[MD] Why the return to literal anti-intellectual religion

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Khaled]
The BBC had a special entitled " The century of the self" exploring how mind
manipulation is used to sell soap and war.

[Arlo]
Without television, it'll be hard for me to catch this. I did enjoy reading the
comments, which evidence quite nicely the fracturedness of the American
dialogue ("if what you say does not conform in every way to what my Party says,
then you are the enemy and I dismiss everything you say").

The manufacturing of fear, and its subsequent "crisis addiction" (or as SA
proposes "drama"), is demonstrative of how the manipulation of fear sustains
power in the hands of the self-appointed "saviours". "Hell", of course, is the
most obvious religious use of fear manufacture. "Subserviate your life to the
Church, or suffer eternal pain at the hands of demons and devils."

These days we need rapid fixes to our crisis dependency. From one to another we
bounce, each time demanding that subserviating oneself to the Party is the only
path to salvation, whether the crisis be immigration, literacy, terrorism,
energy, population, education or any of the ongoing "threats" continually laid
before our feet.

The Party becomes the modern Church, the institution that, by virtue of some
moral proclivity lacking in the other political parties, becomes the final
arbiter, the Answerer of All Questions, to which the Moral Ground opens on
every issue, every problem, and every debate. From abortion to trade, from guns
to environment, from speech to health, the One Party has All Answers. All that
is needed is to conform to the Party, to become a Party Jester, and one so
becomes Morally Saved.

This "political fundamentalism", the blind reverence of the all-knowing and
all-wise Party, is the driving force in the American political dialogue today.
So as religion seeks the path of least effort, so to does politics. For both
are merely outlets for understanding the world, and when one bends as such to
accomodate the unfailing authority in one arena, so to does one bend in all.

"And what is good, Khaled, and what is not. Need we ask anyone but the Party to
tell us these things?"

Arlo