Nog meer ekstreem kies party vir fundamentalisme, wat vir jou sê dat net hierdie kerk (ja, ek weet hulle sê die Bybel, maar daarmee bedoel hulle eintlik net my interpretasie van die Bybel, en dus per implikasie net my kerk) die antwoorde het, en vertel jou dis sonde om op ander plekke in die wêreld te gaan luister.

If you understand Afrikaans, go read the original post to see what he was on about. In the case of this post of mine, I’m focusing on the ideas and implications of the concept of fundamentalism that his post inspired. In short, the relevant clause from Cobus’ post is this:

Fundamentalism: it tells you that only “this church” has the answers, and that it is sinful to go listen to other sources.

What concept does this “fundamentalism” word point to then? The basic principle is this: “we are right, those that disagree are wrong — listen to the right sources, avoid the wrong sources — believe/think these correct things, reject those incorrect things”. Combine with that principle the realisation that everyone is right about some things and wrong about some other things, then the “fundamentalism” label points to a concept unrelated to being right or wrong, and rather to a certain attitude.

(For the purpose of this post, expand your concept of believe or belief to extend to those things you think — “I don’t believe anything” is an absolutely lame cop-out.)

Now… we all believe the things we believe, because we believe those things to be true/correct — assuming we really believe them. (Yes, I’m stating a tautology, please bear with me. And read that sentence again and think about it.) If we give up on believing something is true, we… um… we stop believing it. (Duh.) Are we on the same page so far?

In contemplating the meaning of “fundamentalism” in this context, two cases or understandings present themselves to me (and unfortunately so — I was hoping to focus on one, but I can’t neglect the other).

Personal Fundamentalism

The first is personal fundamentalism. This concept of fundamentalism deals with personal beliefs and how they are constructed and developed. How firmly are these beliefs held? Can they be changed, developed, replaced? Beliefs/thoughts/ideas which are non-negotiable to the believer/thinker/philosopher are their fundamental beliefs — with respect to those beliefs, the believer/thinker/philosopher is a fundamentalist.

Fundamentalism started out as a positive term used by a group to describe themselves. (Source: Wikipedia – fundamentalism, citing two sources.) When understood in this sense, we all have fundamentals, and are all therefore fundamentalists of some sort.

When Richard Dawkins or his fans argue that he or they are not fundamentalists, they are typically arguing about personal fundamentalism, and they typically mean they will revise any of their beliefs if presented with evidence to the contrary. They are arguing that their epistemology is a non-fundamentalistic one, leaving them open to new understandings and ideas. (Epistemology: the study of the nature knowledge and justification, and the extent to which we have either. [src])

Thus: their ideas about epistemology are the right ideas, and other ideas, lower standards, are wrong. See where I’m going with this? They have as their fundamentals a certain epistemological standard. Keep on digging, and you should be able to find anyone’s fundamentals, fundamentals about which they could be proud to be called fundamentalists. Even, dare I say, nihilists! While my first thought was that they’d be an example of no fundamentals, I think maybe it requires a certain fundamental mindset to take you to nihilism: insisting, as a fundamental, that you don’t accept any fundamentals that are unprovable…?

As much as I like high epistemological standards and appreciate the particular ways in which Dawkins and fans are not fundamentalists, I will continue to insist on pointing out the other ways in which they are. When I do something like point out ways in which we are all fundamentalists, I hope to disarm name-calling and start talking about the actual concepts at hand.

Developing good fundamentals is certainly fundamental to living a good life. (Take as broad a view as you can on the meaning of “good” here.)

Interpersonal Fundamentalism

In personal beliefs, you can have an intense conviction of a particular belief/idea, living by it fully, but still be open to replacing or revising that belief/idea. Rephrased: being prepared to reexamine and change your beliefs or ideas does not mean you cannot be very serious about those beliefs or ideas while holding them. (Hint: all you need is humility to be able to let go of older ideas, and eagerness and a positive mindset in embracing new ones.) So I have no qualms about ideas and beliefs held strongly and dearly. Instead…

Introduce the big complicator for all aspects of human expression: interpersonal relationships. In moving away from the ego-centric concerns of personal fundamentalism, we discover an interpersonal version of the concept:

I’m right and you’re wrong. Period.

…what I do have qualms about, is the way we communicate and interact about our ideas and beliefs.

