Social Psychology: Religious Fundamentalism - Term Paper Example

Religious Fundamentalism Your s At the onset, it is better to differentiate between what we refer to as fundamentalism andwhat is termed as traditionalism. Traditionalism is to revere the past and to deem it important to preserve it and hand it down. It is to maintain the religious traditions and to either try and adapt it to the present conditions or to separate oneself from the present conditions completely like, for instance, the Amish. Traditionalists do proselytize, however, they do not seek to compel others to follow their beliefs. (Samuel C. Heilman, 2007) Fundamentalism, on the other hand, refers to the ideology whereby the person holds that his beliefs are the not only completely true and absolute, but that these views should be imposed on others as well. In the words of Bruce Lawrence (1989), fundamentalism is “the affirmation of religious authority as holistic and absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction; it is expressed through the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced”. The main idea behind fundamentalism is “contending with modernity and regaining religious identity” (H. Paul Chalfant, 1993). Fundamentalists believe that modernity is essentially against orthodoxy (James D. Hunter, 1993). This term was coined during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and though, in the beginning, it was used to refer to American Protestants, now it is used for the adherents of other religions too, though most often to those of Islam. Most, if not all, of the religions have their share of these religious fundamentalists who have certain similar traits, or “family resemblances” (Wittgenstein, 1968). The difference between fundamentalists of different religions is mostly the tenets of their faith, however, the way they operate is essentially the same irrespective of their religious beliefs and inclinations. Though, culturally and religiously, the reasons for people to become fundamentalists may vary, yet once a person becomes a fundamentalist s/he essentially operates in the same fashion irrespective of which religion s/he adheres to. The fundamentalists see their way of life, which they see as ordained by the Almighty, threatened by the “modern” society, and they strive to take the society back into the past where, according to them, the rule was of God and the people truly followed the dictates of God. One of the major reasons behind people becoming fundamentalists is their dismal lives, and their disenchantment with the society/time they live in. Often these fundamentalists engage actively in striving to change the way things are in their society; they do so by engaging in various activities, which range anywhere from speaking out against such “vices” or striving actively, usually by force, to end them. Sometimes, however, the fundamentals are passive; they strive to adhere to their religious beliefs and do everything in their power not to get assimilated in their society to protect their religious purity. It is interesting to note, however, that the passive fundamentalists are often merely strict adherents to their faith, who deem their eternal lives to be dependant on how they spend their “worldly” life. Such fundamentalists are not included in this paper, as it is the active fundamentalists that we are interested in. Active fundamentalists are enraged at the extent of secularization that is present in the modern times; they seek to change that pattern and to go back to the “good old days of yore” when religion was what reigned supreme over the lives of people. Such people essentially believe that God is on their side (as they are on His), that their fight is a Holy fight as they are fulfilling the orders of God, that the end of times is nigh and then they will be proved wrong, but most importantly they believe that anyone who is not struggling with them in this fight against “evil” is essentially against them. This is quite interesting to note, as that was the message that President George W. Bush sent to the world at large after the September 11 terrorists attacks. In essence, all fundamentalists are fighting against something. According to Heilman, the fundamentalist is always anti-something, whether it is anti-modernity, anti-West, anti-Islam or anti-secular. It is this idea of fighting against something that gives them a sense of legitimacy. They feel a moral superiority over those against whom they are fighting, and have sense of righteousness with regard to all their activities. Were it not for their opposition to something, they would not be able to have this sense of legitimacy. It is noteworthy, however, that this opposition that the fundamentalists try to flare is often not so pronounced in the religion as a whole; the core beliefs of their religion when taken completely are not in such flagrant confrontation with whatever it is that they are opposed to. However, the fundamentalists choose to restrict their religion and, more often than not, pick and choose the confrontationist approach from their religious traditions. Usually, in any religion, fundamentalists are born as a reaction to some changes in the society, or in the world as a whole. It will not be wrong to state that fundamentalism is a reactive phenomenon. For example, in Judaism, the fundamentalists were born as a reaction to what happened to them during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries at the hands of Europeans mostly. They saw more than a third of their population murdered at the worst ever genocide known to modern man. Faced with the new circumstances, including the birth of the Jewish state Israel, many of the Jews asserted that in order to survive they needed to go back to the fundamentals of the religion and to reject the modernism that the world seemed to impose on them. During the early Jewish history, the Maccabean revolt against the Hellenistic abominations in the Jewish traditions, started by Mattathias and carried on by his son Judah, was one of the first fundamentalist movements of a religious tradition. Through it the “pious” Jews freed the Jewish tradition from the “pagan” or Hellenistic innovations that were inserted therein, this liberation of Judaism from “modernity” is still celebrated every year by them as Hanukkah. If we look at the other religious traditions, we are again faced with the same “reactionary” aspect of fundamentalism; fundamentalism is always born as a reaction. That is the main attraction of it, especially to the youth dissatisfied with a lot of what is going on around them and needing certainty of some kind in their lives. This often involves militancy of some kind, though that is not always the case. One has only to look at the Fundamental Christians in American society to realize that their views are a reaction to the new morality, or lack thereof. The legalized abortion, banned