FUNDAMENTALISM VERSUS MODERNISM

The United States is unique in history as a brash experiment at separating politics from religion, with freedom as our central doctrine.

The conflict over religious fundamentalism versus freedom is at the heart of what American values are about. The United States was founded at a time of great religious fervor, which posed a critical dilemma for the founders: how were we to pursue religious goals, but at the same time protect life and liberty? How can a country uphold morality yet allow the individual the right to choose to do what he wants with his life, and protect his safety while he does it? This dilemma is precisely what John Locke and the framers of the Constitution, attempted to solve.

The separation of church and state, the heart of the United States Constitution, is based on the premise that religious salvation cannot be achieved through coercion. This was a radical idea in the 1700’s and is still an issue today, 200 years later, with every debate that places morality against civil liberties.

Whether you’re looking at Islamic fundamentalism in Saudi Arabia, Christian fundamentalism in the US (those most likely to be responsible for the anthrax mailings), or Jewish fundamentalism in Israel it is clear just how threatening the modern world must appear. Religious fundamentalists of every stripe must feel under attack by a modern world that appears to have lost all sight of God and morality. New York must surely look like a godless den of iniquities, promising a terrifying future of corruption, sin and eternal damnation.

It would make sense that as the world becomes more modern and free, religious fundamentalists of every faith would feel increasingly more offended, threatened, and moved to react. Because if you believe that abortion is murder and a sin against God, violence to prevent it is justified. If you believe that Jews are the Great Satan and The Infidel, killing them is justified. If you take your beliefs from books written more than 1,000 years ago, and you interpret these books literally, then you believe that homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.

The freedom that the modern world offers erodes the comforts of one clear, understandable explanation of life. Now we have the mind-numbing access to information on the Internet, and it is no surprise that the intensity of this clash of two worlds has been pushed to the brink and imploded at this moment. The world-wide-web with it’s vast open frontiers make ideas and knowledge impervious to censorship or manipulation, and as a result young people in every corner of the globe are embracing philosophies and values utterly different from those of their elders. Paul Hollander writes, “Traditional societies, though poor, used to be capable of providing their members with a stable, religiously grounded worldview. Modernity undermines this worldview, and the sense of certainty and community associated with it.”

In contrast, fundamentalism, with its emphasis on literal translations of texts, leaves no room for confusion or misinterpretation of meanings. It offers a world without doubt, in which the rules are clear, a world without possibility of eternal damnation brought on by a mistaken interpretation of god’s laws. Who would choose to tempt the future promised by the Koran in it’s famous verse, "The faithful shall enter paradise and the unbelievers shall be condemned to eternal hellfire?"

The problem of the collision of fundamentalism with the modern world will not be solved by rooting out bin Laden, destroying the al-Qaeda, or preventing future terrorist attacks.

Anthrax attacks on abortion clinics, suicide bombings of buildings and bridges and other icons of modernity, nuclear and chemical attacks on modern cities - these acts of terrorism will be continued as long as fundamentalists feel threatened by a “godless” modern world.

To win a war against terrorism wrought by fundamentalists we must address the existence of fundamentalism. What turns a person into a fundamentalist? And what would change his or her mind?

A PICTURE OF THE FUTURE

IDEALISM AND REALISM

How do you create a tolerant community if the other guy believes in intolerance? How do you achieve a cooperative relationship if the other guy doesn’t want to cooperate?

These questions will always arise, as long as human nature is what it is. There will always be someone with a thirst to build an empire and rule the world. Is it naïve to wish for world peace, like those earnest Miss America contestants do every year?

What would indeed be naïve would be to ignore human nature, or to pretend that it’s something it’s not. Any plan for a peaceful future must be - and can be – both idealistic in its vision and realistic in its portrayal of human nature.

Theories of universal cooperation, “peace and love” have been sneered at for their block-headed insistence that given the “right” environment people will not want to compete to rise to the top of the pack. Communism is despised both for its theory and its practice, and for good reason: it has been used as a club to support the world’s most corrupt and vicious tyrannies. But the theory itself is ill-conceived in its fundamental assumptions because it believes it can change human behavior. It assumes it can enforce cooperation by removing the rewards and motivations for competition.

The truth is that some people – many people – find it thrilling to live a high-stakes, competitive life, whether on the concert stage or basketball court, whether in international politics, the halls of academia, or on Wall Street. The “killer competitive spirit,” “going for the jugular” “winning against all odds” – these phrases are not the by-products of capitalism, as popular leftist rhetoric would have us believe. They are expressions of a deep desire in humans to excel, beat out the competition, to be the top dog. Any idealistic political theory that does not take this into account is ignoring a basic aspect of what it means to be a member of our species.

Human beings like to compete, and even more to win. The driving motive behind this desire is sex. Why? Because the winner’s reward is sexual dominance: football heroes get prom queens, Hollywood producers get hordes of young blondes. Winners get not only the best women but the most women. Nobody likes this (except the winners) but everybody knows it’s the way things are in real life. Is it fair? No. But trying to impose fairness on human mating behavior by taking away the rewards of competition is like trying to get rid of hunger by taking away food. Outlawing competition will never destroy the urge to compete. It will only give rise to illegal and violent means to achieve the same thing – privileged “mating rights.”

