Liberal vs. Authoritarian
Phillip Honenberger, in an essay called "John Locke and Religious Fundamentalism" (What is Liberalism? 11 July 2005), wrote about the worldwide tensions between Liberalism and what we tend these days to label as Fundamentalism, and then (correctly, I'd say) he identifies Fundamentalism as just another packaging of Authoritarianism (which also travels under the guises of Totalitarianism, Facism, etc.).
This would be merely an empty exercise in taxonomy except for an interesting suggestion that he makes. Liberalism, he asserts, has its foundation in a desire for universal liberty, a basis for liberalism worldwide, whereas Authoritarians (or Fundamentalists) around the world do not share a consistent fundamental philosophy.* Instead, each authoritarian sect claims as its basis the revealed truth (religious or political) of different authorities.
What this means, our author suggests but which I paraphrase, is this: in effect, there are many more liberals worldwide than fundamentalists. In any "us" against "them" scenario, the number of liberals with a common goal far outweigh the number of fundamentalist who share a common goal, since different flavors of authoritarians follow different authoritative voices, recognizing only their own authority as being absolutely correct. He takes this as a reason for optimism that sooner or later, rational liberalism will prevail over revealed authoritarianism / fundamentalism. One should probably add, that is unless the authoritarians / fundamentalists manage to destroy us all first.
He ends with an interesting quotation from John Locke's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", in which Locke proposes an argument that favors rationally derived truth over any "truth" that comes through revelation from authority.
"What I see, I know to be so by the evidence of the thing itself; what I believe, I take to be so upon the testimony of another: but this testimony I must know to be given, or else what ground have I of believing? I must see that it is God that reveals this to me, or else I see nothing. The question then here is, How do I know that God is the revealer of this to me; that this impression is made upon my mind by his Holy Spirit, and that therefore I ought to obey it? If I know not this, how great soever the assurance is that I am possessed with, it is groundless; whatever light I pretend to, it is but enthusiasm… For if I mistake not, these men receive it for true because they presume God revealed it. Does it not then stand upon them to examine upon what grounds they presume it to be a revelation from God?"
Mr. Honenberger claims great success in using this to confound fundamentalists by demanding how they can know that their Bible truly is divinely inspired and not the product of a false authority other than their God? He feels that
By taking our side with reason rather than enthusiam, we liberals have a powerful tool for gaining the ideological upper hand on fundamentalism.
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*Oddly, I see that this was already on my mind when I was writing a few days ago my short table comparing "Liberal vs. Conservative". I had put
Liberal: See for yourself
Conservative: Trust me
Perhaps I should more precisely have called it "Liberal vs. Authoritarian".