Website owner:  James Miller

Slaves to high sounding ideas and doctrine

   According to Cervantes why did Don Quixote's "brain dry up" and 
   he lose his wits?  Because he read too many books on chivalry;  
   he got too wrapped up in them, too captivated by their high and 
   obscure phrases and language,  too wound up in trying to 
   disentangle their meaning and understand their difficult and 
   complicated passages (See Don Quixote, Penguin Classics p. 
   31, 32).  Isn't this something that happens to many people in 
   many ways?  Don't many people become enchanted by, and then 
   enslaved by, high sounding language?  How about radical 
   religious groups?  How about the evangelical fundamentalists?  
   How about political radicals (such as the Communists)?  Doesn't 
   this happen to anyone that embraces a rigid, complicated and 
   obscure doctrine?  Aren't there many types of "little worlds" 
   that people become charmed into, in one way or another, and 
   then finally penned up in, and slaves to?  How about those who 
   become so engrossed in the world of Mathematics, or Chemistry, 
   or the world of some other science or highly technical 
   discipline?  How about the person with emotional problems whose 
   mind keeps revolving over and over on his own problems?  Isn't 
   it very common for a person to become so involved in one thing 
   that he loses his perspective and balance of outlook?  In fact, 
   don't we all tend to become mesmerized into certain ways of 
   thinking, certain outlooks, attitudes, values, etc. by such 
   things as TV, radio, movies, newspapers, schools, government 
   propanda, etc.? 

   Feb 1981