The Two Kinds of Fundamentalists

      You can't hide from God. That's what the Bible says. God sees everything and knows everything. We humans lack that perspective. It isn't possible for anyone of us to see everything and know everything. But that doesn't stop us from feeling certain that what we know is true. Indeed, it's probable that if we didn't feel that way we would never commit ourselves to anything.

     In order to engage in an argument I have to respect my opponent. I have to be willing to listen to their side in order to answer or question their claims. But by participating in an argument I am taking the risk that I could be shown to be wrong. It's only by risking being wrong that we can be open to discovering the truth. Unless each party to an argument is willing to be convinced by the other it's just people talking past each other or one person attempting to bully  the other.

     Recent history is full of examples of people who believed that they, like God, couldn't possibly be wrong. When these people gained power they always destroy open society. Communism and fascism were political systems that imposed their perspective on everyone by force. The communists believed that they had a monopoly on truth and so they forbade political and moral dissent. They knew they were right and they refused to risk being wrong. Every professional and “elected” representative had to be a member of the communist party. The representatives didn't debate the proposals of the communist leaders, they simply rubber stamped them. The legal system always ruled in favour of the communist state because it was always right.

 People who now take the “God's eye” perspective are called Fundamentalists. And like the communists and fascists, they try to stack the deck in their favour whenever they gain power. I agree with George Soros that there are two kinds of modern Fundamentalists. Religious Fundamentalists and Market Fundamentalists. Most people believe that they themselves are right, but what distinguishes Fundamentalists is their refusal to risk being wrong in a fair argument.

     For instance, there is no evidence that would convince a Christian Fundamentalist of the truth of Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Fundamentalists pretend to engage in argument with evolutionary biologists but behind the scenes they try to stack the deck by taking over school boards, by getting state governments to ban the teaching of evolution  and by intimidating publishers from including the subject of evolution in high school biology textbooks.

     Market Fundamentalists believe that free markets are always more beneficial than government regulated markets. There is no evidence that would ever convince them that they are wrong - not the rising income gap between the rich and poor, not the demise of the middle class, not the “dirty thirties”, not the recent sub-prime mortgage meltdown, and especially not the spectre of global warming.  

Market Fundamentalists have managed to stack the deck by perverting the legal and political system.  In fact, a  good portion of U.S. Republicans still believe that global warming is a hoax. The U.S. Supreme Court has, in “Citizens United”, allowed Corporate power to stack the deck in all future elections.  These two kinds of fundamentalism are what is fuelling and maintaining Trump’s unwavering support in the face of overwhelming evidence of his malfeasance. 

See a pattern here? Fundamentalists and extremists can never allow themselves to be wrong.  They are always the most motivated to seize power because they want to prevent the facts, the evidence, and the people from having their say.  It’s not wrong to believe in God or in Capitalism, but it is wrong to refuse to hear evidence or prevent those you disagree with from having a say.  We can let God be perfect, but humans remain fallible no matter how certain they are that they have the truth