The roots of conflict
Here’s some more grist for the fundamentalist mill.
In an article in The Guardian, Umberto Eco looks at the roots of fundamentalism:
"All the religious wars that have caused blood to be shed for centuries arise from passionate feelings and facile counter-positions, such as Us and Them, good and bad, white and black. If western culture is shown to be rich it is because, even before the Enlightenment, it has tried to "dissolve" harmful simplifications through inquiry and the critical mind."
But Eco does not fall into the trap that his fellow countryman, Prime Minister and idiot Silvio Berlusconi, did of claiming any kind of superiority for western culture. Instead he argues that what is important is not superiority but pluralism and toleration.
As well as being relevant to what I’ve written here previously, any opportunity to read something new from Umberto Eco is to be welcomed.
Eco has been one of my favourite authors ever since I read the brilliant Foucault’s Pendulum.
Jessica explains it far more eloquently than I ever could:
"If I were to sell my soul to the devil, it would be so that I could have the knowledge, wit, and writing ability of this man."
Sunday, October 14th, 2001 2:16pm
Illustrations
Thanks to the magic of machine tags, you can illustrate this post by tagging a picture on Flickr with:
