A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
The above quote is often attributed to Winston Churchill but I like to hedge my bets, so I checked the invaluable quoteinvestigator site for enlightenment.
Its conclusion is that Churchill probably did say this, as it is listed in a book of his quotations put together by Kay Halle, a journalist and personal friend of the Churchills in 1952.
However, there are many instances of similar aphorisms being floated in print in the preceding several years, both in the US and in the UK, so it’s quite likely that Churchill was just quoting conventional wisdom in the waning years, and in the aftermath, of WWII.
The first known mention of such a thing appears in Esar’s Comic Dictionary, first published in 1943, which gives two “definitions” of the word “fanatic”:
A person who redoubles his efforts after having forgotten his aims.
One who can’t change his opinion and won’t change the subject.
Quoteinvestigator cites many more appearances of the phrase, including a May, 1952 article in the Christian Science Monitor attributing the quote to–yes–Winston Churchill, and a mention in Bennet Cerf’s newspaper column ascribing it to Ambrose Bierce.
Just about every one of the citations preserves the two dependent clauses and the distinction between “can’t” and “won’t,” a throwback to the bad old days when precision in language mattered.
The first–that a fanatic “can’t” change his mind–implies the rigid absolutism present in the mind of a person where, as Jon Krakauer writes in his book Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith:
ambiguity vanishes from the fanatic’s worldview; a narcissistic sense of self-assurance displaces all doubt. A delicious rage quickens his pulse, fueled by the sins and shortcomings of lesser mortals, who are soiling the world wherever he looks. His perspective narrows until the last remnants of proportion are shed from his life. Through immoderation, he experiences something akin to rapture.”
Yes, I know. It’s extreme. But that’s just another word that’s often used to describe fanatics. They are extreme in their beliefs, opinions, and ideals.
“But, wait!” Don’t a lot of us have have very firm–perhaps even extreme–beliefs, opinions, and ideals, those for which we’re willing to stand against the tide and even suffer considerable consequences?
We do.
So why aren’t we “fanatics?”
It’s because we’re not bound by the second part of the definition, that a fanatic “won’t” change the subject. We suffer only from firm convictions, not from what Krakauer might call a “narrow perspective,” or a “disproportionate” or “immoderate,” rage or rapture.
As a result, we’re quite happy to discourse on all manner of subjects, and to change them out at will, understanding that the rhetorical techniques of logic and persuasion are not the same as those of irrational pressure and uncontrolled bullying.
A fanatic just can’t stop beating the drum for the single-minded object of his fanaticism. Every single thing in his world either demonstrates or reflects an aspect of it. Once a person decides that Donald Trump is “literally Hitler,” then anything that Trump, or his supporters, or anyone who has anything even remotely nice to say about Trump says or does, good, bad, or indifferent, is a reason to shut down the conversation, demean his Trump-loving adversaries, and shout about Hitler.
Trump wasn’t wrong when he said that if his administration found a cure for cancer, a) he’d get no credit for it, and b) the loons would find a way to warn of an impending apocalypse because of it.
Once a person decides that his country and all those in charge are hateful and irremediably [fill in the blank with a fanatical “-ist” or “phobic” word], then even a simple play on the word “jeans” is triggering and worthy of a movement’s, or a party’s, or a nation’s, meltdown. Fanatics have no guardrails; either you are with them or against them, and if you want to talk about something else–too bad. That just makes you evil as well.
Those of us who have free will and the ability to discern the shades of gray that populate the human experience, recognize that almost none of us is irremediably evil or unstintingly good. We’re the ones who continue to have useful conversations, and we’re the ones who are most likely to change minds.
I do recognize that in an increasingly Manichean world, one inhabited by folks like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, one wherein if you’re not all-in for them you’re obviously evil or satanic (I’ve been called both, over the years), the idea that not everything can be defined in absolute terms is a problematic one, and that fanatics hate and despise us for espousing such a thing, or for our insistence that we should occasionally take time out to smell the roses and the coffee, to touch the grass, to spend time with family and friends, and to be grateful for the wonders of the universe.
But I think, in the long run, on many levels, we’ll be proven right. And at least we’ll find ourselves a lot more mentally healthy along the way.
The challenges to future generations will come on many different levels, from many different directions. Such challenges will be overcome by those who can read and understand the lessons of history, who can think independently, and who are impervious to the bullying ways of either the fanatical Left or the fanatical Right.
Fortunately, there’s plenty of room in-between. That’s the space in which most of us have always lived, and that’s where we need to show ourselves and stand firm, again.
Lord, preserve us from the fanatics of any stripe. May their days of influence be numbered.
