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RADICALIZED RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM – IDENTIFICATION WITH AN IDEAL OBJECT AND DESTRUCTIVENESS

by | Vol 42 (1) 2024

Abstract: Fundamentalist movements can be called ‘strong religions’ because they are militant and highly focused opponents of secularism. Fundamentalist thinking is characterized by ideal states. On the one hand, there is absolute submission to the idealized object of God; on the other hand, there are idealized ideas of an imaginary community of believers. In particular, the deep structure of the mental world of Islamic fundamentalism will be examined. Religion, purity, and violence are inextricably linked. The connection between narcissistic notions of purity, unity, and equality stirs up massive violence in order to invoke the fantasy of a pre-ambivalent narcissistic ideal state. The Other or the outsider thus becomes the infidel, the intruder, and the troublemaker necessary for both projection and persecution in order to phantasmatically maintain the ideal state. Such ideological notions and fantasies activate a capacity for aggression of enormously destructive potential.

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