You may have heard it said that a fanatic is someone who won’t change his mind and who won’t change the subject. If this is indeed true, we are surrounded by those today, on the right and on the left of the political spectrum. And this fact, this fanaticism, is more dangerous than any individual character that comes along as flavor of the month (or year, or two years, or four years).
Politics today has been broadly promoted to the level of religion on the part of many—visible in its ability to impart a comprehensive world view. This is an error and will come to be seen as such.
We are rooted too deeply in our (very temporary) generation if we fall into such thinking.
One example of politics (political parties) being promoted to the level of religion is Nazi Germany, which took the form of the religion of hyper-nationalism. I am hesitant to use this example, as it for sure is an extreme one. However, no nation is inherently immune from this type of cancer forming within its body politic.
One of the key antibodies needed to the resist the intrusion of this disease is to realize that political life is not an end in itself, which is equally true of the other parts of modern life. No part of life is an end in itself.
And we have to keep in mind, when it comes to nationalism, the nation state is a temporary form of organization, just like the feudal system, landed gentry, peasantry, and other forms of human organization that have come before. They all are destined to fade into history.
