Tuesday, November 16, 2004

In the beginning was the word

And that's the fundamental problem, I think. Fundamentalism of all stripes is firmly anchored, nay cemented, to literal readings of the texts upon which they are based. Thus you wind up with situations in which words that were composed by other human beings who were reacting to their own myths and prejudices have become the arbiters by which millions of people on this earth judge themselves.

I feel myself turning into a French feminist. Language is fluid, not static. Fundamentalism is a phallic interpretation of language--hard and unyielding, whereas life, and the language that we need to live that life, must be fluid enough to accommodate changing experiences.

So fundamentalism is phallocratic, phallocentric, and phallologocentric. And as much as I like cocks, as the great Groucho said, "I take it out of my mouth every now and then." I refuse to speak the language of fundamentalism.

1 comment:

lorraine said...

Well, so much for dialogue.
And, Ric, may I suggest you study a little religious history? I'd be happy to point you to texts by learned religious scholars who discuss the issues of fundamentalism as they manifest in all of the world's religions.
Perhaps you'd like to take a start with that old chestnut,
"Hoc est corpus meum." See just how many fights broke out among Christians as to the meaning of the word "est."
Perhaps you remember Luther and Zwingli?