As Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges noted in their article titled “Devoted Actors and the Moral Foundations of Intractable Intergroup Conflict,” there are things known as sacred values and devoted actors. “Sacred values” sounds good, right?
Unfortunately, the upsides of having a fervent belief in a particular religious viewpoint, or a willingness to stand up for one’s tribe or political faction, can be easily ruined by the potential downsides of holding certain values sacred. Why? It can blind critical thinking and reconsideration of alternatives, and lead to extreme actions on behalf of dubious beliefs.
Anyone who harasses patients entering abortion clinics, who gets all bent out of shape about someone calling them the wrong pronoun or committing what unfortunately is now called “microaggressions,” or who is willing to strap on a bomb and send “infidels” to hell so they can hang out with virgins in the afterlife is completely lost in their adherence to an ideology (and is mentally and emotionally and spiritually stuck in their belief system). This can become absurd quite easily—as is evidenced by the poor or middle class soldiers who died fighting in the Civil War on behalf of the Confederacy, since that rebellion was essentially protecting the financial interests of the landed gentry and tantamount to sedition against the United States—and was rooted in the addiction to the economics of slavery, of course.
Indeed, Atran and Ginges describe the devoted actor hypothesis, which states that “people will become willing to protect sacred or morally important values through costly sacrifice and extreme actions, even being willing to kill and die.” They also cite a 2005 book by John M. Gray which showed that this extremism doesn’t exclusively involve religiously inspired obsessions (my word), but can involve “the secularized sacred” such as “transcendent ideological –isms” (for example, liberalism, socialism, anarchism, communism, fascism, etc.). They note that this functions primarily when “…such values are embedded or fused with group identity [and become] intrinsic to Who I am and Who we are.” This will no doubt call to mind Voltaire’s famous warning: “If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.”
Thomas L. Friedman said, “When extremists go all the way, and moderates just go away, the system can break. And it will break. I saw it happen. I would like to think that such a thing could not happen in America. I’d like to think that … but I am very, very worried. I worry because Facebook and Twitter have become giant engines for destroying the two pillars of our democracy — truth and trust.” Awe well, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer wrote, “My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad.”
He has also written once that there is a Native-American quote he particularly likes, and thinks Americans ought to heed: “If we don’t turn around now, we might just get where we’re going.”
I am a big fan of The Week. Editor-in-Chief William Falk has this wisdom for us to consider—and I sure hope we do! “Sage historians tell us that our resilient institutions and our American creed can survive this era, too. But I must confess to moments of real alarm. Our politics is becoming radicalized, amid an adamant belief on both sides that we are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the soul of the nation, and that virtually anything is justified. Fantasies of violent vengeance are being openly expressed.”
Below are a couple dozen additional quotations that more or less favor this thesis—and one now-famous but dubious claim by the late, arch-libertarian Barry Goldwater, and one ignominious counter-example by the seditious narcissistic fascist, Donald Trump:
There are two threats to reason, the opinion that one knows the truth about the most important things and the opinion that there is no truth about them. Both of these opinions are fatal to philosophy; the first asserts that the quest for truth is unnecessary, while the second asserts that it is impossible. The Socratic knowledge of ignorance, which I take to be the beginning point of all philosophy, defines the sensible middle ground between two extremes. ~ Allan Bloom
If I believe in something, I will fight for it with all I have. But I do not demand all or nothing. I would rather get something than nothing. Professional liberals want the fiery debate. They glory in defeat. The hardest job for a politician today is to have the courage to be a moderate. It’s easy to take an extreme position. ~ Hubert Humphrey
There is no question that religion provides a solace and support, a bulwark in a time of emotional need, and can serve an extremely useful social role. But it by no means follows that religion should be immune from testing, from critical scrutiny, from skepticism…. ~ Carl Sagan
