This will be the first part of my response to Dave’s critique of my last post. This part of my response will deal with an aspect of his critique that I think is incorrect. He does make a valid criticism that I will address in a subsequent post.
The first thing I would like to address is this point:
Ironically, both Don and I quote Webster dictionary as the basis for making our assessment. He does it in his post and I do it to make the opposite case in a post in October 2009. So, at least we can say that we agree that for a movement to exist there must be some unifying objective.
…
First, the reasons why Don and I can both use Webster to argue opposite points is that Don drops part of Webster’s definition. Now, to be sure, he acknowledges this—“Based on this definition, one could dispute whether there has ever been much of a fundamentalist movement, especially if the word ‘organized’ is emphasized”—yet dismisses this as a non-problem. But it is a serious, thesis refuting problem! A thousand people at the shopping mall to buy clothes for school all have the same objective, but nobody would consider them a back-to-school clothes buying movement, would they? Without organization and coordination of effort, there is no movement. When you drop the word organized from the Webster definition you actually change the meaning.
Dave is contending that my dismissal of the word ‘organized’ changes the definition of movement into something else.
My contention is that the word ‘organized’ in the definition doesn’t mean some kind of formal organizational structure across the length and breadth of a movement – it is impossible for such to be the case and I doubt that it has ever happened. That is not to say that there isn’t some organization that galvanizes, leads, influences, or directs movements, but that one really can’t expect a movement to have an over-arching organization.
Comments