Archive for June 17th, 2008
Compasses and Extremism
(Reflections on Durant’s Age of Faith)
So many definitions of extremism. Ironically, they’re framed in the binaries of comparison so loved by public media and that are inherently—extreme. Is extremism the opposite of reason? Is it the opposite of Western?
History tells that extremism can be found in avowed atheists as well as men of God. It is not bound by any geography. It is found in the rule of policy levied by our kings and administrators as well as in lines of resistance.
Julian I credited with the Hellenistic spurt after Rome cracked like Humpty Dumpty should seem a splendid paragon of reason and balance. He loved the philosophers, was an avowed Pagan, rebuilt Greek temples smashed in the Christianization of the Roman Empire, and collected libraries. He also persecuted Christians, lusted after Persia, and created bloodbaths in his excessive animal sacrifices,
Power wants us to believe that those without power are most prone to the extreme. Rather, its stinks up hovels and palaces, revelries and seminaries, and streets and pulpits, one and all. My friend, you could be extreme if I woke up on that whim. If I was one of media oligarchs controlling world news.
Balance and tolerance are the works of civilization; its complex thing after all to remember context, to say that two apparently contradictory statements could be correct, and to admit the principle of uncertainty to the point of saying “I believe you are wrong but I will defend to the death your right of saying it” [Voltaire].
Tolerance is an act of godliness in Islam. We learn that man becomes great when he sees human will, insight, and knowledge is limited. That is the condition for speculating on alternate possibilities of truth within the frame of Divine guidance. Not that there is no truth but that he may not know it. Truth is not the property of powerful men or institutions. It just is. It was accessible to the occasional humane king on the throne as well as the great faqirs of South Asia. It’s accessible to you and me.
Every civilization sways towards the extreme when its foundational compass is broken. It could be an civil institution, a constitutional tract, or the narrative process of memory. In South Asia, civil society disappears because the family dies. In the US, the constitution splinters under the ponderous weight of hubris. “As stiff twin compasses are two/ Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show/ To move, but doth, if th’ other do.” [John Donne]
