Douglas Adams talks about Jihad

[andrewducker]

There's a magnificent scene in Life, The Universe and Everything that goes somewhat like this (snipped, to take out the intervening comedy and whelks):

Ford: The point is, that people like you and me are just dilletantes, eccentrics, layabouts, fartarounds if you like. We're not obsessed by anything, you see. And that's the deciding factor. We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win.

Slartibartfast: I care about lots of things.

Ford: Such as?

Slartibartfast: well, life, The Universe. Everything, really. Fjords.

Ford: Would you die for them?

Slartibartfast: Fjords? No. Wouldn't see the point, to be honest.

Ford: The point is that we are not obsessive people and we do not stand a chance against...

Slartibartfast: Let's just go down to the party, for whatever reason.

Ford: I think that's what I was trying to say.

Or as Yeats once said:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst. Are full of passionate intensity

And it's true. Look at the way that (for instance) the Democrats are versus the way that the Republicans are - The Republicans are _consumed_ by the belief that they are doing the right thing - they're a well-oiled machine dedicated to re-election, willing to let nothing stand in their way. They know that they're right and therefore anything that stands in their way is wrong. The Democrats always seem to have an apologetic air about them - "Yes, taxes need to go up, and we're sorry about that, but we think that maybe it'll make life better in the long run, kinda."

Somewhere far off in the distance from both these groups is me - I don't believe anything. I have theories, which I'm vaguely attached to in a variety of degrees, but I don't believe in them in anything more than a vague, postmodern working-draft way. My 'morals' are merely a collection of things that I like more than I like other things - mere whisps and fantasms compared to the rock-hard ideals that come with true belief.

I can't take on people that Believe. They attack on battlegrounds I have problems even seeing. All I can try to do is live my life as I see fit and occasionally try to persuade others that these battlegrounds aren't there either.

I wish I could believe - but I've seen too much and read too much and thought too much to have anywhere near the requisite levels of faith. I just try to live with the Whole Sort Of General Mish Mash and hope that someday enough people will feel likewise to make this world a little less terrible. I's not an entirely forlorn hope - the world is currently better, socially speaking, than it's ever been before. Some part of me hopes that it'll keep moving in the current direction fast enough to avoid the terrible problems that are lying in wait around the next corner...

(and yes, I know, I sound like an old hippy)

Comments

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Pragmatism is no kind of belief, but it's still an approach that can get things done right, eventually. And it can be quite a foil for the obsessive believers, who, (unless they're right - yeah, right...), will continue down a wrong path which the pragmatic will have turned off when they realised they were heading in the wrong direction.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm a hippy and I believe passionately in lots of things. Not sexy 'big picture' stuff, but how standard education is fucked up and food in this country is a mess and public transport and other hippy stuff. And I try to live those values. But I don't want to join a party just because - I need one that at least vaguely maps to my way of looking at life.

[dragonscholar.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I find it sad that, well, fanatic assholes, seem to be more focused and organized than me.

What I keep in mind is the things I believe in and want to see - justice, equality, creativity, compassion. I many not always be sure how to reach them, but I believe in them and WANT them.