Some Fundamentals (1):
Trivialization rarely helps!
[January 2001]
Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
Associate Professor of Economics and Finance
Upper Iowa University
Dear Shetubondhon Friends,
Salam and greetings.Let me first acknowledge my appreciation for Dr. Sen for his comments accompanying an article "A Monkey Machination!" [http://www.egroups.com/message/Shetubondhon/1559]
I have always been fascinated by the monkey connection because, after all, we are only the tail-less relatives of those hilarious and lovable creatures who seem to have succeeded, despite the missing links, in making monkeys out of us: barring none, religious or secular.
Thus, when the introductory part of Dr. Sen's message read "Please read the article given below that I received from a friend. Sadly EVERY WORD of it is PURE TRUTH" (emphasis is mine), I was more than interested in reading the article. To my limited ability, I am generally interested in truth. My interest is greater in case of "pure truth". When "every word" is at that level, that even sounds so divine. However, after reading the article, while I did find SOME truth, several aspects of it drew my particular attention, about which I have a hunch that Dr. Sen and the friend who forwarded the article to him, may not have thoroughly thought through. Of course, I could be wrong.
An important fact identified in the comments of Dr. Sen is that we are lacking as well as losing some minimum threshold of sensibility or common sense. In my view, among several factors that are having sway over this trend or pattern are: dogmatism, uncritical adherence to tradition, motivation for cheap, short-cuts to salvation, failure to realize the human potential within us to make a positive difference in our lives and in others, and so on.
As far as dogmatism is concerned, especially the kind of dogmatism that borders on prejudice, unfortunately, it is prevalent among all including the scientific community. But that is a separate story that I want to deal with in another message.
A. Trivialization: The common, misguided, counter-productive tactic
I guess - correct me, if I am wrong - the author of "A Monkey Machination" is deeply disturbed at the rise of fanaticism in various parts of the world, especially South Asia and, the author's homeland, Bangladesh.
It won't me unreasonable to suggest that those who want to help instill some sense, objectivity, fairness, and balance in others should themselves have some of those. Unfortunately, that is precisely what I saw lacking in the author's approach and article.
First, there is an unmistakable tone of derision and trivialization of religious faith in that article in general, even though the target seems to be against fanaticism. Just like there are plenty of faithfuls of different background who think they have no role or share in the corruption or problems of the world or they basically hold the Godless people responsible for almost everything, this author, representative of so many these days, seems to suggest that fanaticism, especially that is rooted in religion, is the real culprit. The author is well-known for his publicized goals, among which is his crusade against fundamentalism. Religious fundamentalism, that is - probably unaware or uninformed that the word fundamentalism does not cut the same way these days as there are religious fundamentalism, secular fundamentalism, scientific fundamentalism, and so on. Therefore, reading from his writings or his personal website/archive, one might be misled because his crusade against fundamentalism is a limited one in scope - only against religious fundamentalism. Having clarified this, with all due respect I beg to, partially, differ with what has been written in "A Monkey Machination" and I outline some of those points below.
Second, if anyone thinks that this kind of message would help any of those millions assembling in Allahabad (India) or Tongi (Bangladesh) to even least help or induce to think about what the author is getting at, then I would be very surprised. One can do all the talking and writing about these matters, but they might as well not talk or write, or even better talk to the trees, because trivialization of others' convictions rarely helps or induces others to open up their mind.
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