At 10:22 AM 23/08/00 EDT, Nadia wrote:
>It's not that the left is religious, I don't see it that way. What we
>culturally are, left, center, out to lunch and/or right, is scared and
overly
>polite regarding that taboo subject. The sacred cow. It's some kind of
>freakish phenomenon built right into the religion meme.
>
>It is part of the durability factor.
Well, yes, Nadia, but--
Take a look at the places around the world where religious devotees do
vigorously dispute with each other. They don't engage in polite
discussions, they hack off limbs, blow each other up, teach their children
insane hatred. Obviously some of this is territorial defence/aggression
under an ideological mask, but a lot of it probably has to do with the way
religion enters into one's very definition of self and extended kin, of
deep-set die-for values. So there's a lot to be said for polite mutual
live&let live tolerance. In such a framework, you often find that the
overpowering intensity of irrational memes falls away, since their immune
defences aren't under invigorating threat. I escaped from Catholicism
because I was living in relaxed, multicultural Australia; if I'd been
raised in Northern Ireland, I'm not sure it would have been so
(comparatively) easy.
Damien Broderick
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:36:28 MDT