They’re joyless enthusiasts, these disturbers of the peace.
They’re obsessive-compulsives with energy to burn. They make
themselves irritable and add immeasurably to the irritability of
their neighbors. Nobody finds them easy to love, and they’re even
less fond of us. They’re willing to die to make their point,
unlike most lawyers and essayists. (A fanatic is a
martyr-in-waiting.) And they seem especially eager to take us with
them.
Fanatics have been giving religion a bad name for centuries, and
only recently have Christians (think of the Crusades, the Spanish
Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, Jerry Falwell) passed the baton
of fanatical supremacy to their Muslim brethren. Islamic
fundamentalists have been going out of their way lately to unleash
the wrath of Allah upon the infidels, even though Allah is only
another name for the God those infidels have been worshipping for
roughly three millennia. The Islamic warriors have been particularly
hard on the Jews, especially when you consider that the prophet
Muhammad based his newly minted religion on the Hebrew Old
Testament. It might be that the Muslims resent the Jews for
insisting, by way of their own scriptures, that the Almighty
personally authorized them to occupy a small but historically
significant slice of Middle Eastern real estate. The Muslims who
found themselves marooned inside the boundaries of that real estate
refuse to let the Jews enjoy their divine deed to the land.
Bloodshed in the name of God is nothing new; the ancient satirist
Juvenal wrote of two Egyptian towns that resorted to battle and even
cannibalism over a conflict of local deities:
,
Bach’s B-Minor Mass and Jesus Christ, Superstar. The
consolations of religion have inspired countless millions of
believers since our hairy Ice Age ancestors detected the first
inward glimmerings of their human souls. It’s not religion (or
even organized religion) that has driven the crazed militants
over the edge; you won’t find Presbyterians waging war on
Methodists, because neither sect tends to inspire the requisite
degree of spiritual ferocity. No, I blame simple fanaticism -- a
shrill, unforgiving single-mindedness that tolerates no other
options... an unfortunate and persistent human trait that can be
found in equal abundance both in and out of religious life.
Granted, fanaticism frequently flexes its muscles in a religious
setting. Some sects breed militant fanatics like fruitflies by
overstressing the inerrant nature of their doctrine, coupled with
the notion that everybody in the world needs to get with the program
or die. Medieval Christendom and modern Islamic fundamentalism come
quickly to mind. (The old Church authorities were intent on saving
our souls even if they had to burn us as heretics; militant Muslims
simply want to put us to the sword and worry about our souls later.)
Other sects -- the Hasidic Jews and the Amish, for example -- impose
their rigid life-controls only upon themselves; I think of them as
benign fanatics.
But behold the vast and motley parade of secular
fanaticism that struts for us outside the temple walls! Over on the
left, watch the Communists overthrow the bourgeoisie and force the
oppressed masses to liberate themselves, at gunpoint if necessary!
(All those knobby-kneed ideologues know, of course, that the People
want nothing more than to renounce their possessions and reside in
colorless apartment blocks.) Over on the right, watch the fascists
summon the good commonfolk to march in step and worship their state
above all other states! Hear the zealots of Political Correctness
censor free speech on campus in the name of liberalism! Listen to
the windy mission statements of the corporate ringmasters, who
expect their overworked underlings to sacrifice their personal lives
for the bottom line! See the hardcore feminists, still stony-eyed
and seething after three decades of advancement for women! See the
zero-tolerance Puritans who expel schoolchildren for carrying
aspirin! Listen to the conspiracy zealots, the multiculturalists
with their ongoing vendetta against Dead White European Males, the
Aryan supremacists, the minority victimologists, the fitness
junkies, the organic food fanatics, the animal rights activists
opening cages in pharmaceutical laboratories, exhorting their furry
friends to flee to certain doom! See the fevered Utopians who all
claim to have found not AN answer, but THE answer!
These fanatics have convinced themselves that they alone are
saved and that, naturally, everyone else on the planet is damned.
They alone have seen the light, and they won’t stop pursuing it
until their faction triumphs. You don’t need religion to be a
fanatic; you just need fanaticism.
