Welcome to the Age of the Blind Fanatic

          "I must confess that the great political movements of our day frighten me with their reckless
     certainties and their insistence on treating people as means to be manipulated rather than as ends
     for which government exists. Liberalism and conservatism, in their current incarnations, both
     possess great ideas, worthy of a fair hearing and fair debate... and great capacities for hatred."

                                                                      (from Integrity, Stephen L. Carter, 1996, p. 209)

     That strange whirring sound you hear when you step outside should alarm you. It's the sound of James Madison spinning in his grave. James, you may remember, was one of those Founding Fathers we seem to be hearing so much about these days. It was Madison who warned, in The Federalist No. 10, against letting our politics be overrun by "factions." Factions, he believed, are by their very nature destructive of authentic democracy.

     It seems we've enetered into the age Madison most feared, the age when politics is taken over by factions; welcome to the Age of the Blind Fanatic.

     These insane zealots seem to be everywhere. The Blind Fanatics are easily recognizable. You can pick them out of any crowd. They are certain, absolutely certain, that they are right, and everyone, and I mean everyone else, is wrong. And, lest anyone doubt their righteousness, their position is always endorsed by their particular notion of "God." They harbour no doubt, none, that God is on their side--and no one elses. Anyone who disagrees with their ideaology, whether it be political, economic, moral, or religious, is not merely someone with a different opinion worthy of respect and civil debate, but an enemy to be not only feared, but hated, and, if possible, destroyed, or at very least, driven from the public square.

     Make no mistake about it, there is an insanity to this age. Once again, this week we've been reminded of how far the Blind Fanatic will go, so consumed is he by his self-assured, God-endorsed, ideological purity that slaughtering children at a summer camp is not beyond his moral certainty. And, lest we be tempted to point the accusing finger too quickly at others, we need remember only two words:  Oaklahoma City. America, too, has its lunatic fringe.

     Most Blind Fanatics are not violent, of course. These are truly the lunatic fringe. I use the fringe to illustrate just how crazy all this can get. But there is one idea, one notion, one absolute principle the Blind Fanatic of every stripe, ideology, religion, politics, morals or whatever holds sacred:  Compromise is the language of the Devil. To the Blind Fanatic, the very mention of the vile, disgusting, immoral, word compromise means you are the Devil incarnate, the enemy, the traitor who must be eliminated. As we have been reminded, some are a bit more extreme in their understanding of what it means to eliminate the opposition than others.

     In the Age of the Blind Fanatic democracy becomes impossible. Because democracy is itself the language of compromise. It works only when those involved are willing to consider that those with other views might---Good God!!---actually have a valid point or two; only when those involved become willing not only to present their position but listen to someone else's.

     Just over two-and-a-half millennia ago, the Buddha did some experiementing and came up with this really innovative idea. He tried the high life, denying himself no pleasures. That didn't lead to the happiness he sought. So he tried the other extreme, radical self-denial. That didn't quite cut it either. About that time he heard someone tuning a stringed instrument. Too tight, the string breaks. Too loose and you can't hit the note. But if you tune it just right, not too tight, not too loose, you can play the instrument. So, being rather a bright sort, he concluded the truth of right living just might be somewhere in between the two extremes. This was the Buddha's "middle way."

     The political implications are inescapable. I wonder, What would Buddha do? Would he increase revenues or cut spending? Or would he seek the middle way? Quite probably. And if we are to believe the polls this middle way is what most of us would like Washington to find. The vast majority of us have no desire to live in this Age of Blind Fanaticism, preferring instead a more reasoned approach to our politics.

     The middle way is the way of shared sacrifice; the way of shared responsibility for the well being of the least among us--the poor, the young, the elderly, the weak, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the powerless, the social and economic outcasts.

     Demanding anything less from our leadership amounts to a sellout of democracy to the very factionalism James Madison warned us against.

The Jawbone

    

    

         

Progress is Made

     There must be some kinda way outta here,
     Said the joker to the thief.
     There's too much confusion,
      I can't get no relief...

                          From All Along the Watchtower
                                 by Bob Dylan


      This whole charade makes me want to get into my car, drive up to D.C., park in front of the Capital, get out, calmly jog up those long white steps, bump into the first elected officeholder I meet and, with complete disregard for party affiliation, beat the living shit out of them. Not that I would ever actually do so, at least not this week. But I don't think I'm alone in the frustration.

     I am a political junkie. Depending on what time I need to be at work, my day begins with Joe and Mika and Mike, flipping back and forth between MSNBC, CNN, HLN, Today, Good Morning America, and CBS Morning. At our house we have dinner with Chris and Chenk, Lawrence and Ed and Wolff and their guests. But after a while, the constant barrage of almost incomprehensible stupidity, the failure to act, the divisions, the meaningless rhetoric, the endless wars, the body counts, the bullshit coming out of Washington while the rest of us struggle with rising food prices and gas prices and the prices of everything else while the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed becomes overwhelming, and infuriating.

     "There must be some kinda way outta here.... too much confusion...." I can relate. There just isn't any good news, a friend said to me not long ago. It certainly seems so.

     There are times when I need to get some distance between me and the evening bad news. Times to move out a bit and get some perspective on things. I've found that distance is often the only thing between my sanity and despair. I've always loved that opening paragraph to Moby Dick, that reads, in part:

     "Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself pausing involuntarily before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

     There has to be an ebb and flow to my involvement in the affairs of the day. There has to be a balance. There is a time to tune in, sign petitions, help with the campaign, man the phone bank, write blogs and letters, swear at the idiot on television, call my representatives, email, demonstrate and march, meet up and join up and join in.

     But all of that has to be balanced with, as Melville says so well, a "time to get to sea as soon as I can." When, like this week, nothing is getting done and we seem governed by a confederacy of dunces advised by dim-witted professional dullards, I need to go sit and watch the waves, and, if the surf's up, ride a few.

     I live inland now, so I don't surf as much as I used to. But the spiritual principle is the same. We need time sitting on the mountain, hiking the trail, watching the waves, sitting in the boat with a line in the water, or on the meditation cushion, doing whatever it is we do to touch the Infinite, to breathe, regain focus. Perspective is everything. To be is to do and if we forget to just be we soon have no idea what to do next.

    Politics and spirituality meet the moment we ask, How shall we live together? How will we govern ourselves with justice and compassion? And how do we stand up to those in power who clearly don't give a damn about either?

     Now, things are a mess. But when I take time to just be, to get in touch with the Infinite, I realize we are in this for the long haul. Change does happen. Progress is made. It just takes a while. There is a direction, an arch to history. As Dr. King reminded us, "it bends toward justice."

     When I was in elementary school my mother and I would occasionally walk the couple of blocks down to the drug store. That was the early sixties, when drug stores had lunch counters. One day I was sitting at that lunch counter drinking my favorite chocolate shake. I noticed a sign behind the counter that said, "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone." On the walk back home I asked what that meant. "It means they won't serve Negroes at the lunch counter. And it really shouldn't be that way." It would take a few more years before I had any real understanding of what she meant.

     But lunch counters would play a significant role in the Civil Rights movement. Now the sign and the apartheid it sanctioned are gone. Progress is made, slowly. And we have to keep working at it. To see the good news we have to take the long view and not get too bogged down in the confusion of the present chaos. Perspective gives us the hope it takes to wade back into the struggle; the courage  to campaign on behalf of those getting the latest raw deal.

     It's the only way "outta here."

The Jawbone