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• Sunday, November 2, 2008 09:08 PM

  Figments of the imagination

  This author, like just about anyone writing about politics, makes the mistake of assuming that "fundamentalism," "conservatism," and "Christianity" are real concepts, tangible realities, and entities that have some kind of permanence, a constancy over time.

  Actually, they are all unreal, intangible, and temporary. Figments of the imagination. Fundamentalist Christianity is all made-up, flights of fancy, obsessive, hysterical beliefs manufactured by a succession of opportunists over the span of centuries. The history of Christianity, indeed, is a history of piling up of ritual and orthodoxy to create paranoid cults that try to outdo each other in madness and conformity.

  "Conservatism" is hardly any better. Supposedly a collection of beliefs in "freedom" and "individuality," it is actually an association of bigots and greedheads. The reason that "liberals" and "leftists" don't effectively pull back the curtain on all this fakery is that "conservatives" give them an enemy, an "ideological" opponent to fight against in the supposed forum of "ideas."

  This will all change soon. Climate change changes the underlying support infrastructure that makes this phony divide possible. As the ecological support base weakens, the planetary superstructure that makes industrial culture possible no longer makes it possible.

  Put another way, "fundamentalism" and "conservatism" are luxuries, just like trophy houses, trophy wives, and trophy automobiles. The age of luxury is about to end.

  —HappyJack Read HappyJack's other letters
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