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Subject: Fundamentalism (was:Re: personal question)
[someone], You write: I also find it difficult to associate capitalism, or market liberalism, with fundamentalism.Yet also: The way I see it, "fundamentalist capitalism" was a phenomenon, perhaps, in Washington and elsewhere during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.The concept "fundamentalism" as such seems to have originated at the turn of the century in USA in association with Calvinist Presbyterian Christian circles, stressing strict and literal adherence to the authority of the Bible. That is the way a Swedish dictionary defined it in the 50´s and is still about the way Webster's New World Dictionary for the American Language defines it (http://www.nwmissouri.edu/.../midtermprojects/toddbarnett/index.html). A newer Swedish dictionary from 1998 includes the corresponding attitude when it also occurs in Islam in in relation to the Koran in the definition. [Someone else] understands fundamentalism as an attitude that certain beliefs are absolutely true, and that these beliefs give rise to a particular code of behavior that must be followed, and includes also Jewish fundamentalists in the group. He also asks if fundamentalism as I understand it is any rigid world view, regardless of whether it involves a code of conduct. That at least [someone else], as I think many would, easily and immediately understands it as a term that includes also its political forms when Naziism and the Khmer Rouge are concerned, shows, I think, that it has a not yet finally fixed content to many. If I were to formulate my personal understanding of the term "fundamentalism" in its most general form, it maybe would be: any conception held in such a way that people put it before the respect for the life and integrity of their fellow humans; respecting a concept more than the integrity of their fellow humans, when put before the choice. So, I agree with [someone else] that it includes a code
of conduct, the central problematic aspect of it though not
primarily having to do with how you live yourself, but how you treat and
relate to others.
... CHILE UNDER PINOCHET What I referred to was the choice of greater "respect" for such concepts in the case for Cambodia ("socialist brotherhood to the death"), Nazi Germany ("the national state of Germany before EVERYTHING else") and Chile under Pinochet ("free market economy [for the rich] independently of how many we have to put in prison, torture and kill to achieve and "defend" it"). RUSSSIA TODAY Is a fundamentalist capitalistic conception of society at present ruling in Russia? I think it is, implemented by IMF. See for example http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/06/25/p11s1.htm. A few figures illustrate, I think, the consequences of the raw form of "Market economy" that was introduced with the fall of The Wall and the East bloc socialist sytem, to transform it from its socialist form to the form of "the Winner"; complete capitalist market liberalism in one big sweep with absolutely no neither interest or respect fot its immediate social human or consequences to "save the Russians from themselves" and build "the economy of the future" ... What did this capitalist market economy in its most raw form mean in terms of distribution of resources? (http://www.vm.ee/nato/docu/colloq/1996/96-2-1.htm): "Compared to 1987-88, by 1992-94 he [A "standardized poverty level" for the region? Milanovic (1994)] estimates that those living "in poverty" increased from 8 million (3% of the population) to 58 million (18% of the population). Some 30 million would be found in Russia alone, where the share of population rose from 3 percent to 21 percent." "Outside of Russia, in Poland and the Balkans the share of persons so counted as poor would increase from 5 percent 1987-88 to 17 percent of the population in 1992-94." [someone else] mentions "Russia's problems with organized crime". I think this description does not even begin to do justice to the situation. See for example http://archive.msnbc.com/modules/russiawealthy/default.htm describing Russia´s twelve Robber Barons, on the male oligarchy who now own Russias´s economy. Ten years ago, none of them owned more than 10 000 $. Now, 10 years after the fall of The Wall these extremely few men in principle own it ALL, having put not only the few, but the absolute majority of the population a long way down into poverty, illness and death, thanks to the way economists, not educated in Russia, but before the fall, in "the West", with the "help" of Western "advisors" and in the way demanded by IMF have "organised" a raw, purely capitalist economy, implementing the "shock therapy" called "economic reforms" with 0 social or human considerations in mind. The above may seem off-topic for this list, but is, I think, important to understand the general meaning of "fundamentalism" as I see it and have tried to formulate above in relation to the choice between "concepts" and the life and integrity of concrete individual human beings. From what Kathy has told, it seems clear that she personally has been treated in what I would call a "fundamentalist" if complex way and have tried to exemplify above. Do sceptics/humanists/atheists belong in this group? I think the way of forcefully demanding for example that everything taught at schools, and especially publically funded, in principle and in time should be restricted to what has been shown to to be "scientific" in accordance with the historically rather new falsificationism of Popper is one of the seeds for a type of dangerous fundamentalism now pushed by Dan on this list, using hm ... means [someone] has described earlier. I think it also is hurting a number of children of the future, directly, like the child of "toner", who posted once recently on this list, and probably many of the children of those visiting Dan´s home page, as well as indirectly through the administrators on different levels of the public school system building their basic understanding of waldorf education on it, by steering them away from a basic waldorf education on grounds that through their untruthfulness hurt them immensly much more than going through a waldorf education could ever hurt them. Sincerely, Sune Nordwall
http://hem.passagen.se/thebee/indexeng.htm
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