At the conclusion of the book she says something that seems to me to be really worth pondering because we often think we live in a rational society. She says: Freud showed that far from being wholly rational creatures, human beings were at the mercy of the powerful, irrational forces of the unconscious...This , indeed, was demonstrated by the modern experience. Despite the cult of rationality, modern history has been punctuated by witch-hunts and world wars which have been explosions of unreason. Without the ability to approach the deeper regions of the psyche , which the old myths, liturgies and mystical practices of the best conservative faith once provided, it seemed that reason sometimes lost its mind in our brave new world.
All through her book Armstrong has spoken about the fear that is at the heart of fundamentalism. It is a fear that all that one understands to give life meaning is being assailed. But also, those of us on the 'other' side perhaps seek to deal with our fear with other kinds of control; control of disease, disruption, abandonment and the ultimate, death.
So, is there an answer? No simple one for sure but in later work Armstrong suggests what seems to her to be a worthwhile effort to change the self-destructive, untrusting direction our world seems to be taking. She suggests the living out of compassion. http://charterforcompassion.org/
Compassion implies that we will learn to respect and listen to one another. That is a start. We don't have to agree, we may have to work in different directions. But surely we are less likely to fear the person or community or culture that we try to understand, to listen to, to respect. It starts with me, here with my own personal relationships but also with me trying not to be afraid of another colour or culture or language...things I do not understand. Then maybe, that frees the other to stop being defensive or hurt or angry and we begin to build bridges. Compassion of course, goes further but you will see that if you investigate the site.
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Certainly our emotions and unconscious thoughts influence us more than we might expect. There was even an interesting scientific experiment that involved brain imaging and that, I believe, demonstrated brain activity that would lead to an action, but before the subject was aware of it. Not that we can do anything about that, but perhaps we should take time to ponder why we think things are a certain way. We might identify false perceptions that are getting in the way of our being able to really see and understand others who differ from us. In that way, we might be able to develop more compassion.
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