Religion, for the most part, promotes various forms of rigid thinking. Obvious, right? You get, with belief, a bunch of rules or conventions that come in the instruction manual. I have experienced this first-hand, having become a Christian at 20, and a fairly zealous one at that. The zeal can wear off as the rules and boundaries become increasingly onerous or contradictory. I had another try two years ago but found (despite the many blessings) that the vision was too narrow. I like faith but I want one that is more inclusive. That is no slight on God (in whom I believe), but rather a critique of the flawed human end of divine engineering.

Of courses, all organisational structures engender rigid thinking. It seems to be a necessary part of the human condition that rules are needed to create socially workable situations. The looser the structure (such as in alternate-lifestyle communes), the more the inclination towards chaos and decline. Open marriages (an oxymoron if ever there was one) are doomed by the very fact of their rule abandonment.

Which makes the times we live in, centuries after The Enlightenment, all the more interesting. Attempts at trans-national unity (as in the EU) find themselves increasingly bogged down in a minutiae of bureaucracy. Extremist Islamic fighters ( I should say, terrorists) blend a medieval black and white world view with a concomitant punishment mentality. Rule breakers are everywhere and they must be eliminated.

One might have hoped that with the fall of communism (another monumentally rule-driven ideology) last century we might have respite now. At least for a decade or two. But no, it is with us to stay.