Einstein: "Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."

If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it. -S.I. Hayakawa

=======

Part of my attitude toward ritual and orthodoxy is just reaction and rebellion against my childhood experience. The orthodox tendency of even my (1950's) Methodist group was oppressive, spiritually and philosophically.

Their message: Suppress your emotions! Stop your thinking! To me, that pretty much excluded all that you could call human, so, being human, I excluded them!

Religion or Spirituality should grow from what natural feelings are in you, not from rituals and other pressures imposed from outside.

Here's a little experiment: cross your arms. That's orthodox. Now pull out your right forearm and tuck it over the left. OOOOH, that feels wrong! That's unorthodox. Betcha laughed. Try the same with your fingers. Mesh them together, then again with your right thumb closer to your tummy! Again; it's just... wrong! That's why we can feel so strongly that left-handedness and gay is "wrong". It is wrong... for the others. And vice versa.

But... that's a feeling, not an opinion. What if an authority told you that what he thought was wrong, you must think is wrong too?

This is:

"THE TYRRANY OF ORTHODOXY".

Conformity is tyranny; even if you're the policeman of and against yourself. Orthodoxy is the social pressure used to keep people submissive and unquestioning.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would voluntarily submit to an identity-crushing external authority, without so much as a thoughtful question. They may have, if I may coin a word, librophobia: the fear of freedom. That fear is instituted and played upon by those with a near-paranoid fear of disorder and imminent punishment, a distrust of other's good intentions, as well as a self-righteous drive for power, especially the power to override and control those other people's dangerous thoughts.

This brings the Dark Ages and 1984 to mind. But let's detour to the dictionary first.

Originally, "Orthos" was Greek, meaning "straight". Let's look at Webster's; first the combining form's literal meanings. Ortho-: right, correct. -dox: opinion. Therefore, it was the first "political correctness". It is not just an oppression of speech, but of our very thoughts. It's "in agreement with" not nature, but with authority.

Additional synonyms: 1: agreeing with, or congruous with, the creed of a church. 2: approved, conforming to a standardized doctrine. Conventional, canonical, standard.

Rodale's Synonyms: 1: authoritarian, doctrinal. 2:conformity, compliance, obedience, traditional, customary. 3. conservative, fundamental, puritan, literal, hidebound, strict, rigid, inflexible, uncompromizing, unbending, unyielding!

What a heavy set of labels! These terms, it seems to me, are not those that would describe a grown-up, intelligent person. It seems someone who is more like a slave; no, a golem. The undead, unliving.

Orthodoxy's definition is closely allied with "traditional" and "conservative" and even "Luddite".

"Conservative"/ "Orthodoxy"/ "Tradition"... perhaps I can make one definition to fit all. Here 'tis: a procedure, habit, or observance whose function or purpose is no longer necessary, perhaps not even remembered, or whose result is no longer useful, but is, in a sense, just "famous for being famous". It is done for no other reason than that it was done. It is remembered for no other reason than that it was remembered.

When doubt is killed, dogma grows. Dogma is the result of the drive for certainty in old insecure institutions. And Orthodoxy--literally--is to be frozen in past dogma. It is fear and denial of the futures that could be, and it is a desperate desire for certainty. The goal of an orthodox life is to sleep through it; a continuous suicide. The murder of every moment, every possibility, as it comes freely to you, D.O.A. How pointless.

Tradition has value, sure, but only so long as the value described in that tradition still has value in the present situation. Tradition is comfortable; which is good and bad. Tradition gives us an excuse for a celebration.

On the other hand, one traditional value was the rule of thumb: beating your wife, but not with a switch bigger in diameter than your thumb. During the time and place that practice was accepted, it was... orthodox.

Some orthodox views may be intricate and well thought out, but those views must be narrow, or they are not within the definition of orthodox.

Orthodoxy, in any area of learning or knowledge, obscures examination of it, so that further learning or knowledge may become based upon misunderstandings and "wanna-believes" that have no connection to reality. The facts then fall into a dark-age hole. This is true not only in science, but philosophy, and any area of thought. It's ridiculous to say that you "chose" to believe. That super-imposes another self (encourages something like multiple personalities), a self that doesn't know what your first self has decided.

