The Fundamentalist Agenda

[IrateCitizen]

The following article appeared in the most recent issue of "UU World", a publication of the Unitarian Universalist Association. As a liberal religious/spiritual tradition, we usually tend to shun anything reeking the least bit of fundamentalism. But nonetheless, I found this article to be extremely thought-provoking. It even stretches the idea of "fundamentalism" to being a phenomenon that is NOT strictly religious -- that any kind of ultra-conservative or fascist movement is usually an example of political fundamentalism, because they all express the same basic value structure.

Take the time to read it in its entirety, you won't be disappointed.

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The Fundamentalist Agenda
... is absolutely natural, ancient, and powerful—but the liberal impulse makes us humane.

By Davidson Loehr

The most famous definition of fundamentalism is H. L. Mencken's: a terrible, pervasive fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun. There's something to this. Fundamentalism is too fearful, too restrictive, too lacking in faith to provide a home for the human spirit to soar or for human societies to blossom.

But there are far more fundamental things to understand about fundamentalism, especially in this age of terrorism. An adequate understanding also includes some inescapable and uncomfortable critiques of America's cultural liberalism of the last four decades. The attacks on September 11, 2001, provided us a rare revelation about fundamentalism that arrived in two installments.

First, we became vividly aware of the things some Muslim fundamentalists hate about our culture:

- They hate liberated women and all that symbolizes them. They hate it when women compete with men in the workplace, when they decide when or whether they will bear children, when they show the independence of getting abortions. They hate changes in laws that previously gave men more power over women.
- They hate the wide range of sexual orientations and lifestyles that have always characterized human societies. They hate homosexuality.
- They hate individual freedoms that allow people to stray from the rigid sort of truth they want to constrain all people. They hate individual rights that let others slough off their simple certainties.

Not much was really new in this installment of the revelation. We had seen all this before, when Khomeini's Muslim fundamentalists wreaked such havoc in Iran starting in 1979. We have long known that Muslim fundamentalism is a mortal enemy of freedom and democracy.

The surprise second installment came just a few days after 9 / 11 in that remarkably unguarded interview on The 700 Club when the Rev. Jerry Falwell told Pat Robertson, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'” These men are so media-savvy it's amazing they would say such things on the air. But it's also remarkable because in their list of “causes” of the 9 / 11 attacks, we heard almost exactly the same hate list:

- They hate liberated women who don't follow orders, who get abortions when they want them, who threaten or laugh at some men's arrogant pretensions to rule them.
- They hate the wide range of sexual orientations that have always characterized human societies. They would force the country to conform to a fantasy image of two married heterosexual parents where the husband works and the wife stays home with the children—even when that describes fewer than 25 percent of current American families.
- They hate individual freedoms that let people stray from the one simple set of truths they want imposed on all in our country. Robertson has been on record for a long time saying that democracy isn't a fit form of government unless it is run by his kind of fundamentalist Christians.

Together, the two installments make vivid the fact that “our” Christian fundamentalists have the same hate list as “their” Muslim fundamentalists.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE

[IrateCitizen]

1. KICK

Does anybody have any thoughts on this? Should I have posted it in editorials instead?

:kick:

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Read the whole article and made a copy......

To me it's just a basic principle.... all fundamentalists are alike. I've spoken often of the American Taliban. I have asked, 'How is this any different than what the Taliban did?' of those defending putting the Ten Commandments in our public places, requiring prayer in schools, etc. Guess I've always been on the liberal side..Thank God.

[elfwitch]

2. I've always placed the two under the same category...

Psycho zealots are the same no matter what God they pray to. they are dangerous to all around them. Be it Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or any other find of Fundamentalist, they all have the same goal....
To rid the world of those who do not share their narrow vision of the world.

The problem we are having is that the Fundies have the keys to the country. They should be treated with the same contempt that rational peace loving Muslims do of the Taliban types. I don't believe for one minute that ALL Muslims are zealots not more than I believe that all Southern Baptists are assholes.

But we let the assholes take hold of our nation and now we are gong to find it very difficult (as it is in many Middle Eastern countries) to get it back.

[IrateCitizen]

6. But do you view POLITICAL fundamentalists in the same vein?

The Nazis could be held up as a shining example of a purely political brand of fundamentalism. Many of the same values are shared.

The author's point also is that fundamentalism, whether we like it or not, is something that is in EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US. And strangely enough, the most successful advances of the liberal agenda have been attained when they have still held one foot in the appeal to fundamentalist impulses.

