Digby points the way to an amazing article by Davidson Loehr which looks at fundamentalism and draws some fascinating conclusions.
From 1988 to 1993, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences sponsored an interdisciplinary study known as The Fundamentalism Project, the largest such study ever done. More than 100 scholars from all over the world took part, reporting on every imaginable kind of fundamentalism. And what they discovered was that the agenda of all fundamentalist movements in the world is virtually identical, regardless of religion or culture.
They identified five characteristics shared by virtually all fundamentalisms.
Paraphrased from the original, these characteristics are:
1) Rules must be made to apply to all people, and to all areas of life. There can be no separation of church and state, or of public and private areas of life. The rigid rules of God—and they never doubt that they and only they have got these right—must become the law of the land.
2) Men are in charge and get to make the rules. They also rule the women, and they define them through specific support roles (mother, wife, homemaker).
3) Since there is only one right picture of the world and one right set of roles for men, women, and children, it is imperative that this be communicated precisely to the next generation. Hence, tight control over schools and curriculums is a must.
4) Fundamentalists spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of a golden age that never really existed. Several of the scholars observed a strong and deep resemblance between fundamentalism and fascism. Both have almost identical agendas. (See Orcinus for a lot about this issue as well)
5) Fundamentalists deny history in a "radical and idiosyncratic way." Fundamentalists know as well or better than anybody that culture shapes everything it touches: The times we live in color how we think, what we value, and the kind of people we become. What they don't want to see is the way culture colored the era when their scriptures were created.
All very interesting, but hardly new ground. Here's the part that made me sit up and take notice:
The only way all fundamentalisms can have the same agenda is if the agenda preceded all the religions. And it did. Fundamentalist behaviors are familiar because we've all seen them so many times. These men are acting the role of “alpha males” who define the boundaries of their group's territory and the norms and behaviors that define members of their in-group. These are the behaviors of territorial species in which males are stronger than females. In biological terms, these are the characteristic behaviors of sexually dimorphous territorial animals. Males set and enforce the rules, females obey the males and raise the children; there is a clear separation between the in-group and the out-group. The in-group is protected; outsiders are expelled or fought.
It is easier to account for this set of behavioral biases as part of the common evolutionary heritage of our species than to argue that it is simply a monumental coincidence that the social and behavioral agendas of all fundamentalisms and fascisms are essentially identical.
In other words, it's a biological impulse dating from our evolutionary past (although of course the fundies deny that evolution exists either).
Both Digby and Loehr have a lot more to say on the subject, and I strongly urge you to read one or both pieces. It's truly thought-provoking material that might eventually help us find a way out of the quagmire we're stuck in.
