What is meant by the phrase "the rise of religious fundamentalism"? Is it an actual current phenomenon? If so, what accounts for its occurrence at this point in history?
Answers
Answer: Essentially the idea is that fundamentalism is an interpretation of scripture and religion that occurs vis a vis modernity. Modernity is a cultural movement that is based on European morals and ideals that came out of the enlightenment, as well as a naturalist worldview that precludes miraculous phenomenon and tries to understand the world through natural laws and observable phenomenon.
Basically, the idea is that fundamentalism is a reaction against modernity and its tendency to secularize and Europeanize the cultures it interacts with. People retrench into an imaginary past and then use that point of entrenchment, along with modern technology (internet, weapons, etc) in order to wage a cultural war on modernity.
If it weren’t for the media technology and travel technology associated with modernity, there wouldn’t be a hegemonic spread of these cultural values and the fundamentalists would have nothing to defend and nothing to fight against. Fundamentalism as a social phenomenon is dependent on this tension between modernity as a hegemonic cultural force and people defending how they imagine their culture to have been in the past. Oddly they incorporate the same modern technology in their defense of an imaginary past in which that technology could have never existed. Fundamentalism is a cultural phenomenon that interacts and co-ops elements of modern life to defend a past that never existed outside of their imagination.
An example of this might be Al Queda’s use of communication technology, airplanes and bombs to defend a way of life that supposedly is based on a period of time when those objects didn’t exist.
Jerry Fallwell’s use of television to promote an imaginary 19th Century version of Christianity is another example.
Closer to home, let’s look at the FLDS polygamists in Utah. You know those “prairie dresses and bonnets” that their women wear? Well, real Mormon pioneer women never wore those. The women of the other two major branches of Mormon fundamentalism still don’t. Even the FLDS didn’t start wearing them until the late 60s and early 70s.
They adopted what they imagined being the dress of the past in response to what they see as the deterioration of society as modernity marches on. Of course that didn’t stop them from adopting buses and SUVs to haul their kids around in, or farming technology to improve the efficiency of their farms out in the desert. They continue to co-opt some elements of modernity while violently rejecting others. In this case they went so far as to create a dress code based on clothes their ancestors never actually used.
Without the force of modernity to react against fundamentalism can’t exist, because it has nothing to retrench against and fight against. That’s why some people see it as a new phenomenon. Fundamentalism needs modernity so it can have an imaginary enemy to fight against and an imaginary past to fight for.
The concept is a lot more complicated than just that, and I’m probably not doing it justice, it’s been like 13 years since I took that class. But that’s the basic idea behind the concept of “the rise of fundamentalism.”
I hope that this answered your question. If you have others please let me know.
Answer:
Essentially the idea is that fundamentalism is an interpretation of scripture and religion that occurs vis a vis modernity. Modernity is a cultural movement that is based on European morals and ideals that came out of the enlightenment, as well as a naturalist worldview that precludes miraculous phenomenon and tries to understand the world through natural laws and observable phenomenon.
Basically, the idea is that fundamentalism is a reaction against modernity and its tendency to secularize and Europeanize the cultures it interacts with. People retrench into an imaginary past and then use that point of entrenchment, along with modern technology (internet, weapons, etc) in order to wage a cultural war on modernity.
Explanation: