FANATICISM
A DANGEROUS DOCTRINE
By: The Rev. Fr. Hermogenes P. Verano, DPA
Mission Priest, Diocese of Greater Manila Area
Are you a fanatic?
Fanaticism is an ideology that eats up society. It is a passionate, blind, willful zeal and admiration towards people, a party, a religion or belief that has far-reaching negative impacts in any society. It is primarily a behavioral trait. Its origin is based in the mind but it always manifests itself through action. Expressing itself in both thought and action, it strives for the identification of the interests of the loyal person with those of the object. Loyalty turns into fanaticism when it becomes wild and unreasonable; and into resignation when it displays the characteristics of reluctant acceptance.
From Latin adverb “fanatice,” fanatical (adj.) means enthusiastic, ecstatic, raging, and furious; a kind of behavior involving critical zeal or an obsessive enthusiasm. George Santayana, a pragmatic philosopher, defines fanaticism as "redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."
Fanaticism (noun) abounds around the world. It comes in various forms: religious, ideological, or political in nature. Quite synonymous to idolatry, it becomes the number-one concern worldwide. It counts thousands of deaths in the name of religion, ideology, or politics. Like a cult in a religious system, people who are engaged in this act practices with exaggerated zeal. A faddish devotion, they kill in defense of a belief or doctrine. Creating anarchy or chaos in the hapless communities, fanaticism is a very perilous and hazardous philosophical belief.
In addition, bringing in an environment of fear, it makes people very apprehensive. It views the future with anxiety. Doubting about the reality and the threat itself, it invites paranoia, a psychosis marked by delusions and irrational suspicions.
In this connection, the mayhem brought about by the collapse of the twin towers of New York City instigated by the fanatical Islamic suicide bombers; the mass killing on June 12, 2016 at the Pulse Night Club allegedly for LGBTQ's in Orlando, USA, wherein 49 people were killed and 53 were wounded; the massacre in Bataclan Concert Hall in Paris on November 13, 2015 where 90 innocent people were killed by the fanatical jihadist gunmen (PDI, 6/15/16), are exemplary illustrations of these anxiety and fear, sending a shivering effect to the communities concerned and our community as well.
Remember the Nazis of Adolf Hitler? Six million Jews were slaughtered in the name of Hitler’s ideology. Supporters of Nazism followed Hitler like robots. Ingrained in their minds to dominate, under the Socialist German Workers’ Party, his adherents were trained to annihilate everyone who crossed their way. They believed that their white race was more superior than the other races. Then the Holocaust happened; the destruction of the European Jewry by the Nazis which was a large-scale sacrifice. And all this occurred because of racism and fanaticism of a person and his ideology.
Locally, ours is also something not to be ignored. Religious sects through their over enthusiasm and zealousness, beyond the bounds of reasons, their supporters attack each other in the name of their doctrines and teachings. Some fight through debates on airwaves; others do it with the use of verbal wrangling, a kind of arguing which if not restrained may lead to physical infliction or bodily harm. This is done in the name of beliefs and doctrines.
Annoyingly, the phenomenal rise of the "daring" and charismatic President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, the former mayor of Davao City, invites a creeping cultism, pushing idolatrous followers to defend their "Knight in Shining Armor." The social media-bashing and tongue-lashing courtesy of the avid DDS’s (Digong Duterte Supporters) overzealousness and sometimes fallacious reasonings aggravate the seemingly fanatical tendencies of his followers to the extent of making his pronouncements of annihilating the dregs of society as a basis to become the "judge" and the "executioner" just to heed the wishes of their idol. As observed, there are relentless and unjustifiable thousands of killings. Is this done to impress the President? Or is it done to identify them with their crusading idol? This is really dreadful.
In conclusion, why is fanaticism thriving? Well, your guess is as good as mine. The real culprits are ignorance, naivete, or maybe emotional instability. Indeed, the proverb, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," rings a bell. Knowing a little about something tempts one to overestimate one's abilities. Having a precursory or limited amount of knowledge about something can make one overestimate how well he or she may be able to do something much larger in scope or scale. A person possessing this feeling is myopic, near-sighted, ignorant of what is happening beyond himself/herself. It plays on emotion which will graduate to anger, and it motivates or induces to act immediately with dispatch to strike. "If emotion is on the throne, reason is overthrown," a Logician once said. A person who is ignorant is a person who is not inclined to learn by reading and by observing. "Ignorance of the law excuses no one," as the rule says. With this kind of character trait these people possess, fanaticism is indeed truly dangerous.
