Deconstructing Fundamentalism Content You May Have Missed
Here's a roundup by topic (and some Dead Poets)
I recently changed my stack’s homepage to make it easier to find topics. That’s because
taught me that tags on Substack aren’t like hashtags, they’re more like categories. I found that organizational reframe to be super-helpful because that's how I imagine posts before I write them:I’m deconstructing fundamentalism in:
as well as sharing posts on what my personal deconstruction process looks like.
That tidied my homepage nicely. Also, if you’re a stacker and you’re reading this, those category titles become keyword-rich URLs. It’s an easy way to better optimize your page.
Here are the posts readers love the most, with Katie Britt as the bookends.
Since Mike Johnson is in the news this week, here are some posts you might have missed that break down his fundie background.
Fundamentalism can be in anything. You might have missed the post on the Chick-Fil-A boycotts, where I share how you can sus out fundie attitudes outside of religion. That post was also from my Density of Ideas series, where I was sharing poetry, music, art, and books I’m reading.
Some red flags for fundamentalist attitudes, with or without religion include:
Belonging stems from following the spoken or unspoken rules
High pressure for others to agree
Fear of what happens if you don’t comply
Inability to stand out or be different from the group
Rigid labels and polar extremes
An external code of conduct and locus of control foisted on followers
There are outliers, exiles, and rejects and a clear “in crowd”
About that painting.
Marc Chagall, Time is a River Without Banks. I have a very vivid and expressive dream life at night and oddly, Chagall’s art seems to capture the fluid form and mixed metaphors in my visions pretty well. When I view Chagall’s work, I feel like he’s seen inside my mind, and I’m not viewing art as much as I’m seeing a reflection of my dream, wavy in the water, the way structures ripple in the river.
When I saw the Chagall windows in Zurich last year, which are in a church, I felt like I was standing in an amalgamation of my experiences, with religion, emotion, curiosity, intuition, and story overlapping in my consciousness.
A violin-playing bird-fish flying over a river on a blue night while clutching a clock is exactly something I’d dream of, struggling as I am with concepts of time, loss, melody, flight, love, and passages. There are lovers in the dream. There are the towers on the Limmat’s tankless river too. This painting is what I feel. It’s also what I remember.
Something I’m learning (again, afresh, always) is that I need literature, poetry, art, curiosity, melody, harmony, color, line, sound, history, language—the humanities—to be antifundamentalist and more human.
Maybe this reassurance is because of the political battles, the rise of fascism, AI technology, or because I’ve had too many extremely dull “conversations” lately with the incurious. Maybe it’s because Taylor Swift released a double album of writerly ponderings that brought in my beloved and extremely influential Dead Poets Society.
“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” — Dead Poets Society
I was a young high schooler when DPS came out and it changed my life by changing what I imagined for myself, offering me a vision to cling to in the dark years that came later, when I was married in fundamentalism. Poetry, beauty, romance, love…those were what I stayed alive for, what gave me hope, and they penetrated the stark void of rigid, binary, religiosity. “Carpe diem” helped me tenaciously grab the present moment and hold on. But it’s everything that the story pointed to that cradled my spirit.
Neil as Puck is an image that stayed with me, as an example of why curiosity and passion matter, especially and despite technological progress or political drudgery.
Poetry and beauty must come too.
Deconstructing fundamentalism isn’t merely subtractive. I often simplify the definition of fundamentalism as “valuing ideas over people,” because at the end of the day, that’s what it is to me: idealogical purity that’s valued over our humanity. If the world is feeling bleak to you, find some poetry. Visit a museum. Listen to music that took years to produce, like an orchestral symphony. Add humanity to a world that seems hellbent in replacing and rejecting it.
much love,
Tia
Well art in the Humanities encourages one to think, analyze and create more art. Anything that is perceived as "other" is devalued and sometimes destroyed. Hitler was infamous in labeling globally recognized artistic pieces "degenerate" art. There was even an art show of all of this "Degenrate" disppayed for the public. After the show, if the art could not be sold it was destroyed. Museums scrambled to buy this art. Many artists saw their work go up in flames
How sad and wasted.