Idolization mourning and catastrophe: transfiguring religious fundamentalism

Abstract

Religious fundamentalism organizes around a core set of attitudes and dispositions: exile, shame, condemnation, grandiose self‐loathing, passivity, moral literalism, idolization, persecution, revenge, and violent messianic transcendence in which an abject self fuses with a vengeful spirit. This paper examines some of the sources that fuel the constellation of this set of positions – which also includes ‘clash of civilizations’ ideologies – in one individual whose way of being is exemplary of the confusion between violence and salvation. The concept of idolization is developed as it is the grounding attitude through which the religious fundamentalist turn of mind inflates. Fundamentalist dispositions undergo modification when the personality begins to soften through the capacity to mourn cumulative losses, violations, and traumatic abandonments. The capacity to mourn disentangles fusion with violent states of self‐other linkage. A space then opens through which symbolic representations of tenderness and care enrich the self and take on more constant internal presence than does fascination with cultic ideologies.