The Soulful Eye

This is an interesting take on the human act of worship, it’s function, and how it is manipulated by human power structures (be it the church, or the government). It also seems like a tangential nod to Durkheim’s sociological concept of ‘collective effervescence’. The examples of “Nuremberg” and “unNuremberg” labels are interesting and seem to reflect not just worship styles but approximate the polarity between fundamentalist religion and non-fundamentalist religion … with purity,danger, and a fear-based need to either completely dominate or otherwise eliminate ‘otherness’ at one end and the ability to see that very dynamic and at work and step back from it at the other.

My favorite line is this … (in Nuremberg) “The faithful had to be made ready to do things, or acquiesce in things, with which calm and unenthusiastic people might disagree.” This gets to the very heart of what we do out of fear, when we’re in pure limbic mode, in groups … whether in the context of the politics of religion or the religion of politics. Guilt & Fear -> Blame -> Mob Frenzy directed at Marginalized Victim -> Scapegoating Violence. Hello fig tree.

The notion of “unNuremberg” worship as being that which allows us to “… stumble out of the rally, and walk away, being amazed at what it is we have been bound up in, and shocked at what we have done, or might have done as a result of where we were going” reminds me of this discussion about the ability to engage in meta-cognition and how being closer to the fundamentalist end of the spectrum seems like it might correlate with an inability or unwillingness to “stumble out of the rally” of the limbic brain. … Let me make sure I acknowledge that there are likely natural individual predispositions toward one end or the other but I think it’s primarily something that gets imposed by the framework you’re in. I think people can, to a large degree, be taught to worship one way or the other.  Therein lies the greater responsibility of leadership.  Be careful what you teach.