"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