The interpersonal version of “fundamentalism” is the one I care about most, because it impacts other people. As I mentioned earlier, we are all right about some things, and wrong about others, and often it is a real waste of time — or even actively harmful to our well-being — to critically analyse every belief or thought/idea we have. Since we sincerely believe we are right about the things we are right about (there’s that tautology again), we effectively believe that those that don’t believe the same things have incorrect beliefs.

Given that this is the case for all of us, the concern should rather be about the way we interact about our differences. If we all try to convert everyone over to our way of seeing things, convince them to let go of the things we believe they are wrong about and start believing/thinking the things we believe we are right about, and we do so for everything, we will be fighting for ever. It will get us nowhere.

And this will always be the case, because there is too much that we disagree about and always will disagree about. (Never mind factual claims right now, we are talking about interpretive things, subjective things, we’re talking about Meh. Arguably that is all we really have to go by: consider (Re?)Introducing Meh and Lah and discuss it there if you want some clarity on this idea.)

This is where democracy comes in, for example: we know there are many things we will never agree on, and it is a waste of time arguing about many of these things, so we develop compromising systems by which we can settle on a decision or course of action that we decide is good enough for now. This works in some spheres, but not in others.

Getting back to the point… the interpersonal understanding of “fundamentalism” deals with how people interact, not about whether they are right or wrong. If using this understanding of the word, many Richard Dawkins fans would certainly be fundamentalists as much as any religious fundamentalist: they approach interpersonal conversations with the attitude and thesis of “we are right and you are wrong”, and often whack you over the head with it as often and as hard as they can. Ditto for religious fundamentalists. Who is right and who is wrong is not the point, because, remember, we are all wrong and we are all right. The point here is how we interact. I think this is the concept pointed to by the word “fundamentalist”, when people label Richard Dawkins or his fans as such.

Here are then some of my suggestions to those that wish to avoid coming across as fundamentalists in this interpersonal sense:

• Remind yourself that you are wrong about a great many things, and that there are many things that you do not yet know and never will know.
• With some momentum picked up from the previous point, consider, even if for only a moment, that you may indeed be wrong about the belief in question, and that the other might be right. Basically, try to mentally take yourself a notch closer to center on the “Dawkins scale”, even if only temporarily for the purpose of a particular interaction.
• Approach interactions with the knowledge that you agree about some things and disagree about other things. Build and develop some common ground based on your agreements. Try as best you can to understand the experience and worldview of the other and how they see things and experience things. In that regard, stretch and challenge your talent for empathy to the point that it becomes a trained skill.
• When discussing disagreements, have some goal or purpose in mind. Know why you are discussing or debating a particular disagreement, and focus on that purpose or goal. Be clear about it: explain the reason you are disagreeing and why you consider this particular issue to be important.
• Listen! Be helpful and proactive in encouraging the other to formulate their concerns — in order to clearly demarcate what the discussion is about.
• As soon as you realise a discussion is only about you being right and them being wrong, rather than about some actually useful purpose, stop! Think for a moment. There is most likely a better use of your time, one that makes a much greater or useful contribution in the grand scheme of things. Maybe you could encourage the other to focus on positive contributions rather than fighting about the trivialities. (For my use of the word in this context, it is a triviality if you cannot identify a good reason or purpose for arguing about it.)
• Be humble in you demeanor, don’t allow confidence about your message, belief or idea turn you into a bully.
• Be prepared to walk away with the disagreement unresolved. Better yet, make it your intent to do so. I suggest aiming to avoid resolving the issue, as I believe the aim should be to stretch and encourage thinking. You shouldn’t be aiming to establish a new authoritarian relationship (where one is right and the other is wrong), but rather to try to create a mutually nurturing mindset. The ideal is to encourage something akin to metanoia (Wiktionary: “A fundamental change of mind; Spiritual conversion”), which is something personal and internal. And it should be for both of you.

  With regards to the purpose that drove the conversation, let the other draw up conclusions for themselves, in their own time, maybe after the conversation is finished (even long after). Don’t break your head over it though… while there was a purpose or focus for the conversation, what you should carry away from it for yourself, is a better understanding of the other, a better understanding of how their mind works, what makes them tick, why they operate the way they do. Ideally it should lead to something of a metanoia in yourself as well.

