Andrew Sullivan uttered the following two sentences with regards to Iraian society:
"When every piece of data requires a reassertion of doctrine in order to banish reality from people's minds, government becomes impossible. All that is possible is brute force and terror."
The first sentence is a summary of the fundamentalist ideolgue's strategy for mental health. And it is remarkable how successful people can be at keeping conflicting beliefs, and information that undermines one's beliefs, mentally compartmentalized.
My second thought is that I'd modify the first sentence to read, "good government becomes impossible. We just endured eight years of an administration who goverend by the very strategy described in the first sentence. It wasn't good government, but it was government.
I guess its all a matter of degree.
Joe H.
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The Years Of Writing Dangerously
9 years ago
2 comments:
Joe:
You make an interesting comment regarding the fundamentalist's strategy for mental health. A recent Time article regarding Mormon's and Prop 8, asserts that Mormonism (which, as you know, is the culture I came from) creates a mentally healthy and obedient people. I thought it was a strange thing to say about a people who lead the nation in the use of antidepressants. I've wondered if the effort at ignoring the cognitive dissonance many Mormons experience in order to remain faithful has something to do with the high-level of drug use.
On the other hand, the Mormon church seems to exact obedience without terror or brute force.
Alan
I would bet that ignoring and or supressing cognitive dissonance is a big part of the depression experienced by LDS people. I'd also guess it is a product of trying to be perfect (or at least appearing to be perfect).
As for your comment about "terror," I guess it depends on what kind of terror we're talking about. It is awfully terrifying for some people to contemplate exclsuion from their social network if they speak their minds or enjoy themselves as they like. That terror keeps a lot of people quiet and obediant.
Of course, in this respect, Mormons are no worse - and are probably a lot better - than a typical University English department.
Joe
Joe
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