So why don’t they look happier, these robust warriors for the
truth? Why the grim faces, the splenetic rhetoric, the restless and
irritable posturing? Why can’t their fanaticism be leavened by
enthusiasm, as if they actually enjoyed advancing their
cause? Why can’t fanatics be more like birdwatchers or amateur
photographers -- merry hobbyists who love what they’re doing
because it warms their souls with simple childlike joy? The sad fact
is that even birdwatchers can cross over the line into fanatic
territory when they turn their pursuit into a numbers game: another
notch in the life-list, a new local record for single-day sightings.
Photographers cross the line when they care more about amassing
state-of-the-art lenses than capturing the unearthly light of a Nova
Scotia dusk. The fanatics in any field generally set the standard
that mere amateurs feel pressured to follow. The result, I think, is
a net loss of enjoyment. For all their energy, fanatics are a dour
race.
I suspect that fanatics tend to look so grim not because their
side is engaged in a struggle to prevail, but because their ideology
denies and disdains essential human needs like comfort and
happiness. They’re struggling for an austere and cold-blooded
perfection that requires more than a dollop of self-denial.
Health-food fanatics shun pizza and chocolate in favor of mung beans
and alfalfa sprouts; no wonder they tend to look chronically cranky.
Fitness fanatics fulfill themselves by whipping and driving their
poor bodies like stagecoach horses; no joy there, either. Corporate
fanatics surrender lunch and leisure for the uncertain promise of
advancement. Feminist fanatics alienate potential mates. Communist
fanatics deny themselves (and everyone else) the fruits of their
enterprise, not to mention basic rights like freedom of speech and a
choice of 87 different breakfast cereals at the supermarket.
Religious fundamentalists of every creed have chosen a radically
abstemious path that’s no fun to follow: no liquor, no music, no
dancing, no carousing, no kite-flying -- in essence, no mirth.
It must be hard to pursue a philosophy that denies the universal
human desire for comfort and happiness. It must be just as hard to
sell it to others, but that obstacle has never hindered a true
fanatic. All fanatics, religious and otherwise, prize their Big Idea
over the dictates of common sense and human need. I suppose it
supplies them with a purpose in this great indecipherable cosmos.
Their Idea links them to kindred souls who have adopted the same
Idea; they enjoy the social fellowship and approval of other
fanatics like themselves, and they’re less alone in the universe.
Fanatics are almost always devoid of humor. (If they had any
humor, they’d never hook up with such joyless ideologies.) Obscure
humorless zealots find fulfillment by regurgitating the beliefs of
FAMOUS humorless zealots. It hardly matters that their Idea isn’t
their own. What’s important is that they’ve acquired colleagues
in the realm of the spirit; they haven’t had to endure the lonely
struggle of spinning an original and coherent philosophy. They’ve
bought it second-hand, and it fits them well enough around the
shoulders, though it might have to be taken in a bit at the waist.
They wear their adopted Idea proudly, and they never look back.
Before they know it, they’ve focused all their life-energy on that
one Idea. The true fanatic is a walking pamphlet.
Samuel Johnson, the great English lexicographer and
humbug-detector, once remarked about a man who advanced his
arguments with an excess of zeal, "That fellow seems to me to
possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one." Of course, it’s
impolite to tell a fanatic that his great idea is wrong; to PROVE
that he’s wrong could make him suicidal.
I do have to respect fanatics for their ability to get things
done. The Apostles were undoubtedly fanatics, and they built a
church that prevailed over the gods of Rome. Columbus was probably a
fanatic, as were Joan of Arc and General Patton. And, of course,
Mussolini made the trains run on time. A cynic can’t compete with
a fanatic when it comes to leading armies or spreading a new
religion throughout the land. Can a cynic be a fanatic at all? I’m
not sure. We’re not certain of anything except that you can’t be
certain of anything. And a fanatic has to be certain at all times.
That’s how a Lenin or a Hitler attracts fawning admirers. That’s
how a health-food junkie can subsist on beans and sprouts and not go
mad. That’s how a militant Muslim can find fulfillment as a
suicide bomber. They’re certain that their way is the only way.
Ah, if only the thoughtful souls among us had that kind of faith!
