Beyond fundamentalism as a problem, why does it occur?

[spindrifter]

Daily Star Lebanon

By Nader Hashemi
Commentary by
Tuesday, September 12, 2006


How can one rationally explain the rise of Islamic fundamentalism today? In the age of reason, rationality and secularism, why have large numbers of people in the Muslim world gravitated toward and embraced a narrow, fundamentalist conception of the world? From radical groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to more mainstream organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Jamaat-e Islami in Pakistan, the Muslim world seems dominated by fundamentalists. History and sociology, rather than ideology, provide a lens to help grapple with a growing social phenomenon.

Throughout human history, great social transformation and political turmoil have been accompanied by religious revival - a natural occurrence. This is an observable sociological and historical phenomenon that transcends borders, ethnicities and civilizations. During the Mongol occupation of Russia (1237-1480), for example, the Orthodox Church experienced one of its greatest periods of growth. A similar phenomenon occurred in the United States in the mid-19th century with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Stated simply, social upheaval engenders a reaction where one seeks stability and security through a return to the basic and the familiar, often represented by religion.

Scholar James Piscatori has perceptively noted that "religion, precisely because in the past it answered questions about life and death and provided its followers with moral links to each other, becomes the means by which individuals hope to answer the new question of what it is to be modern, and, in so doing, to gain perhaps a reassuring, common world-view. In this respect, born-again Christians and veiled-again Muslims are responding to the same broad phenomenon." The upheavals associated with modernity, as Piscatori suggests, are central to understanding the rise of religious fundamentalism.

It should be emphasized that modernization is a traumatic process. In the Western experience it took several hundred years for secular and democratic institutions to develop, many through a process of trial and error. The historic intra-Christian wars of religion, the Industrial Revolution, political persecution, genocide, worker exploitation, the rise of nationalism and two world wars resulted in a profound change in all spheres of life - political, social, economic, intellectual and religious.

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http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=75389

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Fundamentalism, whether Islamic, Hindu, Jewish or Christian,

in my opinion is generally a response to terrifying feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness. It involves a rejection of anything having to do with complexity because complexity is always arousal-inducing. (Think Yerkes-Dodson Law. Fear is essentially the state of being far above the optimum level of arousal, while curiosity is associated with being below the optimum level.) Many people, of course, feign fundamentalist values in order to prey upon these simple souls.

[blueinchicago]

2. Don't forget mind control

Go to any fundamentalist service and count the psychological techniques used: The use of special jargon ("Maranatha", "magnify,"; the insistence that any challenge is equal to persecution, the reliance on a central authority figure; being told you're a member of an ingroup, but you could easily become a member of the outgroup if you don't behave; reliance on the group for all social activities; the lengthy services that are sure to cause exhaustion and lightheadedness, attributed to "the baptism of the Holy Spirit" but really is the result of low-blood sugar, the LIST GOES ON.

Fundamentalists are cultists by another name...they take a major religion, redefine it in a peculiar way, and are able to hide their cult status behind the major religions symbols. That's why the mega churches are found in out of the way places, where logic and rationality can't intercede.