freedom against dogmatic precept. Flow rises above all imaginings; all absolutes: ever changes, ever expands.
You do me the honour, Friend Brenda and that is the truth.
Are the Ferns in the photograph in your house? They are spectacular nonetheless.
Blessings~
Laurieglynn, Fundamentalism is often quite strange in that most fundamentalists are quite proud to be that. I haven't actually ever met a fundamentalist who wasn't completely and totally into the perception of the world that their tradition prescribed.
ReplyDeleteAnd we, who are ever cautious to acknowledge "grand paradox," to uphold freedom, to sense the mystery of the flow, its indefinability, mystery, loving brilliances... are embarrassed if we find anything approaching absolutism in our way of wording things.
Which is what makes me think that a funamentalist is someone who just couldn't take the unknowingness of life and leapt into a system where all the complexity could be placed and where they could get an answer to the unanswerable: If everyone believed in "X," we'd all be happy, unanimous, harmonious...
The ferns are at Future Bakery...
hugs, xo, my dear friend...