Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective (14 page)

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Authors: Lawrence Kaplan

Tags: #Religion, #General, #Fundamentalism, #Comparative Religion, #Philosophy, #test

BOOK: Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective
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A major task of NCR ideologues has been to present their situation as one of being persecuted. The social construction of secular humanism has been described in terms of the value it had in simplifying the many grievances into one identifiable, embodied enemy. That observation can now be extended by returning to the importance of the "two alternatives" argument used by the advocates of creation science in the Arkansas case. In that trial, and in the Alabama charge that school books taught secular humanism, fundamentalists insisted that there were only two forms of knowledge: fundamentalism and everything else. Anything not openly supportive of fundamentalism must be critical of it. It was with the purpose of reinforcing and extending that claim that the plaintiffs in the Alabama case called, as an expert witness, sociologist James D. Hunter, who argued that secular humanism was the functional equivalent of a religion. In a more detailed presentation Hunter (1986) defines humanism quite narrowly and makes the point that humanism differs from other religions in the very limited degree of consensus and coherence it engenders among its adherents. This important qualification is missed by fundamentalists. I want to go much further than Hunter and argue that the elements of humanism are so loosely articulated (in the mechanical rather than the rhetorical sense) that even his more refined presentation is misleading. For reasons that need not concern us here, I reject the value of defining religion in terms of its functions. But leaving aside the question whether humanism is a "functional equivalent" of religion, it should be clear that it does not have the consequencesin providing a
common
direction to people's lives and a
shared
world viewof, say, fundamentalism or traditional Catholicism. If humanism is defined narrowly, its support is insignificant. If it is defined broadly, as it is in the discourse of the NCR, then it is not an identifiable ideology. Instead it is the aggregation of everything that fundamentalists do not like. The social construction work of NCR ideologues is directed toward disguising that fact. The homogenizing of secular humanism and the postulation of an active group of secular humanists are useful to the NCR in arguing its minority rights case, but as a tool of social analysis they are profoundly misleading.
If one turns back to the definition of secular humanism offered by
 
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a Texan NCR organizationPro-Family Forumone finds that the forum objects to: (a) the questioning of fundamentalist Protestant beliefs; (b) the rejection of the possibility of a whole society sharing the same detailed moral values; (c) the tolerance of alternative sexual "lifestyles"; (d) feminism; (e) socialism; (f) government controls on business activity; and (g) dramatic medical interventions connected with birth and death. It may be possible to imagine a modern democratic society that rejected the last four. What is not possible is to imagine one that could satisfy the NCR's desire to remove the first three.
Supporters of the NCR see the rejection of their religious beliefs and their commitment to a moral orthodoxy as the work of secular humanists. Certainly secular humanists believe in the removal of religion from the public arena, in the tolerance of alternative lifestyles, and in the extension of choice. But the sociologist of modernity sees the secular humanist position as little more than the intellectual endorsement of what has already come to pass. While some of the changes that the NCR lumps under the secular humanist label have been hastened by liberal moral entrepreneurs, most are the
unintended
consequences of modernity. When even those who are conservative on economic and foreign policy matters wish to retain the right to pursue their own lifestyles, the only circumstance under which the NCR could succeed is a return to cultural homogeneity. Nothing visible to the student of the empirical social world suggests that the internal cultural fragmentation of modern societies is about to be reversed. In his analysis of the present, the sociologist thus becomes a curious bedfellow of the Bob Jones University fundamentalist; the necessary precondition for the success of the NCR is a massive religious revival. Where I differ from Bob Jones III is that I see no reason to suppose such a revival likely.
Were the grievances of American fundamentalists the result of the actions of secular humanists, they could be removed by the power of fundamentalist numbers expressed through the ballot box. After all, conservative Protestants remain one of the largest cultural minorities in America, and America is, generally speaking, a democracy. But at least part of what bothers fundamentalists is the apparent
 
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tension between items of modern scientific and technical knowledge and parts of the conservative Protestant world view. To concentrate on evolution, it may well be that a modern industrial economy can permit the survival of prescientific ideas in certain limited spheres. The ability to make missiles, launch space rockets, exploit natural resources, and competitively produce cars may not be threatened by the belief that the world is less than a million years old and was made by God in six days. However, despite the willingness of Justices Rehnquist and Scalia to leave the matter of the origins of species to the vote of state legislatures, it seems clear that the tendency of modern societies to accord priority in debates about matters of scientific interest to those with good credentials represents some sort of functional imperative, something that could not change without posing a major threat to the knowledge base of the society. If that is the case, fundamentalists are not going to win their arguments with scientists and technologists, despite the occasional minor victory.
Something similar could be said of other areas that concern the NCR. While there has been increasing hostility to the power of the professions, it still remains the case that in all advanced industrial societies, professionally accredited occupational groups dominate particular spheres of activity. Even on matters such as education, or the civil rights of the unborn or the terminally ill, where technical considerations are obviously informed by moral judgments, the opinions of professionals carry far more weight than those of lay people, largely because it is in the very nature of the modern society to translate moral and ethical matters into technical considerations (Wilson 1982: 4252). The basic assumptions that inform modern industrial productionthat all complex objects and procedures can be reduced to repeatable acts and replaceable components; that nothing is more than the sum of its parts; that everything can be measured and calculated; that nothing is sacred and that everything can be improved; that increased efficiency is the main imperativecannot be confined to the world of work. The formal rationality which dominates that sphere gradually invades all other areas of social action. There is not the space here to present this argument in sufficient detail to convince the skeptical, but it is accepted by most
 
