This is going to be a short article as whatever I have to say has, I think, been said by two of the greatest philosophers of history. The question is – Should fanaticism be opposed with fanaticism or should it be opposed through democratic means?
In India, in the decades past, there was a tit for tat policy which was popular. Bal Thackeray, for example, advocated that in order to deal with Pakistan we must follow their methods – send Hindu suicide bombers to Pakistan etc. And there are a lot of people in India – including Muslims – who are very dogmatic and not scientific in their approach. I am not sure but I think the politicians of those days wanted fanatics (in India) to be dealt with in kind. Not through democratic means since democracy makes it possible for these people (the fanatics) to spread their poison.
I think this was a completely mistaken policy and that we were very lucky that the politicians who held these views were not able to make changes in the Constitution of India.
My thoughts on this subject are as under:
- Fanaticism may work in the short term but will do long term damage.
- Democracy if it works at all will only work in the long term. And that is always assuming that the country does not break up and the system does not collapse in the interim. But when it does work the benefits will be more beneficial and longer lasting.
There are many examples but I will point only to one. The USA is a democracy. Iran and Iraq are not. Yet it is the USA that has the more formidable military might. This is because democracy gives freedom to thinkers and scientists to think as they please.
Also there are two principles that I have learned from Chinese philosophy that support point (2) above. These are
- The feminine is stronger than the masculine. This is a bit counterintuitive but is also one of the founding principles of Chinese philosophy.
- Water can cut its way past the tallest mountain. Water can be regarded at one and the same time both the weakest and strangest of elements. It will change its shape, you can put it in any vessel and it will accommodate you. Yet given sufficient time it will cut its way past the tallest mountain.
Most of the readers of this blog are not really interested in such abstract subjects but for anybody in politics I would advise him (or her) to read the two-volume work of the great philosopher Karl Popper. The book is The Open Society and its Enemies.
The above book has been regarded as the last word on the topic of why open societies will, in the long run, always prevail over fanaticism.
The second resource is a short article by my favourite philosopher, Bertrand Russell. Link is below. In this article Russell draws lessons from history to illustrate how open societies prevail.
https://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/br-on-tolerance.html
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