Fanaticism

Bertrand Russell said a buncha smart things, but one of them is this: "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Another way of putting this might be to say that being wise means accepting a healthy level of skepticism about not only what you believe, but about our ability to believe anything. I don't think Russell would agree with the last part of that particular formulation, but the fucker is dead so who cares.

This is a picture of a dead
guy we don't care about.

And yet another way we might think about fanaticism is to say that a fanatic is someone who holds a belief that cannot be eroded by any skeptical arguments. We see this all the time in Religious Fundamentalists.


We also see this in the so-called "Birthers." The reason we can so easily identify them as fanatics is because despite posing a perfectly reasonable question -- Is Obama a citizen? -- they refuse to accept a perfectly reasonable answer -- Yes, he is. Fanaticism in this case does not come from the question; rather, it comes from the refusal to accept the evidence that has a clear relationship to that question. Despite producing numerous documents and records (including a birth certificate), nothing will change their beliefs.

This is nothing new, of course. Fanatics have been around for as long as there have been humans. But I think it's a particularly dangerous time for fanaticism given the cultural trend toward privileging the subject position in critical inquiry. What I mean by this is that we often encourage people to bring their personal experience into inquiry to the detriment of the process.

In the introduction his book Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition Anis Bawarshi suggests that any piece of writing is historically and conceptually situated, and that all readers to come to writing with certain expectations. He quotes a line from Byron’s Don Juan -- “My way is to begin at the beginning” -- to exemplify this idea.

I think it's significant to point out a very technical, but very telling error in his introduction. He claims that Byron "announces that he will begin his epic poem Don Juan, at the beginning, with the birth of his hero." By "beginning at the beginning" Bawarshi first suggests that Bryon recasts the epic genera as capable of communicating an experience outside the mode of in media res. Bawarshi then attempts to challenge Byron's supposed view through a close reading of the text: by identifying the ways in which Byron traces the lineage of Juan, Bawarshi concludes that its impossible to exist other than "in the middest" of any rhetorical situation.

That's an excellent point about our subjectivity, and I don't think intelligent people would disagree with it. But anyone who's read Don Juan can tell you that the poem doesn't actually begin that way. Not even counting its dedicatory stanzas, Don Juan actually begins with declaration "I want a hero".

What can we glean from this error? First and foremost, regardless of Bawarshi's subject-position, he got it wrong. Don Juan does not begin with the phrase or sentiment "My way is to begin at the beginning". Perhaps more importantly, though, I think his misinterpretation speaks to the substantial pull in this line of scholarship towards letting our subject-positions take precedent over the texts and objects that we're trying to explain. What Bawarshi wants is to find a famous phrase and situation that will stand as a symbol for a concept he wishes to explicate: "Beginnings take place in the midst of things" (3). But his want, like Byron's want, leads him to carelessly overlook the object that's in front of him: Don Juan makes no pretense about violating the genera of the epic, or of beginning in any other mode than in media res. The notion that one can begin at the beginning of an epic poem is, of course, ironic, and the troping of the invocation of the muse directly speaks to this point. A careful reading of the text (the object in question) would easily show that Bawarshi's observations are misleading because they're based more on what he wants out of the text (a clever example) and less on what the text actually says.

Along those lines, our discipline pushes claims such as "How you read and respond to [any] article will depend on your own particular background and experience. Any time you read, you're already in a situation that influences the way you read." This is true, and it's important for us to recognize. But I also think that its dangerous for our subject-positions to be overemphasized. By that I'm suggesting that our rhetorical situations (our wants, like Byron's wants) cannot determine the outcome of the reading process. The content of the text must also be (re)emphasized. If our situation is the only determining factor in what informs our reading, then it stands to reason that what the text actually says will make no difference in our experience of it. No argument, no matter how valid or sound, will persuade us because it contradicts the conclusions we've determined by what we've already brought to the writing

How does this relate to fanaticism? As we've said, a fanatic is someone who has brought so much of their subject-position to any argument that no amount of evidence will — indeed, can — alter their conclusions. In fact, the most sickening thing is their denial your evidence should even be considered as such. What could you possibly say to a Birther after you've shown them a birth-certificate? Or to put it another way, what could possibly constitute evidence to a group of people who use their subject-positions to reenforce their judgments about the world instead of the other way around?

This perhaps is a long-winded way of saying that people who live in South are absolutley dumbfuck fanatical about their college football affiliations.

1. The degree of certainty with which they claim dominance is frightening.
2. The pride/loyalty they feel toward these institutions precludes any rational discussion about the subject. I've been arguing with a core group of very intelligent people about this subject for over three years now, and I haven't made a single inch of progress. No amount of comparative statistical analysis will alter their positions. In fact, when I bring up "evidence" I'm usually accused of tampering with the facts, or providing a biased sample. I feel like I'm talking with a bunch of defenders of Reaganomics. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the ideology persists.
   

The moral of the story is: don't piss me off or I'll trick you into reading about something you think is important, only to give you the ol' bait-and-switch.