Your suggestions for getting rid of fundamentalism can help, in that they can reduce indoctrination into fundamentalism, but fundamentalism remains seductive ... There's a glee in realizing, "OMG, this complicated thing is really a matter of stunningly beautiful simplicity!" that goes beyond a lot of other problem-solving/insight-gaining delight. And that can tempt one into believing that near-misses are examples of stunningly beautiful simplicity as well -- a temptation to overlook inconvenient complexity, dismiss it as 'noise', or insist that it'll evaporate if one just pushes on it a little harder with the newly-discovered 'rewells'.
"They told me it was too mindbogglingly big to understand, but I've had The Insight that makes it all simple after all! They're going to be so glad I solved this problem for them!"
There's a seductive aspect to the idea that, "I've figured out what all these people around me haven't, and it's so simple; my insight will revolutionize everyone's thinking, and I must share it," sort of prophet trap. Boom, back to the hubris you pointed out again, and the accompanying zealotry, the urge to push this idea on "those fools who refuse to see" this beautiful simplicity the prophet is trying to share, "for their own good" ... and anyone who resists becomes an enemy of that "good", thus those who insist that it's really not as simple/un-nuanced/rigid as the prophet thinks, are "evil" because they're standing in the way of this grand new (or old and rediscovered) fundamentalism that the prophet has been blinded by.
... And thus the fundamentalism we tried to get rid of comes back again, because one of the things humans are good at -- oriented toward -- is discovering or inventing patterns to make sense of the world, and we will see false patterns in noise, and we will sometimes be seduced by them.
I'm not sayin' there's nothing we can do; just pointing out that it'll be a continual struggle for as long as we remain human. We might still be able to make the problem of fundamentalism smaller than it is now.
Re: reply from maugorn
"They told me it was too mindbogglingly big to understand, but I've had The Insight that makes it all simple after all! They're going to be so glad I solved this problem for them!"
There's a seductive aspect to the idea that, "I've figured out what all these people around me haven't, and it's so simple; my insight will revolutionize everyone's thinking, and I must share it," sort of prophet trap. Boom, back to the hubris you pointed out again, and the accompanying zealotry, the urge to push this idea on "those fools who refuse to see" this beautiful simplicity the prophet is trying to share, "for their own good" ... and anyone who resists becomes an enemy of that "good", thus those who insist that it's really not as simple/un-nuanced/rigid as the prophet thinks, are "evil" because they're standing in the way of this grand new (or old and rediscovered) fundamentalism that the prophet has been blinded by.
... And thus the fundamentalism we tried to get rid of comes back again, because one of the things humans are good at -- oriented toward -- is discovering or inventing patterns to make sense of the world, and we will see false patterns in noise, and we will sometimes be seduced by them.
I'm not sayin' there's nothing we can do; just pointing out that it'll be a continual struggle for as long as we remain human. We might still be able to make the problem of fundamentalism smaller than it is now.