What do you think? Is an open-minded rationalism even possible on the large scale? Or is it part of human nature to cling to myths, to ask for closed systems providing the answers about dark spots in our capacity to explain? Do we really have the choice between religious superstition on one side and enlightened rationalism on the other -- or is the real choice between less and more harmful myths?
I do not doubt that we are hard-wired to believe and mythologize. It is a part of human nature. But so what? - we are also hard-wired to kill, rape, steal, etc. Suppressing parts of our nature is the essence of civilization, and civilization is obviously possible, if never lacking in defects and examples of atavistic barbarism.
The question is: how hard should we push in pursuit of that open-minded rationalism? Clearly, a society that levels brutal punishments on someone who had killed in self-defense, unwittingly had sex with a willing partner two hours short of the age of consent, or stole bread to feed her children is
not a virtuous (or rational) society. Likewise, an individual who makes the rigorous pursuit of rationalism into an absolute virtue may be on a wrong track.
At the risk of sounding extra banal, humanity is like a much-abused child who
needs her imaginary friends and her fairy tales, to stay sane, to have a chance at further development. Not just a painkiller ("opium", as Marx said - at the time when opium was not perceived as an evil narcotic, but as a medicine), but a support structure. Do I think that children should grow up and become adults? Of course. Do I think that a caretaker must convince a traumatized 5-year old there's nobody out there to talk to, and she is absolutely and forever alone? Of course not.
Time, patience, and the protection of liberal (in the Euro sense), secular state - for believers and non-believers alike.
Have you read Hannah Arendt, and if yes, what do you think of her thoughts about totalitarianism?
Long time ago, and only
Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft. The rest of Arendt is, like, on my reading list, for years. One day...
I think she is near-perfect in her
description of totalitarianism - and in making the decisive distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian "fascisms". But her analysis of the
origins of the phenomenon is a muddle. It is hard to understand why the disintegration of "classes" into the blob of "masses" led to such catastrophic events in Russia and Germany, but not in America, for example. And all the talk about racism as ideology of "imperialism" sounds hopelessly naïve. A hard-to-wash-out residue of Marxist thinking, even in a brain as brilliant as hers.
That's how I remember it, anyway. I feel that I should re-read it, before claiming a good degree of understanding.