Thoughts?

[lapislzi]

13. Using fundamentalist rhetoric

Kind of like making them do the right thing for the wrong reason. Does the end justify the means? (Just playin' DA, here)

Yes, fundamentalism may be an impulse in all of us, but we can recognize it and choose to move beyond it. Otherwise the argument comes dangerously close to biological determinism.

[IrateCitizen]

15. I don't see it as determinist at all

In fact, our UU minister just gave a sermon last Sunday on a similar phenomenon -- the ancient Jewish idea that each of us contains the capacity for evil and good within us. I wish I could remember what it's called exactly -- feel free to help me out here.

What this author is talking about is how each of us contains both fundamentalist impulses and liberal ones. It is our fundamentalist impulses that cause us to resist change, to seek out simplistic views of the world, to seek order, etc. It is our liberal impulses that propel us to challenge, to question, and to be more humane.

But in the Jewish tale of good and evil, the people get God to take all evil out of their hearts. What they find is that, come Monday, nobody opens their shops or businesses. Everything shuts down. In the end, they realize that they actually do NEED this "evil impulse" -- what is more accurately described as a certain degree of selfishness -- in order to function as human beings. The struggle, then, becomes keeping this darker impulse in check, and embracing the good impulse.

The only thing that determines us is a combination of our genes and our life experiences (and how we deal with them). For some, this causes an embrace of the fundamentalist side. For others, it results in an embrace of liberal impulses. But in either case, we still cannot deny that BOTH sides/impulses exist within us.

[lapislzi]

17. Interesting point on dualities

also an anthropological constant.

Begs the question...why do some of us embrace the liberal humanity, while others can't move out of the box? Makes you wonder. How much is upbringing a factor? And what about recidivism?

[IrateCitizen]

20. It's all of the above

What you're proposing is the age-old debate of genetics vs. environment. Rather than look at it from the perspective of Randolph and Mortimer Duke (it's either one or the other), we do better to look at it as a combination of both of these things -- and then some.

[lapislzi]

21. I didn't mean to suggest it was one or the other

because I don't believe it is. I was just throwing the question out there. Why can't some people move beyond, into a more evolved, enlightened state? What's holding them back?

And to throw another spanner into the works, what role do groups and leaders play in this? The fundamentalist element seems to have no shortage of charismatic leaders these days, and said leaders have no shortage of followers. At what point does groupthink take over?

[IrateCitizen]

22. For them, it takes over pretty damned quickly

I'll give you a personal experience in this. When I was a platoon leader in the Army Reserves, I had a platoon sergeant who was just about the most polar opposite from me as you could imagine. I'm a leftist/anarcho-socialist, and he's a raging right-winger (even though he's been poor his whole life and works 2-3 jobs all the time). I'm a Unitarian Universalist, he turned toward fundy Baptist or Pentecostal. We actually got along quite well personally, but we saw eye-to-eye on next to nothing.

One time, our discussion had drifted off into something approaching politics, and I was making some kind of point about democracy being a process in which the people have not just the right -- but the responsibility -- to decide. His response was telling.

"I don't want to think. I just want to follow orders."

There you have it, in black and white. It's much EASIER for people to just follow orders and be told what to believe, than to figure it out for themselves. Not all of this is laziness, either. When you try to figure things out on your own, the world can become an increasingly complex (and disparaging) place. Following orders and believing what you're told just takes all those uncertainties away so that you don't have to be troubled with them.

It's kind of the old "ignorance is bliss" argument. There are times when I think back to the time before I started to really question things, and in many ways, it was a much easier time.

[lapislzi]

23. You can't go back in that corner, my friend

I think about it too. Once your consciousness has been raised, there's no going back.

Now I can't look away, even if I wanted to. It's cold up here on that high road.

[Leados]

3. This is quite excellent

as it echoes my own thoughts in some ways. It seems to me that the neocons aren't conservatives at all, but petty thieves masquerading as conservatives.

[monobrau]

4. fear, willful ignorance

I make no distinction between christian, muslim, hindu or jewish fundamentalists. When their beliefs are taken to the logical extreme, it always results in death and unimaginable suffering. It is dangerous to cater to them or let them participate in policy making, because it is their sworn mission to decieve unbelievers and subvert thousands of years of human progress. They are the very evil that they claim to oppose, and that evil must be met with unwavering resistance and given no quarter.
Flame me if you will, but I think recent events have shown that the most radical of fundamentalists can only be stopped by bullets, and any hesitation to do so results in the deaths of innocents.

