(Untitled)

[tarimanveri]

So, I'm back from Kelowna. I'm done shopping for ever, for real this time, but I have a sweater and some dress-ish pants and a pair of organic free-range cotton fair-trade blue jeans, which are, in addition to all that, pretty hot. Excellent

Comments

[gunhilda]

Very interesting meta. Thanks for sharing.

[tarimanveri]

Thanks for reading!

Religious fanatics and Stargate

[anonymous]

Sorry to just come in out of lurkdom to post a random thought, but I thought I'd say a little something about your Ark of Truth meme - you say a number of fascinating things about the commentary on religious fanaticism, and I agree with much of it. One more point, though: I always thought that much of the implied criticism of religious fanaticism in the Ori storyline was directed not at Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists, but at local, home-grown (that is, U.S. based), far right wing Christian fundamentalists. In fact, through much of the Ori storyline, that's what I saw, rather than critique of Islamic fundamentalists

Re: Religious fanatics and Stargate

[tarimanveri]

Hi Mary! You don't need to apologize for coming out of lurkerdom - I'm excited to discover I have a lurker at all! I am, however, sorry to take so long to reply to your comment.

I actually agree with your take on the criticism of religious fanaticism in the Ori storyline being directed at the religious right in the U.S. as much or more than at Islamic extremists. And I don't think it's helpful to paint Christian fundamentalists as pure evil, as I think some of the more extreme left-wing/atheist types do, any more than I think it's useful to paint Islamic fundamentalists as pure evil. The problem is more the fact that as I see it, Stargate is contributing to the portrayal of religious extremism of whatever type as pure evil, which I don't think is so far removed from all the rhetoric surrounding terrorism. You can't really solve or understand evil, so it ends up contributing to the tendency to view the world in strictly moral terms. And in practical terms, that isn't particularly conducive to solving the complicated problem

[tarimanveri]

Yes, it's definitely both heavy-handed and black-and-white. And that's completely annoying to my nuance-loving, shades-of-grey academic lizard-brain. That I can no longer shut off, except, apparently, for the replicators. Anyway, thanks for reading!

[sg_betty]

Very interesting! I must admit that I do regard religious fanaticism as generally evil, because I view all fanaticism as such. To my mind, it leads directly to an 'ends justify the means' mentality. It's kind of along the same line as 'absolute power corrupts absolutely'. Absolute certainty also corrupts.

[tarimanveri]

Thanks for your thoughts! I have to say that I have no charitable feelings about religious fanaticism myself. What worries me, however, is the pervasive treatment of religious fanaticism as a moral problem, whether in sci-fi or in, say, American politics. Since sci-fi and politics inhabit the same world of public commentary, to a certain extent, I worry that Stargate is actually reinforcing the mindset that leads religious fanaticism to be portrayed in moral terms, as a moral problem. I think the portrayal of fanaticism in black-and-white terms as a moral evil creates its own kind of certainty - that evil can't be understood, but must be resisted or fought. When public discourse equates trying to understand fundamentalism and its causes with "letting the terrorists win," I don't think it really encourages resolution. With apologies for invoking Godwin's law, when you throw evil into the mix, no one likes being called a Nazi; no one wants to look like Neville Chamberlain either.

[sg_betty]

You make some very interesting points! I'm going to have to think about that for a bit. I wonder if I have an unacknowledged bias based on viewing fanaticism in moral terms? I'm going to have to examine this before responding further....

[quarryquest]

Hi! I spotted this on SG Debrief and thought I would pop over and have a read