Its Alienated Political Roots
These remarks were prompted by MnCamera's fascinating diary on myths about the social good of fundamentalism in the United States, which can be found here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/27/115228/078
I thought these observations might be of interest to other Kossacks and fellow travelers.
I've scratched my head for a while now as to why religious fundamentalism is rising in the United States. Given the economic prosperity of so many fundamentalists, it seems odd that they would turn to such a repressive and shrill form of religion. However, it seems to me that much of this current trend can be explained in terms of three phenomena:
More below the fold:
First, I think fundamentalism in the United States is in part due to high rates of immigration, coupled with the emergence of mass communications technologies that have now, more than any point in history, called into question the familiar world of people living in largely homogenous groups. The amount of anxiety and the sense of displacement this causes shouldn't be underestimated. The unintended consequence of multiculturalism, is that it calls all systems of practice and value into question, such that people no longer know who they are. Fundamentalism is an attempt to halt this incessant sliding or ambiguity (an attempt that will ultimately fail).
Second, although many fundamentalists enjoy a high level of prosperity, this is not a prosperity without anxiety. The world we live in today is a world that is essentially opaque and which changes at the drop of a hat. It is not unusual for people in the corporate business sector to go through three or four jobs in under a decade as a result of restructuring and other forces. This entails that corporate types live in a state of high anxiety where they might lose their job at any instant. Religion proves powerfully appealing under these conditions.
Finally, third and perhaps most importantly, I think there is a deep sense of powerlessness in the United States today. Not only are market forces opaque and beyond the power of any one man or group to control, but I also think there's a sense that the government isn't responsive to our needs. When political action doesn't appear to be a viable alternative one becomes a Christian Stoic, hoping that perhaps a God will save us. What's the matter with Kansas? They're aware of their economic interests but don't believe their vote will make any ultimate difference in protecting them from market forces.
The ironic thing about the current religious revival that we're witnessing is that it seems to exacerbate the situation rather than make it better. This occurs in a number of ways. There are the obvious points that the anti-scientific attitude further puts us behind and diminishes our job prospects, and that apolyptic thinking invites irresponsible political programs. Moreover, the hostility to sex and sex education, encourages irresponsible sexual practices. When this is coupled with the strong possibility of being exiled from one's community (and the love of those who matter most), the young find themselves afraid to buy condoms and are inclined to get abortions to protect their reputations and self-worth.
However, there are more subtle problems as well. Fundamentalism is organized almost entirely around prohibition or telling us what we shouldn't do. As anyone who has taught or has children knows, you create a desire for what is prohibited when you implement a law or say no to something. Paradoxically, the prohibitive morality of the fundamentalists ends up increasing the very problems that they seek to fight. Does it come as any surprise that we have such high rates of infidelity, teen sex, STD's, abortions, and homosexuality among fundamentalist families (I am not at all suggesting that homosexuality is bad, only that if you make it the focus of a morality people are constantly going to be monitoring themselves to see if they have such desires)? How different would things be if fundamentalists promoted not prohibition, but an image of human flourishing and excellence? That is, how different would things be if we thought of morality in positive terms of what the most excellent love, life, community would be, rather than what we should not do?
Indeed, if those interested read Romans, they will discover that Paul says exactly the same thing about desire and the Law. As Paul explicitly says, the Law creates sin by creating a desire for that which is prohibited. The entire problem of Pauline Christianity is to discover a form of the social relation that is no longer based on prohibition and which doesn't require adherence to a specific set of customs or practices (i.e., circumcision and not eating pork) for people to belong. It is intriguing that fundamentalists so often seem to gloss these practices which are so relevant to the problems we today face and the question of how to form a multicultural open society.
Moreover, when you organize your entire morality around prohibition rather than human flourishing, you also create a sense of resentment in the subject, because the subject experiences itself as having sacrificed something that it would like to do. This resentment festers, creating a hate filled temperament that believes there's a whole segment of the population that is illicitly enjoying in a way that is forbidden to the "good moral Christian". Voila!, suddenly you get all the racism, classism, sexism, nationalism, and homophobia. One need only listen to hate speech to see that it's all about a belief that others are enjoying in an unfair way that is forbidden to the "good Christians".
This is a dead end street on so many levels.