I've listened to many of these podcasts, but the one that hooked me was the first I heard: the story of the Anabaptists in Munster who took over the city in months, instituted a reign of ISIS-style religious terror, and who were besieged and destroyed by the surrounding Catholic establishment. The subsequent torture and execution of the ring-leaders is still present in Munster as the empty cages swinging menacingly from the church spire.
In a postscript to the production of the Anabaptists' story, he expresses disappointment in it - they apparently prepared an entire 4hr podcast already and discarded it as inferior, but he is not sure he likes the released version more. An endearing admission, which boils down to a sense of inadequacy in explaining, even proximally, the insane behaviour of sane humans. His lament reminded me of the inadequacy of Drakulic's amateur psychology in trying to come to terms with the grotesque acts in the Bosnian war, and Carlin's self-effacement and awareness of inadequacy were part of what I found missing in Drakulic's book.
Carlin uses the theme of an intellectual contagion, which is very much related to the 'meme' idea popularised by Richard Dawkins, and used by Daniel Dennett to explain religion as a psychological phenomenon.
What I learnt:
- Anabaptist means 're-baptised' and their primary tenet is that one must be cognisant of all that the religion entails to be meaningfully baptised - which the babies and children of Catholics clearly are not.
- Religious terror of the form exhibited by ISIS, even their exact methods, are nothing new or inventive.
- Capitalism has been aligned with both class-based hierarchies as well as individualistic societies in which all are considered equal in rights.
- Anabaptism was a form of early communism.
- Martin Luther was actually moderate with respect to social order, he just wanted certain religious practices changed.
- Alexander Herzen wrote "History is the autobiography of a madman".
- There was significant controversy, and well-reasoned worry, about translating the bible into a language the peasantry could read.
- Martin Luther was well protected in society.
- It was probably more his translation of the bible and his idea that everyone should interpret the word for themselves than his grievances nailed to the church door that made him such a revolutionary heretic.