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sociologists (of varying ideological positions) that it is characteristic of the modern world to subordinate the moral to the technical and the lay to the professional.
My point is that the authority of professionals (especially natural scientists) is such that fundamentalists are unlikely to establish the principle that arguments such as that over the origins of the species should be settled by votes rather than by the consensus of accredited experts. Even in matters that are more commonly seen as moral and ethical rather than technical and professional, the tendency is to defer to the professionals.
But even if one does not accept these claims about the scientific and technical consequences of modernity, one cannot think away the consequence of pluralism. And, if, as I suggest, secular humanism is simply a convenient blanket term for the necessary consequences of pluralism, then clearly fundamentalists have no hope of attaining their goals because what offends them is nothing more or less than modernity itself.
Universalism and the NCR As a Legitimate Minority
The awkward position of the NCR can now be fully described by bringing the above observations about the universalizing tendencies of modern societies together with the earlier discussion of the NCR's fall-back position of presenting itself as a disadvantaged minority.
Blacks, women, and homosexuals have built their claims by pointing to the failure of parts of the economy, the polity, and the social structure to live up to the rhetoric of universalism. Far from challenging modernity, they have appealed to its core values by identifying areas in which universal principles regarding economic and political rights have not been rigorously pursued. They have presented themselves as discriminated against by the failure of the state to prevent the continuation of particularistic practices in employment, political representation, and social valuation. The demands of these minorities are thus, in theory, demands that can be met by a modern industrial society simply giving more effort to its existing dynamics. Outlawing racism and sexism can be seen as merely giving more substance to the universalizing tendency. Racist and sexist language,
 
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for example, can be eradicated by stripping the culture of certain particularistic features, by making it more bland.
The NCR's claims to the status of a legitimate minority seem quite different. NCR supporters are not disadvantaged in terms of socioeconomic status (or at least, insofar as they are, it is because of their class, region, levels of education, and other characteristics not specifically related to their shared religious culture). Where they are disadvantaged is in the status the state is willing to accord their culture. This disadvantage cannot be remedied by extending the twin principles of universalism in the public sphere and relegating particularism to the private world. It is precisely these two principles that have produced most of the changes that offend supporters of the new Christian right. Thus, although the shift from (a) aiming to re-Christianize America to (b) claiming only that their values, beliefs, and symbols be accorded due status in the public arena, is a sensible change in strategy for new Christian rightists, an understanding of the most abstract features of modernity gives every reason to suppose that it is a strategy doomed to fail.
The NCR As a Modern Phenomenon
There is a tendency to see the NCR as a reactionary movement, an outburst of resurgent traditionalism. Certainly its proponents are fond of describing it in terms such as those in the title of one manifesto:
Back to Basics
(Pines 1982). In part this characterization is appropriate but it is important also to stress the extent to which the movement has itself accommodated to modernity. This accommodation is not just a matter of adjusting rhetoric so that the religion of Creationism becomes creation science and the virtues of fundamentalism are presented, not as divine injunctions, but as socially functional arrangements. It is also a matter of conceding crucial ground to the pluralism of the modern world by accepting the need to separate religious values and sociomoral positions so that alliances can be formed with advocates of competing religious values. Leaders of the NCR insist that they have not accepted the denominational attitude (in which truth is relativized so a number of apparently and previously competing visions can all be seen as in some sense equally
 
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valid), but they have accepted another crucial element of modernity: they compartmentalize. They operate in a world of social action that has been divided into separate spheres with different values. In church, with their own people, in prayer meetings, they remain fundamentalist Protestants. But when pursuing the public agenda of sociomoral issues, they operate with a quite different set of criteria. That is, they have conceded a major part of what the modern pluralistic society demands of religion: its restriction to the private home world. Although their behavior in the public sphere is still informed by religious considerations, it is not dominated by them, and they have been diluted in order to attract maximum support from people who do not share the values and beliefs of conservative Protestantism.
The alternative to denominationalism is sectarianism: the continued insistence that what one has is
the
truth and that those who differ are simply wrong. To present the situation of religion in a modern society in the starkest possible terms, the choice is between sectarianism and denominationalism. Modernity constantly increases the costs of sectarianism. Those people who wish to maintain orthodox religious beliefs find themselves having to retreat further and further into either regional or socially constructed laagers. The NCR has tried to reduce the costs, both by seeking public support for its positions and by resisting the encroachments of the central secular state. But in trying to do those things, it has been forced to accept the denominational attitude. One can see this clearly in conservative Protestant reasoning about the possibility of a third party. Where religion exists in its "church" form, it does not need to be represented by a political party because its presence is so all pervading; Catholicism in the Republic of Ireland is a case in point. Where it exists in a sectarian form, it produces a coherent confessional party; the Calvinist antirevolutionary party in nineteenth-century Holland is an example. American conservative Protestants realize a confessional party is not a possibility. Those who talk about a religious party at all recognize that it would have to be at least a Christian or even a Judaeo-Christian party. But most of them realize that even a Judaeo-Christian party would not work; any viable third party would have to be a secular party informed by traditional (i.e.,

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