[Bandit]

7. Fundamentalism destroys a thinking mind

:shrug: I find it hard to imagine the mind set of a fundamentalist.

[IrateCitizen]

8. We are ALL capable of fundamentalism.

I think you're missing the point of the article -- that is, that EACH of us has the fundamentalist impulse within our psyche. It is a natural thing. And in examining successful liberal movements, they have been successful when they have kept one foot planted in appeals to this fundamentalist impulse while, at the same time, championing liberal reforms.

The mind set of a fundamentalist is simply a capitulation to the innate desire all of us have for our lives to be simple. Everyone has roles. Good and evil are seen in stark black and white. No introspection or self-analysis is required. We're good. Our enemies are evil. Order is paramount. If our cause is so righteous, then we are right for doing whatever it takes to advance it. And so on.

[Bandit]

11. "If our cause is so righteous,"

My cause changes issue by issue. I think about how the effects will play out before I make up my mind.

[IrateCitizen]

12. I'm not saying yours doesn't, Bandit

You said that you didn't understand how anybody could possibly embrace fundamentalism. I was simply trying to explain, best as I see it, what brings people to embrace fundamentalism. Obviously from the number of people that DO embrace it, it IS a natural thing that is hard-wired into our brains.

As the author of the article states, it is our liberal impulse that makes us humane. Quite obviously from what you've stated, you tend to listen to your liberal impulses much more than your fundamentalist ones. I see myself in much the same light.

But, at the same time, it is dangerous to deny that a fundamentalist impulse does NOT still dwell in each of us, because it is there. It's just that, for some of us, it's much more muted.

[ithacan]

9. Fundies contol the GOP & trying to take over mainstream churches

All of the GOP congressional leaders are fundies and make no bones about it. Fundies have enormous influence in the majority of state GOP organizations outside of the Northeast.

For info on how the fundies took over the GOP, see http://www.TheocracyWatch.org/

They're also working on taking over the mainstream churches...

http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings/archive_2003/0710.shtml
Sightings
JULY 10, 2003
The Fighting Methodists
— Andrew J. Weaver

<snip>
A recent book, United Methodism @ Risk: A Wake Up Call by Leon Howell, a respected journalist, argues that mainline churches such as the United Methodist Church (UMC) can no longer afford to be naive about right-wing advocacy groups that are tightly organized, highly motivated and well- financed for a take-no-prisoners campaign against mainline Protestantism. He says that unless these denominations stand up and get in a "fighting mood" the political right-wing aims to take them over.

The political right-wing, operating in the guise of a gaggle of so-called "renewal groups," particularly one named the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), has acquired the money and political will to target three mainline American denominations: The United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Episcopal Church. The IRD was created and is sustained by money from right-wing foundations and has spent millions of dollars over 20 years attacking mainline denominations. The IRD's conservative social-policy goals include increasing military spending and foreign interventions, opposing environmental protection efforts, and eliminating social welfare programs.

In a document entitled "Reforming America's Churches Project 2001-2004," the IRD states that its aim is to change the "permanent governing structure" of mainline churches "so they can help renew the wider culture of our nation." In other words, its goal extends beyond the spiritual and includes a political takeover financed by the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife, Adolph Coors, the John M. Olin Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee.

For example, the Scaife Family Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation (promoters and benefactors of the "Ken Starr Courts") made disbursements to the IRD totaling $1.6 million between 1985 and 2001 according to information found at www.mediatransparency.org. According to the Scaife websites, the IRD received $225,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2002. The Lynde and Harry Bradley foundation, a family foundation with ties to the John Birch Society, gave $1.3 million between 1985 and 2001 to IRD efforts. The overall objective of the Bradley Foundation is to return the U.S. to the days before government regulation of business, before corporations were forced to make concessions to an organized labor force. In other words, capitalism with the gloves off. Why are these secular right-wing foundations interested in gaining influence in the United Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and other mainstream Protestant denominations?
<more>

[supernova]

10. Excellent! Thanks for posting. Questions/Impressions

Questions:

What is his take on Karen Armstrong's The Battle for God ? Her thesis, much like his here, is that Fundamentalism in the three Abramic faiths is all of a piece, it all comes from the same place. In her case, she says it's about a rejection of the Enlightenment. About a fear of science replacing God.