Once an orthodoxy triumphs, we often stop even discussing the fundamentals. It's like a cartoon character who walks off the cliff and stands there in the air; finally a fact will insist on showing itself thru the smoke of orthodoxy, and a hard fall follows. Orthodoxy is soon beyond the line where voluntary ignorance causes harm. Everywhere we see extremely religious people, and extremely patriotic people, proudly doing deeds that result in evil/harm. (see The Deadly Virtues)

"Progress", by definition, means breaking with tradition, so, to various degrees, these will conflict. Sometimes it takes violence to get rid of old traditions like the rule of thumb. An iconoclast is an icon-breaker.

There is probably no class of people on Earth that is more political than religious leaders of an upper level. It is one of the oldest paths to power. Humankind has excelled in making new groups within which to beat pathways to the top. An underling will shake things up till a path upwards opens within their group. If they can fight their way to the top... then they want things to stay as they are, when the way they are is what allowed them to get power. Orthodoxy is the refrain sung by the powerful to the weak. (If they can't get to the top, some form new groups... with themselves on top.)

Orthodoxy of the religious stripe is particularly susceptible to the corruptive effects of that power --as the power they take, they try to make absolute. The corruptive temptation becomes more powerful and addictive in proportion to its authority.

An idealist, of any stripe, is less open to change, and if he is connected with power, is highly vunerable to corruption.

An example from the Discovery Channel program: "Renaissance". "John Hus ("Yan Huus". Bohemian priest, later burned at stake as heretic --which inspired Hussite Wars, 1419-34.) He influenced young Martin Luther. They and their followers did more than just confront religious, political, and social authority; they taught us --whether they meant to or not-- that without the balancing force of dissent, orthodoxy tips all too easily into tyrrany."

A quote from the future now! "Jean-Luc Picard", of Star Trek: "The road from legitimate suspicion to rampant tyranny is very much shorter than we would think."

Martin Luther supported the anti-rebellious King * somebody the Wise, which led to the hanging --and death by other means-- of 120,000 peasants in the German countryside. See the file.)

Oppression creates obsession: the more you fight something natural or of human rights, the stronger it gets! And vice versa--the stronger the fight gets, the more the authority will try to suppress it.

This you see in every Mafia movie: it is unfortunate that the emotions of fear and respect are so easily transmuted. It is healthier to hold them distinct and apart. Nobody respects a bully, be he on the schoolyard or of the Mafia.

Orthodoxy fertilizes criticism and blame. It's egocentric; its statement: "I do it my way; he does it the wrong way." "I was wrong once... I thot for a second that I made a mistake!"

Orthodoxy tries to squelch thought by making it seem an evil; unacceptable, suspect. Thought leads to change! (horrors!) Change threatens power. The powerful think they have it made as things are. They were "meant" to have all power.

Ortho says: Where the path to perfection is laid out by tradition, there needs to be no change; therefore, original thought is unnecessary and superfluous, and to question that tradition is dangerous. It's obviously destructive, that's why we call the most orthodox time: the Dark Ages. Perls: "If that's the way you've always done it, it's probably wrong."

But those already in absolute power are not known to be very reasonable; they control their segment of the world. They force others to be reasonable; meaning, in this case, complacent.

George Bernard Shaw (forgive his sexism):

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

The new group that finally changed things were the scientists. In contrast, they got no authority over other people's lives, so their exposure to the corruptive influence of power was minimal. Their path to power was laid out quite differently. They got... "tenure". They got... patents, Nobel Prizes, fame and respect. They had to make their personal progress by discovering the objective truth of nature, for the benefit of all mankind. A scientist seems to me much closer to sainthood or enlightenment.

Stephen J. Gould:

"Objectivity is not an unobtainable emptying of mind but a willingness to abandon a set of preferences when the world seems to work in a contrary way."

Nobody deserves more of your suspicion than a politician who waves a flag too hard. Or any theologian who thumps his particular holy book too hard.

