JaBbA's Hut

I think I read this in my UUWorld issue when it came out, but having come across it again last night, it strikes me how important this is for liberals to reinvent how they are going to once again become the dominant paradigm.

In Davidson Loehr's article The Fundamentalist Agenda, he discusses the necessity of liberal thought to the advancement of human society, and how a conference of theologians identified the common characteristics of all fundamentalism - including political fundamentalism.

They identified five characteristics shared by virtually all fundamentalisms. The fundamentalists' agenda starts with insistence that their rules must be made to apply to all people, and to all areas of life.

[snip]

The second agenda item is really at the top of the list, and it's vulgarly simple: Men are on top.

[snip]

A third item follows from the others. (Indeed each part of the fundamentalist agenda is necessarily interlocked, and needs every other part to survive.) Since there is only one right picture of the world, one right set of beliefs, and one right set of roles for men, women, and children, it is imperative that this picture and these rules be communicated precisely to the next generation. Therefore, fundamentalists must control education by controlling textbooks and teaching styles, deciding what may and may not be taught.

Fourth, fundamentalists spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of a golden age that never really existed.

[snip]

The fifth point is the most abstract, though it's foundational. Fundamentalists deny history in a radical and idiosyncratic way.

The article cleary points out how successful liberal movements co-opted the language of the fundamentalists. The point is, liberals don't need to move the the center, but they do need to know how to TALK to the center.

An important message for all of us.