  Whether this happens gradually or in a sudden flash of Eureka! does not matter. Life’s a journey. May any eventual conclusion be one of mutual cooperation rather than one of victory and defeat.

These are just my suggestions. You are of course welcome to not follow them. You are welcome to have fun being a bully, as much as others are welcome to call you a fundamentalist.

If, however, you think I may be onto something here, or you want to discuss these ideas, in agreement or disagreement, or in figuring out how they can be applied, please do so!

Bear in mind I’m a bridge builder, my goal is to facilitate trade and travel between two banks — cross pollination is beautifully creative, in memes just as much as in genes. Here is a potentially worthwhile exercise: reread this post while mentally role-playing a resident of the opposite bank. The most useful contributions for my goals are those that work both ways.

Suggested thought-provoking reading material that can also serve as more food for discussion: Richard Lewontin: Billions and Billions of Demons, a critical review of Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.”

My suggestion is thus: if what I say does not make sense, ask me “wtf did you mean with the abuse of that word?” rather than asserting “you are wrong, because that word means blah-blah”. Quite possibly, I know what you think it means, and I don’t care. Or possibly I don’t know what other people mean by it — feel free to inform me, I would like to know, even if I don’t care. Either way, I’m not going to let my lack of knowledge of your “supposedly correct” definition of a word stop me from using what I feel is the best word to communicate a certain idea. I aim to get you thinking. You might have noticed that this is not the place for people that don’t like thinking. Um… duh?

Let me give you some more background on what’s going through my mind then, some background on where I’m coming from…

At a young age, some guy tested me and slapped on a label: I was diagnosed with something like “kognitiewe denke”. Say wha’? Cognitive thinking? What’s that supposed to be? Maybe the psych dudes can help out: did my mother remember the label correctly? Is this old psych-speak that we no longer use, or is this still meaningful? Whatevah. Let’s get to what they meant by it. (“They”…)

Supposedly I’m cursed or gifted with an ability to recognise patterns, similarities, parallels, that other people supposedly do not see. Or do not necessarily see until the parallels are illustrated more clearly. Here is what I need to learn from this: I should not expect other people to see things the way I do. I am sharing my view of the world with you. I am playing with parallels and similarities that are apparently not “common knowledge”. (Read “wrong” if you like. I don’t particularly care. If it provokes just one or two thoughts, if it “raises consciousness”, to borrow from Professor Dawkins, mission accomplished.)

So now comes language. Language is a communication tool. Language is a tool by which we share concepts. A tool by which we have memetic sex. (Yes, this blog is an orgy.) Words in language might typically be attached, in some modernistic sense, to some particular meaning. You might feel fundamentalistic about this meaning. Take this Ayn Rand fan for example:

Elke woord het ‘n bepaalde betekenis. Vanuit ‘n neurologiese perspektief kan dieselfde neuron/neuronbaan nie verskillende betekenisse aan dieselfde woord hanteer nie of twee verskillende woorde met dieselfde betekenis nie, Die brein is ‘n fisiese struktuur en gehoorsaam die wette van die fisika waarvan die eerste die behoud van energie/materie en aldus van identiteit. ‘n Ding kan nie twee verskillende goed wees op dieselfde tyd nie.

To translate (my translation):

Every word has a specific meaning. From a neurological perspective, a particular neuron or neural pathway cannot handle different meanings attached to the same word, or different words with the same meaning. The brain is a physical structure and obeys the laws of physics, of which the first is the conservation of energy/matter and thus identity. Something cannot be two different things at the same time.

This sounds a little like woo-woo horse baloney to me. It sounds like the woo-woo artists’ abuse of “quantum physics”. But I don’t know much about neuro-psychology. Is this “horse baloney” factually correct? Or is this Ayn Rand stuff? OK, in an attempt at more fairness, it seems he is arguing that knowing multiple languages is a waste of energy? Or a waste of our limited neurons or neural-pathways? To give the man some credit (he asked for it), this was Johann Enslin. Enough of an Ayn Rand fan that he translated some of Ayn Rand’s stuff into Afrikaans.

