Daniel Hill
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195379655
- eISBN:
- 9780199777334
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379655.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter introduces the emerging regulation theory as a framework for understanding the psychology of rank-and-file religious fundamentalists. It demonstrates that regulation theory explains both ...
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This chapter introduces the emerging regulation theory as a framework for understanding the psychology of rank-and-file religious fundamentalists. It demonstrates that regulation theory explains both the fearful state that we observe in fundamentalists as well as problematic psychological characteristics that we have come to associate with them: Manichaean thinking, undue submission to and idealization of authority, a lack of curiosity and doubt, dissociation, and reliance on projection and splitting.Less
This chapter introduces the emerging regulation theory as a framework for understanding the psychology of rank-and-file religious fundamentalists. It demonstrates that regulation theory explains both the fearful state that we observe in fundamentalists as well as problematic psychological characteristics that we have come to associate with them: Manichaean thinking, undue submission to and idealization of authority, a lack of curiosity and doubt, dissociation, and reliance on projection and splitting.
J. Mark Halstead
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199253661
- eISBN:
- 9780191601972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199253668.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This is the last of the four essays in Part II of the book on liberalism and traditionalist education; all four are by authors who would like to find ways for the liberal state to honour the ...
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This is the last of the four essays in Part II of the book on liberalism and traditionalist education; all four are by authors who would like to find ways for the liberal state to honour the self-definitions of traditional cultures and to find ways of avoiding a confrontation with differences. One of the tasks of the book is to separate out different kinds of affiliation and the extent to which the arguments made about cultural recognition can be extended to other objects of affiliation. Mark Halstead’s chapter on schooling (education) and cultural maintenance for religious minorities in the liberal state provides a catalogue of the different types of groups that are to be found in liberal societies, and the different kinds of cultural and educational claims that are typically attached to each of them. His definition of minority group is useful in conceptualizing many of the papers in the volume. The chapter falls into three sections: Section 10.1, which looks at four types of disadvantaged minorities, attempts to distinguish non-Western fundamentalist religious minorities living in the West from other minorities that may experience disadvantage of various kinds in liberal societies; Section 10.2, on religious minorities in the liberal state, explores some of the educational and other difficulties encountered by such religious minorities in more detail, and typical liberal responses; Section 10.3, on rethinking the liberal response, contains some proposals that are designed to meet the educational needs of both the liberal state and the religious minorities at the same time.Less
This is the last of the four essays in Part II of the book on liberalism and traditionalist education; all four are by authors who would like to find ways for the liberal state to honour the self-definitions of traditional cultures and to find ways of avoiding a confrontation with differences. One of the tasks of the book is to separate out different kinds of affiliation and the extent to which the arguments made about cultural recognition can be extended to other objects of affiliation. Mark Halstead’s chapter on schooling (education) and cultural maintenance for religious minorities in the liberal state provides a catalogue of the different types of groups that are to be found in liberal societies, and the different kinds of cultural and educational claims that are typically attached to each of them. His definition of minority group is useful in conceptualizing many of the papers in the volume. The chapter falls into three sections: Section 10.1, which looks at four types of disadvantaged minorities, attempts to distinguish non-Western fundamentalist religious minorities living in the West from other minorities that may experience disadvantage of various kinds in liberal societies; Section 10.2, on religious minorities in the liberal state, explores some of the educational and other difficulties encountered by such religious minorities in more detail, and typical liberal responses; Section 10.3, on rethinking the liberal response, contains some proposals that are designed to meet the educational needs of both the liberal state and the religious minorities at the same time.
William Egginton
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231148788
- eISBN:
- 9780231520966
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231148788.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This book laments the current debate over religion in America, in which religious fundamentalists have set the tone of political discourse—no one can get elected without advertising a personal ...
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This book laments the current debate over religion in America, in which religious fundamentalists have set the tone of political discourse—no one can get elected without advertising a personal relation to God, for example—and prominent atheists treat religious belief as the root of all evil. Neither of these positions, the text argues, adequately represents the attitudes of a majority of Americans who, while identifying as Christians, Jews, and Muslims, do not find fault with those who support different faiths and philosophies. In fact, the text goes so far as to question whether fundamentalists and atheists truly oppose each other, united as they are in their commitment to a “code of codes.” In this view, being a religious fundamentalist does not require adhering to a particular religious creed. Fundamentalists—and stringent atheists—unconsciously believe that the methods we use to understand the world are all versions of an underlying master code. This code of codes represents an ultimate truth, explaining everything. Surprisingly, perhaps the most effective weapon against such thinking is religious moderation, a way of believing that questions the very possibility of a code of codes as the source of all human knowledge. The moderately religious, with their inherent skepticism toward a master code, are best suited to protect science, politics, and other diverse strains of knowledge from fundamentalist attack, and to promote a worldview based on the compatibility between religious faith and scientific method.Less
This book laments the current debate over religion in America, in which religious fundamentalists have set the tone of political discourse—no one can get elected without advertising a personal relation to God, for example—and prominent atheists treat religious belief as the root of all evil. Neither of these positions, the text argues, adequately represents the attitudes of a majority of Americans who, while identifying as Christians, Jews, and Muslims, do not find fault with those who support different faiths and philosophies. In fact, the text goes so far as to question whether fundamentalists and atheists truly oppose each other, united as they are in their commitment to a “code of codes.” In this view, being a religious fundamentalist does not require adhering to a particular religious creed. Fundamentalists—and stringent atheists—unconsciously believe that the methods we use to understand the world are all versions of an underlying master code. This code of codes represents an ultimate truth, explaining everything. Surprisingly, perhaps the most effective weapon against such thinking is religious moderation, a way of believing that questions the very possibility of a code of codes as the source of all human knowledge. The moderately religious, with their inherent skepticism toward a master code, are best suited to protect science, politics, and other diverse strains of knowledge from fundamentalist attack, and to promote a worldview based on the compatibility between religious faith and scientific method.
