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

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

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195379662
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

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, City University of New York.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Contributor Biographies xi

Foreword Martin E. Marty xvii

Introduction Charles B. Strozier David M. Terman 3

Part I What Is The Fundamentalist Mindset?

1 Definitions and Dualisms Charles B. Strozier Katharine Boyd 11

2 Theories of Group Psychology, Paranoia, and Rage David M. Terman 16

3 The Apocalyptic Charles B. Strozier Katharine Boyd 29

4 The Charismatic Leader and the Totalism of Conversion Charles B. Strozier Katharine Boyd James W.Jones 38

Part II Motivations for Violence

5 Fundamentalism and the Paranoid Gestalt David M. Terman 47

6 The Apocalyptic Other Charles B. Strozier 62

7 The Social Psychology of Humiliation and Revenge: The Origins of the Fundamentalist Mindset Bettina Muenster David Lotto 71

8 Fundamentalist Faith States: Regulation Theory as a Framework for the Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism Daniel Hill 80

Part III Christian and American Contexts

9 Eternal Warfare: Violence on the Mind of American Apocalyptic Christianity James W. Jones 91

10 Opening the Seven Seals of Fundamentalism Charles B. Strozier 104

11 The Unsettling of the Fundamentalist Mindset: Shifts in Apocalyptic Belief in Contemporary Conservative Christianity Lee Quinby 120

Part IV Global and Historical Contexts

12 The Psychology of the Global Jihadists Farhad Khosrokhavar 139

13 Ordering Chaos: Nazi Millennialism and the Quest for Meaning David Redles 156

14 Rumor, Fear, and Paranoia in the French Revolution David P. Jordan 175

15 Hindu Victimhood and India's Muslim Minority John R. McLane 195

Conclusion: A Fundamentalist Mindset? James W. Jones 216

Notes 221

Index 265

Editorial Reviews

"This collection is remarkable in both its scope and quality. It includes the most knowledgeable voices, always rigorous and probing, on the overall subject of apocalypticism. There is no other treatment of the subject that integrates its psychological, historical, theological, and cultural dimensions. The volume will surely be indispensable to everyone concerned with this extremely important phenomenon."

—Robert Jay Lifton, author of Superpower Syndrome: America's Apocalyptic Confrontation with the World and The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide

"Is there a fundamentalist mind-set that leads to violence? The authors of this excellent volume answer yes. Their arguments are so full of insights that they will make this book the indispensable reference for future debates on this subject." —Marc Sageman, M.D., Ph.D., author of Leaderless Jihad

"This book succeeds admirably in laying out a distinctive set of criteria for understanding religious fundamentalism. Its great virtue is the care with which it deploys the methods and concepts of individual psychology in order to distinguish fundamentalist violence from religious faith." —Constantin Fasolt, Karl J. Weintraub Professor of History and the College, The University of Chicago

"The editors and contributors are to be congratulated for undertaking this interdisciplinary study... there is much here that can contribute to enhanced understanding of new religions and violence." —Nova Religio

"[T]his is a very interesting and timely book deserving of wide attention...These are intelligent people, dealing intelligently with a very serious bu slippery subject. What these people have to tell us about the first eight years of their discussion is more than worthy."—Religion

From the Publisher