I wish he could have attended the Chris Chameleon “concert” my family and I attended on Saturday. That guy is a master at playing with language. Mix your Dutch and your Afrikaans, and you can prove that one is zero. Anyway… There are some specific mental-health benefits to being multi-lingual, I cannot remember the exact details. Just, don’t deny me my multi-linguality. You can tell me I’m wasting energy, but aren’t we all, with our very existence? I’m enjoying mine…

But I digress. You might feel fundamentalistic about the meaning you attach to your words. I clearly don’t. (And I can explain my choice with reason/philosophy.) So this is what I apparently do: I remix language, I abuse words, in ways you are possibly not used to. I challenge you to look at the concepts I’m trying to communicate. The context in which I use words is supposed to help you understand what I mean with those words.

If you want to prove me wrong, you will first need to strive to understand the concepts I’m trying to deal. You need to look past the words. To achieve this, it may help to first assume I’m correct, if only you could understand my concepts, rather than first assuming I’m incorrect, which is effectively argument by incredulity. This exercise might even help you in your relationships.

Read this blog! Chicks dig guys that read this blog. Oh, and guys dig chicks that read this blog, unless the guy sucks and is not worth your time.. Ditto for the chicks.

Homo Sapiens are a gregarious species. Theory has it that we have large brains in order to deal with the complications involved with social interaction. By our very nature, we have a need for deep connections, real relationships. (Note: this is my own abridged version of the service. I’m attempting to share the essence in my own words, mostly avoiding use of Christianspeak).

In an ironic twist, our contemporary communications technology seems to undermine truly deep relationships. Relationships and friendships are a lot of work, and requires compassion and understanding from us, beyond what a selfish mindset will allow. Instead, our need for true relational intimacy (we’re not talking physical here) is being soothed by an inadequate substitute. We collect quantity, instead of quality. We collect a few hundred Facebook friends, and then try to feel better about ourselves.

The service pointed out a number of “enemies of true community”. The first was pseudo-communities. Facebook runs great risk of being nothing more than a pseudo-community: shallow in the interactions, with no real depth. Of course, as a communications tool, it is up to the user to use it effectively or ineffectively. (In my opinion, zombies biting one another is shallow. Fun, but ultimately inadequate for satisfying a very real human need.) Reality TV is another one of these pseudo-communities: the audience gets to climb into the lives of someone on TV, and feels they are building a “relationship”, but obviously this is a one-way relationship with no real depth.

Another “enemy of true community” identified, was a “self-spirituality”. All too often certain forms of spirituality (or religion) is focused on the individual and his or her needs, without caring one iota about true community. People go to a service or sermon or church purely for what they can receive, that they may feel better about themselves or something along those lines. True “Christianity” is supposed to be all about community and relationships.

Here is an interesting link I saved from June 2006: Americans Have Fewer Friends Outside the Family, Duke Study Shows. I need to find out more about the research done in South Africa. I wonder how we compare…

We can discuss more of the Christian theology related to this matter in the comments, if needs be. I will also link to the service as soon as it becomes available. (I am intentionally avoiding the “sermon” word, pretty much as I am intentionally avoiding Christianspeak in this post, due to the audience I have in mind.) Last week’s theme was “Afgestompdheid” (something like numbness) by MC Engelbrecht, and next Sunday’s theme is “Eentonigheid” (monotony), presented by Theo Geyser.

Loneliness is not a lack of people around you, it is the lack of a deeper “connection”. Loneliness is the human condition… the need for connection a basic human need. We are social creatures.

Whether it is merely the by-product of human intellect and the search for meaning, a naturally selected trait that drives procreation, or a sign of our divorce from the “great connectedness” or “God”, is not particularly relevant. It is true that for some, religion helps soothe the loneliness. For others, the opposite holds.

We develop all kinds of new ways to get and stay connected, and yet, the disconnection still plagues our society. I couldn’t dare make claims about whether it has gotten worse or better, do we know enough about the past to make that kind of deduction? It does seem obvious that this aspect of the human condition will always plague humanity?

‘Tis definately good for the psyche, getting out and doing something like this. Maybe it classifies as fitness faking? That’s fine, maybe I need something like that. I’m in absolutely no danger of proving true fitness (we’re talking natural selection here) in the foreseeable future.

(Yea, I used that link in the “E.T.” article as well. I like the article enough to insist on linking more than once, to increase the chance of it actually being read!)

So now, my question: was this less the case before people had mirrors and cameras? When people did not see themselves often, did couples not look so much “alike”?