========= HERESY The opposite of orthodoxy. Extreme orthodoxy will see any slight deviation as heresy.

Kaufmann ("The Faith of a Heretic"): "Heresy is a set of opinions "at variance with established or generally received principles." Pope Innocent III and St. Thomas Aquinas said kill 'em, and Luther said condemn them unheard and burn them, yet St. Augustine said "None save great men have been the authors of heresies."

In theology, he says, it's any "opinion that is contrary to the fundamental doctrine or creed of any particular church" is heretical from the point of view of the churches to which we do not belong. And none of us can belong to the lot. We are all heretics. ... In a sense, heresy is the price of all originality and innovation."

Any scientist is an heretic in that he destroys mysteries. He is anti-orthodox. He says that things are not as people had imagined and wanted them to be, but as they actually are. Is this like--without their permission--rearranging the furniture in other people's houses? No, it's more like telling a blind resident where the footstool really is, when he's been told it's elsewhere.

Things are often the reverse of what they seem on the surface. Like the flag-burning issue. "Faith" is one of these:
Thomas Jefferson:

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith."

============Mystery

"Mystery" is ok if you mean "ineffable awe", but that's a rare connotation. Most is artificial, an accidental construct of impulsive metaphor. Some is deceitful.
. A mystery is a pitiful empty thing --a purposeful combination of handy misunderstandings. We feel an attraction to it, yes, but only because it's a challenge. Humanity has a built-in need for/ reaction to... challenge; a need to know; to fill in that empty area with richness. That need almost defines humanity, now that so many other definitions are obsolete. (the only thinker, tool-user...) To let the challenge become the goal is to mistake the menu for the meal... to stop your progress just when you've seen the problem. To identify the problem is not the end of the process!

"A mystery is a problem we want not to be solved." (after Gabriel Marcel) Somehow, mystery engenders awe. Is that a good thing? NO. We feel a need for awe--"awe is good"--but that dosen't mean that any way to get it is a good way, or is a way that's valid at all. Something in us also rebels against an unknown.

A mystery is an insult to our competence, or it wouldn't still be a mystery. Once solved, there is no longer the attraction of the challenge, but there is an awe of the reality, and the satisfaction that we have triumphed over ignorance. Once solved, the former mystery has lost its importance. (& its potency.) Then, almost always, where we've solved the puzzle, there appears... a deeper puzzle. Happy day!

Remember... inability to explain a mystery is not proof of magic, or proof of its supernatural nature. It is a simple definition: something mysterious is merely something that you're ignorant about! That should feel unacceptable, and certainly not desirable.

Zen masters have always found simple reality to be an awesome thing--that's the secret.

========POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
and conformity.

I was confused when I read my first article about PC. The term was then new, and nobody offered a good definition. The article complained about the concept, comparing it to dictatorship, so I tended to agree. However, there was a certain right-wing feel to it. That couldn't be!

Now... I'm against conformity and orthodoxy, so I agree, but why shouldn't we fight against racism, sexism or ageism? Isn't it best to put social pressure on those who'd deprive people of their rights and dignity?

What to do? I am for doing the correct thing. But isn't that a right-wing pressure to conform? Should we all conform to good behavior? If so, whose definition of it?

The difference is this: It's wrong to do the right thing just for reasons of conformity. To fight against racism e.g., only because "it's the right thing", or because it's the majority opinion... is cowardly. It means that if the opinion around you were otherwise, you'd probably be on that side just as strongly! This is what the "negroes" of the fifties and sixties criticized the liberal whites for.

Of course, it's also wrong to do the wrong thing for conformity to majority opinion. This one is a tough one to become aware of. The majority usually seems to have many good reasons for their position, and it's hard to find the opinion of a minority. Even the Nazis had their reasons, based on misplaced virtue. (Deadly Virtues)

The best way is to reject comformity and orthodoxy, examine the issue, and do as you decide, no matter what the majority opinion.

If that conforms--or even if it's a consensus--fine. But then it's your decision, and
decision is identity.