David Harrington Watt
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780801448270
- eISBN:
- 9781501708541
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801448270.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book provides a pathbreaking account of the role that the fear of fundamentalism has played—and continues to play—in American culture. Fundamentalism has never been a neutral category of ...
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This book provides a pathbreaking account of the role that the fear of fundamentalism has played—and continues to play—in American culture. Fundamentalism has never been a neutral category of analysis, and the book scrutinizes the various political purposes that the concept has been made to serve. In 1920, the conservative Baptist writer Curtis Lee Laws coined the word “fundamentalists.” The book examines the antifundamentalist polemics of Harry Emerson Fosdick, Talcott Parsons, Stanley Kramer, and Richard Hofstadter, which convinced many Americans that religious fundamentalists were almost by definition backward, intolerant, and anti-intellectual and that fundamentalism was a dangerous form of religion that had no legitimate place in the modern world. For almost fifty years, the concept of fundamentalism was linked almost exclusively to Protestant Christians. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the establishment of an Islamic republic led to a more elastic understanding of the nature of fundamentalism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Americans became accustomed to using fundamentalism as a way of talking about Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists, as well as Christians. Many Americans came to see Protestant fundamentalism as an expression of a larger phenomenon that was wreaking havoc all over the world. This book provides an overview of the way that the fear of fundamentalism has shaped American culture, and it will lead readers to rethink their understanding of what fundamentalism is and what it does.Less
This book provides a pathbreaking account of the role that the fear of fundamentalism has played—and continues to play—in American culture. Fundamentalism has never been a neutral category of analysis, and the book scrutinizes the various political purposes that the concept has been made to serve. In 1920, the conservative Baptist writer Curtis Lee Laws coined the word “fundamentalists.” The book examines the antifundamentalist polemics of Harry Emerson Fosdick, Talcott Parsons, Stanley Kramer, and Richard Hofstadter, which convinced many Americans that religious fundamentalists were almost by definition backward, intolerant, and anti-intellectual and that fundamentalism was a dangerous form of religion that had no legitimate place in the modern world. For almost fifty years, the concept of fundamentalism was linked almost exclusively to Protestant Christians. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the establishment of an Islamic republic led to a more elastic understanding of the nature of fundamentalism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Americans became accustomed to using fundamentalism as a way of talking about Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists, as well as Christians. Many Americans came to see Protestant fundamentalism as an expression of a larger phenomenon that was wreaking havoc all over the world. This book provides an overview of the way that the fear of fundamentalism has shaped American culture, and it will lead readers to rethink their understanding of what fundamentalism is and what it does.
Jay Michaelson
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814720127
- eISBN:
- 9780814785249
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814720127.003.0016
- Subject:
- Sociology, Sociology of Religion
This chapter argues that the reading of Parashat Beshalach of Exodus represents one's transition from slavery to liberty and upholds the value of life. However, Western religious fundamentalists ...
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This chapter argues that the reading of Parashat Beshalach of Exodus represents one's transition from slavery to liberty and upholds the value of life. However, Western religious fundamentalists teachings today—especially those that concern queer sexuality—disparage the value of life in this world in favor of the life after death. In contrasts, humanism embraces the value of life by embracing gay liberation. This acceptance is a fundamental affirmation of the goodness of human life and a rejection of the claim that the basic human impetus to love, and to express that love in an embodied way, is to be subjugated to something else.Less
This chapter argues that the reading of Parashat Beshalach of Exodus represents one's transition from slavery to liberty and upholds the value of life. However, Western religious fundamentalists teachings today—especially those that concern queer sexuality—disparage the value of life in this world in favor of the life after death. In contrasts, humanism embraces the value of life by embracing gay liberation. This acceptance is a fundamental affirmation of the goodness of human life and a rejection of the claim that the basic human impetus to love, and to express that love in an embodied way, is to be subjugated to something else.
