From: brumback-AT-ncgate.newcollege.edu
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 21:41:03 -0800
Subject: M-TH: Bob on Fundamental Beliefs (was braindead)


Nancy wrote, then Bob wrote, now Nancy writes again:

>>I stand by my position that the large-scale swallowing of fundamentalist
>>teachings prevents one from learning how to think and assess things for
>>one's self.
>
>I do not! Because we can take and example of the picket line which means 
>don't cross it has nothing to do with individual rights but is the 
>collective class answer to the bosses in a deadly war over who gets what. As 
>a poor and working class person I find strength in collectivity and as soon 
>as some of our petty bourgeois individualists start screaming like you do I 
>see red. Not because it is a discussion. But because it means poor and 
>working class peoples blood. What would have happened in lets say Vietnam if 
>one would have followed your line? The Viet Cong would not only not driven 
>out the American Imperialists but they would have been dead. Or we can take 
>the picket line once again. See where it gets you if with your individuality 
>you decide to cross that line! So as you can see their are "fundamentalist" 
>teachings throughout history that are draped in the blood of poor and 
>working class people..But you still probably don't get it.
>
I discussed the idea of fundamental beliefs before in another related
thread, so I will only summarize myself here. 

If, after a belief is examined through testing against every possibly
imaginable situation, it still retains its ability to explain and provide
meaning, then that belief is no longer a belief -- it is a truth insofar as
there is any such thing. As an example of a fundamental belief which I have
subjected to such a test, and which I now take to be a truth, I gave the
belief/truth that the essence of capitalism is the ownership and control of
the means of production by the few, for the purpose of making profits by
exploiting the many.

To Bob, a fundamental belief is something that is "draped in the blood of
poor and working class people." As an example of a fundamental belief, Bob
has given the picket line, which means don't cross it. Okay Bob. What if
white male unionists were picketing a site to protest affirmative action for
women? Would you decline to cross it?

Nancy 



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