All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. ~ William Butler Yeats
There is a silent majority in this country, and it is arrayed against a radical, extremist minority. But it stands against Trump, not the other away around. He and his allies are and always have been in the minority, acting in ways that frighten and disturb the broad middle of the electorate. And as long as Trump cannot see this — as long as he holds to his belief in a secret, silent pro-Trump majority — he and his campaign will continue to act in ways that diminish his chance of any legitimate victory in the 2020 presidential election. ~ Jamelle Bouie
Where we are is that in the last thirty years or so, the Republican party moved from what we call a center-right party to a right-wing extremist party. That is just a fact. In my state of Vermont, we had Republican governors who were really strong environmentalists, protectors of women’s rights, and strong believers in education. Obviously they had different points of view on economics than I have. We disagreed very profoundly. But these guys lived in what I would call the mainstream world. ~ Bernie Sanders
Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissenting opinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom. ~ Ambrose Bierce
The historical record of religions on tolerance is drenched in the blood of intolerance. ~ Charles Panati
Democrats — and moderate Republicans — now have woken up and found ourselves in an America ruled by people pushing forward intolerant, discriminatory policies — anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-civil-liberties — all in the name of God. ~ Howard Dean (with Judith Warner)
The riddle of human nature must be one of the greatest of all paradoxes. Humans are capable of immense love and sensitivity, yet we have also been capable of extreme greed, hatred, brutality, rape, and murder. ~ Jeremy Griffith
David Hume took the position that we do have some knowledge. Our knowledge consists in sciences like mathematics where we do begin with axioms or self-evident truths and are able to demonstrate conclusions. But Hume says this is all the knowledge we have. In all of history, in all of the experimental sciences we have only, according to Hume, at best, highly probably opinion. ~ Mortimer J. Adler
Fundamentalist religiosity has become an integral part of the radicalization of the right in the U.S. and of the tendency to demonize political opponents as traitors and enemies of God and America. ~ Anatol Lieven
The human desire for vengeance is so deep that one wonders how the cycles of violence can ever by stopped. I fear humans become immune to violence after awhile. Violence becomes routine and, as Max Weber would say, “takes on the appearance of being rational.” We are in desperate need of progressive and humane values spreading as far and wide as possible. ~ Gary E. Kessler
To an extent greater than we might like to admit, loneliness drives the human race and determines our behavior. We will go to all sorts of extremes to end the pain of loneliness. We’ll get into “made in hell” relationships. We’ll eat. We’ll drink. We’ll turn to almost anything that occupies the mind and distracts us temporarily from those dreaded lonely feelings. ~ Copthorne Macdonald
Political correctness is America’s newest form of intolerance, and it’s especially pernicious because it comes disguised as tolerance. It presents itself as ‘fairness,’ yet attempts to restrict and control people’s language with strict codes and rigid rules. I’m not sure that’s the way to fight discrimination. ~ George Carlin
Only a few years ago the idea that the United States would engage in torture was absurd. Torture is always wrong. But in the name of fighting terrorism and protecting America, the Bush Administration has authorized the use of extremely abusive interrogation techniques. These methods not only grievously harm victims, but diminish the moral credibility of the United States as defender of humanitarian rights and, worse, give tacit approval to regimes that engage in torture. ~ Holly G. Atkinson
Opinions about the perfect state of human society are only that; no road to ethical truth exists to moderate between them. ~ James R. Flynn
Now is an extremely important time. For no matter how evil the Earl of Dungsbury was back in 1250, he did not have the capacity to ruin lives as fully as the corporations of today do. If they are not checked by the citizenry, we all lose. ~ John A. Marshall
Whoever kindles the flame of intolerance in America is lighting a fire underneath his own home. ~ Harold E. Stassen
Giordano Bruno lived at a time when there was no such thing as ‘the separation of Church and State,’ or the notion that freedom of speech was a sacred right of every individual. Expressing an idea that didn’t conform to traditional belief could land you in deep trouble.
