The Fundamentalist Mindset Psychological Perspectives on Religion, Violence, and History

by Strozier, Charles B.; Terman, David M.; Jones, James W.; Boyd, Katherine A.

• ISBN13: 9780195379655
• ISBN10: 0195379659
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-04-19
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This penetrating book sheds light on the psychology of fundamentalism, with a particular focus on those who become extremists and fanatics. What accounts for the violence that emerges among some fundamentalist groups? The contributors to this book identify several factors: a radical dualism, in which all aspects of life are bluntly categorized as either good or evil; a destructive inclination to interpret authoritative texts, laws, and teachings in the most literal of terms; an extreme and totalized conversion experience; paranoid thinking; and an apocalyptic world view. After examining each of these concepts in detail, and showing the ways in which they lead to violence among widely disparate groups, these engrossing essays explore such areas as fundamentalism in the American experience and among jihadists, and they illuminate aspects of the same psychology that contributed to such historical crises as the French Revolution, the Nazi movement, and post-Partition Hindu religious practice.

Author Biography

Charles B. Strozier is Professor of History and Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, John Jay College, and a practicing psychoanalyst. David M. Terman is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and Director of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. James W. Jones is Professor of Religion and adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology at Rutgers University. Katharine A. Boyd is a doctoral student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. i
Preface	p. iii
Introduction	p. 1
What is the Fundamentalist Mindset?	p. 9
Definitions and Dualisms	p. 10
Theories of Group Psychology, Paranoia, and Rage	p. 18
The Apocalyptic	p. 41
The Charismatic Leader and the Totalism of Conversion	p. 60
Motivations for Violence	p. 71
The Paranoid Gestalt	p. 72
The Apocalyptic Other	p. 97
Triggering the Fundamentalist Mind: Having Control Under Control	p. 111
Fundamentalist Faith States: Affect Regulation and the Attachment Relationship to God	p. 126
Christian and American Contexts	p. 139
Eternal Warfare: Violence on the Mind of American Apocalyptic Christianity	p. 140
Opening the Seven Seals of Fundamentalism	p. 164
The Unsettling of the Fundamentalist Mindset: Shifts in Apocalyptic Belief in Contemporary Conservative Christianity	p. 188
Global and Historical Contexts	p. 212
Motivations for Jihadi Violence	p. 213
Ordering Chaos: the Nazi Millennialism and the Quest for Meaning	p. 238
The French Revolution and the Paranoid Gestalt	p. 273
Hindu Victimhood and India's Muslim Minority	p. 304
Conclusion: A Fundamentalist Mindset?	p. 336
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