In an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the doctor (Bashir) is speaking with Garak, an acquaintance/”friend” about whom he knows little. Through a medical problem, Garak began to reveal his past to Bashir, but in multiple versions and stories. As the episode progresses, Bashir learns that none of them were completely true. In the final scene, however, Garak, healthy again, resumes his weekly lunch with Bashir as if nothing has happened. Bashir is confounded and tells Garak that he wants the truth as to which stories Garak told him were true. Garak’s response was that “they all are true.” Bashir pushes his question further and asks “even the lies?” In a very twisted answer, Garak agrees, “my dear doctor, especially the lies.” The importance of this story to this investigation will become more noticeable in future posts, but it marks the most important facet of dealing with fundamentalism: even the lies are true and they may, in fact, be more telling than the “truth.”
Historically
Fundamentalism’s roots were perceived to be “good grounds.” What are these grounds? Fundamentalism began in the mid-19th century American. Historically, it has been associated strictly with American evangelicalism as a reaction to contemporary ideological changes. Its main concerns were the “higher criticism” of European Biblical scholars and the “discovery” of evolutionary science. In many ways, fundamentalism wanted to protect the theology and tradition from these new, radical ideas. The first concern was seen (and is still seen by the theological descendants today) as an attack on the integrity of the Biblical text, largely because the fundamentalist understanding was based on a literal, common sense reading. What Biblical scholars now call the grammatico-historical method (other names include textual criticism, historical-grammatical method, etc) and practice regularly was a new thing in the 19th century and some proponents of it had radical (revisionist) readings of the Bible. The emergence of fundamentalism (what I will call historical fundamentalism) was a reaction against such readings. The reasoning used by these fundamentalists was that the meaning of the Bible is very clear and in plain English; further study was not needed because one only needs common sense to clearly understand the Biblical text (WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get).
The second reaction historic fundamentalism had was against recent scientific developments, namely Darwin’s evolution. This was perceived as an attack on the literal interpretation of the creation account which narrates God’s carefully guided sculpting of things. We can see the effects of this reaction in documentaries like Jesus Camp where children are taught that “science proves nothing” (which would also include the Copernicus’s heliocentrism, modern immunology, and modern technology).
The Fundamentals
Here is the very true “lie” behind historical fundamentalism: their reading is the closest reading to that of the earliest Church. They believe they have recovered the lost truth hidden behind traditional readings. It is this concept of having recovered the “real interpretation” that marks fundamentalism across religious boundaries. In order to differentiate it from the historical variety above, I will refer to it as generic fundamentalism. We see this aspect in modern fundamentalist groups whether they be Christian (e.g., Army of God, Moral Majority), Muslim (e.g. al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood), Hindu, or Buddhist. This type of thinking is common to both Osama bin Laden and Jerry Falwell, even though their practices (terrorism vs. political campaigning) were very different. The methodology focuses on a highly literal reading of texts. As a result of this methodology, newer theologies (e.g., premillenialism) were advocated over older ones on the basis of simple, literal interpretation divorced from any kind of contextual understanding of the text (whether it be linguistic, historical, or even textual).
The second true “lie” that permeates fundamentalism is that the fundamentalist interpretation/reaction is recast as being the most reasoned, logical possibility. Earlier, I mentioned Jesus Camp where children are taught “science proves nothing.” This is followed by an argument that all of science is merely faith belief (which I think is a poor view of faith as well, but that’s another story!). Therefore, the fundamentalist opinion must be the best option because it rests on the stable absolute, unchanging interpretation of things that can be traced all the way back to God’s thoughts and actions. In other words, fundamentalists have God on their side and must be correct because of that fact. The irony, however, is watching the fundamentalist use things that are direct results of scientific exploration (which apparently gets lucky every now and then even if it proves nothing), such as celleular phones (radio waves discovered by science as well as the technology to use those waves as a medium for communication), electricity, modern farming (which uses chemicals developed by science), etc.
The two “lies” that form the foundation for fundamentalist ideology are as important to understanding fundamentalism as are the truths. This is because these “lies” fabricate the illusioned reality that fundamentalism has reached its ultimate point of interpretation: the Truth. As such, no alternative can be entertained without entering the danger of total collapse. By setting up camp in a particular conflux of history and ideologies, there is no possibility of change or growth within an iteration of fundamentalism. There can only be a whole new fundamentalism, more extreme than the last and yet exactly the same. Fundamentalism, as an ideology, is a perfect example of Nietzsche’s eternal return as it is a repetition of the Same. The difference itself is as much of an illusion as the foundation beneath fundamentalism. It is the potential of change that creates the violence which always surfaces through militant groups battling the evil that is contemporary society, whether it be seen in spiritual asceticism or physical attacks. These two images are one and the same coin, always occuring simultaneously that form the central element of a living religious tradition, especially when the two are at odds with one another.