The blunt fact is that groups of Islamic extremists will continue to compete and grow until mainstream Islamic moderates can establish a more civilized set of criteria for prestige and greatness. ~ David Brooks
Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often, as intolerance. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain, emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who demands, on the other hand, that man must suspend or renounce the use of his reason, is contradicting himself. ~ George H. Smith
You have the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a guy named Scott Pruitt, whose job is to dismember environmental protection law in America. Everybody knows that. Those terrible regulations, so that the water you drink and the air your kids breathe will be clean. They want to end all that stuff, give people the freedom to pollute. So this is what we are up against. Of course you want to compromise. Well what am I supposed to say to somebody who wants to destroy the Environmental Protection Agency? Who doesn’t believe in climate change? What is the compromise? You tell me. ~ Bernie Sanders
The fate of any nation ultimately depends upon the willingness of its citizens to lay down — and they must do this — lay down their very lives to defend their country. If we allow the Marxists and socialists and communists to teach our children to hate America there will be no one left to defend our flag or to protect our great country or its freedom. ~ Donald Trump
My own view is that there is a form of secular intolerance in Europe that is every bit as strong as religious intolerance was in the past. ~ John Burton
Sadly, owing to Americans’ limited attention span for politics along with their limited body of knowledge about issues, they remain extremely easy prey for dishonest politicians and their manipulative consultants, who deal in evocative imagery designed to deceive rather than enlighten the average voter. Election discourse rarely delves beneath the airiest of glittering generalities, discussed entirely in symbolic terms. ~ Eric Alterman
One woman had an “Abolish the police” sign on her backpack, and it made me wonder what she thinks life would be like without police. Because I would envision a world of brutality and tribalism in which the strong take whatever they want from the weak, including their possessions, loved ones and their lives. Do you think the streets would be safer with no cops on patrol, but tens of thousands of gun owners left to either go on a crime spree or fend for themselves trying to protect themselves and loved ones? ~ John Boyle
A Fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. ~ Henry A. Wallace
The greatest opponent of debate is orthodoxy, and Christian orthodoxy arises out of several core concepts: the old anti-intellectualism of the church fathers, the social ambitions of the church to build and run a new society, and the Augustinian conception that while reason has its use, faith is paramount. The combination of these elements resulted in a degree of fundamentalist conviction that was hostile to debate. ~ Daniel N. Robinson
Over the past 10 years, right-wing extremists were responsible for more than 70 percent of extremist-related killings. “Right-wing extremist violence is our biggest threat,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the A.D.L., has written. “The numbers don’t lie.” The latest example came on Saturday in El Paso when a 21-year-old white man apparently killed 20 people, after having first announced in a manifesto that his attack was a response to “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” His language mimicked the language that Trump has used. ~ David Leonhardt
Fanaticism and intolerance often result from the delusion that, “this alone is the truth and everything else is false,” causing people to commit atrocities in the name of “truth.” ~ P. Don Premasiri
Over the past five years, a creeping extremism has taken hold of our federal government, and it is threatening to radically alter our system of government and how we are as a nation. ~ Glenn Greenwald
They win only if we let them, only if we become like them: vengeful, imperious, intolerant, paranoid, invoking a God of wrath. Having lost faith in themselves, zealots have nothing left but a holy cause. They win if we become holy warriors too: if in trying to save democracy, we destroy it; if we strike first, murdering innocent people as they did. ~ Bill Moyers
At present, common sense is caught in the cross-fire of a culture-war between religious extremists, who think they know the truth, and secular nihilists, who think it can never be known. ~ Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
Illiberal left ideology has its greatest strength on campuses because campuses are one of the few places in American life where a certain kind of far-left politics can actually impose hegemony on other ideas and really control the discourse in a way it can’t in most places in American life where even moderate liberals are more of a minority. ~ Jonathan Chait
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. ~ Barry Goldwater
The threat we face today is as profound as those America faced in 1917 and in the 1930s. And it has emerged from within our own country. The breakdown of civility, the heightening of prejudice and fear, the spread of misinformation and disinformation, the evisceration of public space, the intolerance of ambiguity, the denigration of any standard of truth telling, the shameless venality of politicians, and the manipulation of policy to perpetuate radical economic inequality have all created an unprecedented challenge to democratic politics and freedom of thought and speech. ~ Leon Botstein
keywords: bigotry, intolerance, extremism, sacred values, religious fundamentalism, political partisanship
