Instead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world.
― Joseph Campbell

I think it’s safe to say that most people cringe when they hear the word zealot. It conjures up violent images of righteous indignation propelled by blind hatred and use of force. It just sounds bad. And if someone were to call you a zealot? For a few, this might be a badge of honor, but for most, this would be a terrible insult. Reasonable people aren’t zealots, they might say. Thinking people just don’t resort to such extreme measures, they might argue. And yet–

History is peopled with zealotry. The term has its origins in a Jewish sect that refused to compromise with the paganism of Rome (AD 6). This sect was a political party with deep concern for the national and religious life of Jews, a concern that caused them to despise even fellow Jews who sought peace and ccompromise with the Roman authorities. But there were clearly violent, single-minded individuals and groups who refused to compromise before, and after, the original Jewish Zealots. Zealotry is a force that knows no boundaries regarding people, time, or place.

That we should see zealotry all around us today shouldn’t really surprise us. We may believe that we’re too civilized, too educated for zealotry, but sadly, this a pipe dream. Any age can be the right age for zealotry, and ours is no different. Some may even argue that ours is exactly the type of age during which zealots flourish. Israeli writer and journalist, Amos Oz writes:

As the questions grow harder and more complicated, people yearn for simpler answers, one-sentence answers, answers that point unhesitatingly to a culprit who can be blamed for all our suffering, answers that promise that if we only eradicate the villains, all our troubles will vanish.

Undoubtedly, we are living in an age in which the questions we have grow harder and more complicated, in which we turn to one-sentence answers–to tweets and sound bites–and in which we desperately want a culprit–preferably a political figure–who can be blamed for all our suffering. Truth be told, we’d prefer that life be a melodrama in which the good guys are resplendent in white, and the bad guys are wicked in black. Melodramas are psychologically and morally so satisfying. How cathartic to cheer for the hero and boo the villain! To feel so righteous in your cause, so vindicated in denouncing evil is pretty heady stuff, indeed.

Robert H. Jackson, American attorney and judge who served as a former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, had much to say about zealotry. Even though Jackson died in 1954, his words ring true today:

In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds—that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.

Read any news feed or tune into any news program, and you’ll find those who write and speak as if all thought is divinely classified into two kinds: their own (which is true and good), and the other which is false and dangerous. Depending on the news source, the other–that is, the false, dangerous group–will vary. What will not vary, however, is the presence of fanatical conviction. Progressive or conservative, secular or religious, fanaticism and zealotry abide. It would take an exceptional leader to rise like a phoenix from the ashes we’ll inevitably leave the next generation and proclaim: Look folks, we’re all zealots! We’re all using the same tactics! You want unity, a better world? Start by clearing your own heart before you try to clear the world!”

Norman Finkelstein understands that the line dividing current moral and political tribes is ideological–not tactical. Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist, and author whose primary fields of research include the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He writes:

Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse.

Some may argue that really every -ism is religious in the sense that its devotees defend and promote it with something akin to spiritual ardor. I recall spending two hours with a colleague who defended Scientism with such ardor that I grew exhausted simply watching him proselytize. If you ignored what he was saying and simply listened to the pitch and rhythms of his speech, you might’ve thought that you were listening to an evangelist. The same could be said of many politicians, as well as all types of scientists: political, social, environmental, biological, educational, etc. Flip sides of the same coin.

I remember past years during which feeling or professing anything too passionately was uncool and unwise. These were years during which it was culturally and artistically vogue to be indifferent and cynical. Anything that reeked of sentimentality or ardor was to be, at best, laughed at, and at worst, scorned. At this time, the prevailing tone of all forms of art and entertainment was flat. Even the discourse of politics and social activism seemed relatively level-headed in contrast with the zealotry of today. This isn’t to say that this trend was necessarily preferable–just markedly different.

As different, perhaps, as the discontent of common people versus intellectuals. American academic Richard Pipes specialized in Russian and Soviet history and understands the particular zealotry of intellectuals throughout the ages:

When the so-called masses are discontented, they are inspired by specific grievances that are capable of being satisfied within the existing system. Only intellectuals have universal grievances: only they believe that nothing can change unless everything changes.

Pipes’ claim that intellectuals believe that nothing can change unless everything changes may describe the current climate of our own country as well as anything. This is the crux of the matter: the argument that we desperately need change, but that this change must be as comprehensive as a catastrophic forest fire which burns everything in sight, leaving the earth barren of any vestige of what once was and ready for new growth. And there is genuine fear on both sides of the political aisle and in diverse ideological groups. One side fears that what they have and love will be destroyed, and the other fears that it will not. It’s an all-or-nothing, apocalyptic kind of fear which leaves any real chance for compromise or working within the existing system unlikely.

Amos Oz argues that [m]ore and more commonly, the strongest public sentiment is one of profound loathing. Zealotry thrives on profound loathing, and today’s climate is rife with it. We’ve become zealots who are masterful loathers, killing with kindness or destroying with expletives. One sort of loathing may pass as more civilized, while the other reeks of vulgarity. Still, behind all of the rhetoric lies profound loathing.

How do we level the loathing, temper the zealotry? We might consider Campbell’s words carefully. We might consider clearing our own hearts as a necessary prerequisite for clearing the world. For much zealotry is fueled by hypocrisy, by our inability and unwillingness to see the logs in our own eyes. Turning attention away from the specks in others’ eyes and back to our own is hard work, though. Still, I’d like to think that we could take on this internal work with as much fervor and devotion as our own brands of zealotry.