it's monday monday, monday morning - and i have nothing at all that i absolutely HAVE to do. the first real week of my vacation. and it feels so strange. G and i spent the weekend mostly zonked out; we were both totally exhausted and boneless, unable to do much else but sleep, read, watch movies. a hospital kind of respite. there's so much i need to start doing here, in the yard, gardens, house, but i think i'm not quiiiiiiiiite finished resting.
a lot of people, really an enormous number, did the Weekend Assignment from Señor Scalzi. i have yet to get around to reading all of them, or, indeed most of them. i did mine, but got my comment into the thread too late, i think. it's here in my book journal, if you're interested. it reveals a whole lot about a side of me i've never mentioned, the side that has often gotten me accused of being a Drama Queen, throughout my life.
the book i'm reading now is American Gods, by Niel Gaiman, and really -except for sleeping- it's all i want to do, curl up in an air-conditioned place (really hot and humid here in DE right now, thunderstorms predicted all week) and read read read this book. why am i talking about my reading in THIS journal, you may ask? because i'm about to enter a quote from the book and i think it belongs here in this personal/political journal, as well as, perhaps, in The Biblio Philes. The quote:
"There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous."
This is, i believe, the position of the most dangerous forces in the world today, among which i include ALL fundamentalist religious denominations, as well as the neoconservative forces driving this ever-less-rational war. the most dangerous conviction is that of being utterly and completely righteous, convinced that god is on your side.
5 comments:
I think that's an excellent point. I think that there are some absolutes in this world, but I don't think that it's within human capability to find them.I wonder where the point lies between having zeal and conviction and pathology.
nuthin to do....well do i have sumthin for you to do, oh wait your on vacation, no working allowed then...have a gr8 week....http://journals.aol.com/bernmilo/WAYNEATOPICTURES
I don't know if I agree with that quote. ;-) I can think of lots of things we do just because we think they're right, and they aren't dangerous. Of course, if pressured I'd admit that there were other reasons motivating us to do what we believe the moral thing as well, such as caring about how other people would be affected, but nevertheless, it might originate in morality.
when it comes to war there is little or no morality involved. even the "just war" contains immoral and evil actions committed by basically decent people. and it's getting harder and harder to believe in the concept of the "just war." the kind of conviction of rightness the quote and i both are looking at is, i think, more akin to insanity than it is to morality. and it's alive and flourishing in our world today, it terrifies me. it should terrify us all.
Is that the same Neil Gaiman who write the Sandman graphic novel series?
I totally agree with his statements. Fanaticism in any form is dangerous, and more so when religion is involved. Somehow the believers who wage war in the name of religion feel a sort of pseudo-divinity being associated and/or fighting in the name of their one true god.
Like Bill Maher says, religion has become a magic word that makes horrendous acts acceptable.
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