Men will continue to compete, as long as women prefer men that win. If all else is equal a woman will choose a winner over a loser – whether he’s the best in sports or math, leadership or rock and roll, whether he’s the funniest guy in the neighborhood or the baddest biker in the pack. And as long as she keeps choosing competitors we will keep making babies with the genes for competing - in the same way that we’ll keep passing on genes for noses that grow forward instead of bent at a right angle or strong chins instead of weak ones.

We are a species of competitors. So the question is how to conceive of a peaceable future while allowing for the competitive instincts of human nature. How to be both idealistic in envisioning a world without poverty or the ruthless greed that causes it; and realistic in envisioning a world that allows expression of the human need to compete and win.

POWER WITHOUT GREED

There is a misconception that power must be bad – every one of us is too familiar with abuses of power in little and big ways. Power is confused with “power over” – power used to exploit and tyrannize for greed and selfish gain. But power itself is not inherently evil. Power is a tool, like a hammer. It can be used to break a man’s head or build him a house. Power can be a tool for great good in the world.

Given the instinct in the animal world to compete for power, how can we reconfigure society so that power is rewarded, but not greed?

Greed is not inherent in our species, nor is it observed in other animals. The greedy stockpiling of wealth has not been a feature of human societies for very long at all, in fact it was non-existent before the advent of agriculture, only 10,000 years ago. Considering that we’ve been here in our current bodies and minds for at least 100,000 years, by some measures even 2.6 million years, 10,000 years since the advent of agriculture is not even half of one percent of that time. Through all those endless eons prior to agriculture, human societies bestowed power without the accompaniment of wealth.

Even since agriculture there are examples of great towers of human achievement, universally respected giants of human history, accorded the highest status and power, yet without the accompaniment of wealth: Mahatma Gandhi, Siddhartha Buddha, Albert Einstein, Frederic Douglas, Martin Luther, Johannes Gutenberg, Marie Curie, Harry Truman, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Andre Sakharov, Nelson Mandela, James Madison, Theodore Dostoevsky, J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Louis Pasteur, Galileo, Martin Luther King Jr.

Power and wealth are not synonymous.

BRILLIANT POLITICIANS

Like our primate cousins, we are social animals. As with them a key feature of our social behavior is a marvelous talent for forming alliances, i.e. political skills. We are highly skilled “managers” of other human beings, especially adept at making friends. The degree to which a person rises in power is a direct reflection of how many friends he or she has made and how savvy he or she is as a “politician.”

Ridley, in a discussion about male behavior, says

“Like men, chimps do not rise entirely on brute strength. They use cunning, and above all they form alliances. The tribal warfare between groups of chimps is both a cause and a consequence of the male tendency to build alliances. In Jane Goodall’s studies the males of one chimp group were well aware when they were outnumbered by the males of another group and deliberately sought opportunities to single out individual males from the enemy. The bigger and more cohesive the male alliance, the more effective it was.”

We must create a civilization that will encourage our natural instinct to compete by assigning the highest status and greatest power to those who use their leadership and alliance-building skills to solve huge humanitarian problems – in medicine, education, cooperation in a diverse world community, travel to other planets. We must channel our brilliant political skills to reward power that is used for good and to devalue and discredit power that is used for greed.

The question we must answer is how, without money, do we award those who excel in sports, the arts, and science? What are the incentives that would confer status on accomplishment, but no status on the accumulation of wealth?

THE END OF THE ERA OF GREED

The answers will be found in the underlying motivations for competition and the ultimate prize – sex. Wealth has only been a means to that end. As one of the richest men in the world, Aristotle Onassis, has said,

“All the money in the world would mean nothing if there were no women.”

Women like “top dogs.” Women will continue to choose the “best” men. The best men will continue to win the best and most women.

The greedy amassing of huge fortunes is not necessary to win this grand prize of the “best” and most women. Neither is it necessary for achieving power, status, or respect. We have mistakenly seen wealth as an endpoint, when wealth is only a means to an end. Wealth has won power, respect and status … and status has won reproductive opportunity. We have inserted wealth into the picture when it hasn’t needed to be there – and by so doing we’ve made the greedy accumulation of wealth a requirement for winning. Greed is valued because wealth is valued. But power, respect and status can be achieved without wealth or greed as necessary prerequisites.

Human civilization has wandered off on a strange and misguided tangent, beginning 10,000 years ago. And despite the endless parade of exploitations, oppressions, inhumanities and wasted lives, we have continued to flourish, to remain hopeful and to produce magnificent achievements. We have persisted. We are a remarkable species.

The long and crooked road we have taken has led us here – to this turning-point moment in history - where we are forced by circumstance to face the inextricability of our situation. Sex is the contest, wealth is the problem, power is the answer. Greed and the destruction it causes must be tackled head-on, with courage and the vision of a brilliant and advanced civilization of our future.