school prayer in public schools, sexual permissiveness including homosexuality, and feminism are some of the factors that enraged the conservative Christians and made them speak out against it and, in some ways, force others to comply to their set of morals by rejecting the “modern” ideals. There are various factors that force people to become fundamentalists; in the Muslim context, it is often the oppression of the ordinary Muslims, both at the hands of the perceived enemy, the West, and the Western friendly governments formed in most of the Muslim countries. In Hinduism it is, more often than not, a nationalistic approach started against the secular ideals of the only “Hindu” country in the world. In Sikhism, it is their need to form a separate identity for themselves, both in terms of geography and personally, however, it is important to mention here that Sikh fundamentalists do not tend to seek to build borders around themselves that result in them leading a separate life from the rest of the world; rather, they seek to form their own “motherland”, or try to adhere to their sacred text, the Panth, as close as possible. Normally, it is often the frustration that religious followers feel with regard to their lives and their society, and their inability to change things without taking a radical approach, that leads them to become fundamentalists. It is striking that most of the fundamentalists are the younger followers of the faith, though if they are older, they were recruited while they were young. It is often the youth that has the energy and conviction to try and change the way things stand, and that is one of the reasons why the younger element of a religious group is usually the first to start a fundamentalist movement, or why the leaders of such movements try to recruit such people. However, another more interesting aspect of the fundamentalists recruiting the youth is that the young are often more naïve and susceptible to blind belief. It is easy to indoctrinate them and then to enable them to stay on the path of fundamentalism. The leaders of such movements often use simple psychological techniques to keep the youth dependant on them and disenchanted from the world around them. The youth is encouraged to stay within the religious group, often only allowed to make friends who belong to the same fundamentalist group. Outside influence is discouraged as much as possible, with the leaders often condemning everyone who does not follow the “religious path” set by them, and mostly also making the followers believe that the familiar or friendly ties that they have outside the group only take them away from the truth, unless they are formed for the sole purpose of bringing more people towards the “truth” of the religion. Such isolation almost always results in the followers accepting whatever is taught to them by their leaders and taking it as “God’s truth”. They do not have any means of contrasting the statements of their leaders with other religious leaders, and are themselves often ignorant of the comprehensive teachings of the religion, believing whatever twisted notions that are given to them as the true religious doctrines. The isolation also helps the leaders in gaining the trust of the followers as, in the absence of family members and/or other friends outside the group, the leaders often assume the position of trust and use psychological manipulation to enable the followers to believe that it is only them (i.e. the leaders) who are concerned about the well-being of the followers, both religious and personal. In such circumstances it is but natural for the followers to consider their leaders as the epitome of trustworthiness and truth. Once the followers start trusting the leader blindly, it is very hard for outside factors to have any effect on them. The followers are made to believe that the group and the leaders are their well-wishers and more concerned about their well being than anyone else. All outside forces that try to make the followers believe otherwise are considered to be treacherous and “tests” of steadfastness by God. In a Pakistani movie, this is very aptly depicted, when a leader of such a fundamentalist group not only leads the follower to believe that the former is merely trying to safeguard the latter from hell fire, and that it is important for him to be taken away from his family and surroundings for him to be purified for God. Such phenomena occur in fundamentalist groups of all religions, whereby the followers are indoctrinated to such a degree that they stop thinking for themselves and follow the instructions of their leaders blindly. One can say (in modern parlance) that when the leaders tell them to jump, the followers ask “how high”. For such fundamentalists ideals to be eradicated and for the followers of religions to be free from such negativity, it is important to, first off, differentiate between the fundamentalists and traditionalist theories within that religion, and also to enable dialogue that encourages those who are disenchanted with the current system or society, to speak out against them and to take steps to remove these grievances to as great an extent as is possible. These grievances are mostly political in nature and not religious, and it would not be wrong to say that religious fundamentalist trends of any kind and in any religion can easily be curbed if the political and social injustices are eradicated from the society, irrespective of whether these were caused by the people’s own society or by some outside influence. References: Chalfant, H. P. (1993). Fundamentalism in the Judeo-Christian Tradition. Review of Religious Research, Vol. 35(1), 64-65. Heilman, S. C. (2007). Jews and fundamentalism. Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 42(1), 29 (13). Huff, P. A. (2003). Understanding Fundamentalism: Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Movements. International Journal on World Peace, Vol. 20. Hunter, J. D. (1993). Fundamentalism: An Introduction to a General Theory, In: Jewish Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective, ed. Silberstein, L. J. New York: New York University Press. Lawrence, B. C. (1989). Defenders of God: The fundamentalist revolt against the modern age. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Levine, M. (2007). What is fundamentalism, and how do we get rid of it? Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 42. Mansoor, S. (Producer), & Mansoor, S. (Director). (2007). Khuda ke liye (In the name of God) [Motion picture]. Pakistan: Geo Films. Mcleod, W. H. (1998). Sikh fundamentalism. The Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 118(1), 15-27. Munson, H. (2003). Fundamentalism ancient & modern’. Daedalus, Vol. 132 (3), 31-41. Wittgenstein, L. (1968) Philosophical Investigations [ca. 1945-49], 3rd ed. tr. G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: Macmillan. Read More