His solution seems to be for us liberals to coopt more conservative language to sell our ideas to the conservatives. How does he suggest we do that, when we can't even stomach it coming out of their mouths ?


Impressions:

- This is the first time I've ever heard liberal/conservative impulses expressed as biological/evolutionairy impulses. But now that he's said that, it does make sense to me. I began to think of a wolfpack while reading this. In a wolfpack, those who are "in" are dearly loved and protected. Those who are out (strangers or as with gays for instance find themselves on the outs) are fiercely turned away or even killed. You're not part of the "in" group (read: you don't follow the rules) so you don't deserve our protection.

- He makes some interesting, jarring even, examples of liberals using what he calls conservative language to achieve our goals of calling all people to higher aims. He even labels "Ask not what your country can do for you..." a ... "terrifying dictate of the world's most arrogant fascist.." Wow! I hadn't thought of it that way.

So if it's true that we each succeed by coopting the other side's language, what so troubling about that? Why does it make us liberals SO MAD when * talks about being a "compassionate conservative?"

This strikes me as most important:

When liberal visions work, it's because they have kept one foot solidly in our deep territorial impulses with the other foot free to push the margin, to expand the definition of those who belong in “our” territory.

When liberal visions fail, it is often because they fail to achieve just this kind of balance between our conservative impulses and our liberal needs.



edit: code

[IrateCitizen]

14. Thanks for your comments/questions, supernova

I think you really got a lot of what this article was trying to say and why I posted it.

I don't know what the author's thoughts are regarding the book you cited. But if I were to extrapolate his views, I would say that he comes at the Abrahamic traditions from a much different angle. Fundamentalism would predate both the Enlightenment, and the Abrahamic traditions themselves. He is basically saying that fundamentalism has ALWAYS been with us, as a PART of all of us. It is not really a "reaction" to anything -- other than inflaming the fundamentalist tendencies of certain personalities who more identify with them when they are faced with a systemic change due to the embrace of more liberal tendencies. I guess the backlash to the Enlightenment would be a good example.

This is the first time I've ever heard liberal/conservative impulses expressed as biological/evolutionairy impulses. But now that he's said that, it does make sense to me. I began to think of a wolfpack while reading this. In a wolfpack, those who are "in" are dearly loved and protected. Those who are out (strangers or as with gays for instance find themselves on the outs) are fiercely turned away or even killed. You're not part of the "in" group (read: you don't follow the rules) so you don't deserve our protection.

This would apply to political fundamentalist movements as well -- best expressed by the Nazis. I think that's another point that he's trying to make with the "fundamentalist impulse" than nobody else who has responded seemed to get -- the point that fundamentalism can express itself by political means as well as religious ones. The current Right Wing movements in Europe would be another good example, with their complete xenophobia and opposition to all immigrants as diluting "national identity".

So if it's true that we each succeed by coopting the other side's language, what so troubling about that? Why does it make us liberals SO MAD when * talks about being a "compassionate conservative?"

Simply put, because we realize that there is no liberal impulse there. It is purely fundamentalist, seeking to tear down everything gained through the liberal impulse while talking out of the side of his mouth in praise of it.

Thanks for the comments. It seems that this article hit you in a way very similar to me.

[ninkasi]

16. Excellent, thought provoking article...

I'm not terribly expressive, but I can only add that while it is natural to have fundamentalist impulses, at a certain point in our evolution as humans, some of us are ready to recognize the necessity of further evolving by embracing the liberal impulses we share.

Maybe some of us are just more willing than others to take chances, to embrace other ideas, acknowledge other cultures, try other ways, to better the lives for all of us. Being a fundamentalist doesn't require any soul searching or critical thinking...all they have to do is follow an established script. It's when some of us are willing to change the script, to try other methods, that they attack, since they feel threatened.

We are not throwing away the whole script, but only adding to it, and changing parts that don't work anymore. I wish I could express myself better, but I truly appreciate your posting the article.

[noonwitch]

18. "The Handmaid's Tale" pretty much sums up their agenda

Even if it is fiction.

[IrateCitizen]

19. The article really isn't about an "agenda", despite the title

Rather, it's about an honest hypothesis of how fundamentalism is something that has had so much appeal for so many, and for so long. The author's basic premise is that fundamentalism is something that is innate to all of us, and whether or not it is tempered depends on the degree to which people embrace their more liberal impulses (which are also ingrained as well).