Latte-sipping fundamentalists
By Thoreau
In a report on Indonesia, the Economist makes the interesting point that urban Muslims in Indonesia are actually more likely to be drawn to more austere, fundamentalist versions of Islam than their rural counterparts. The rural Muslims prefer religious practices that blend Islam with elements of Hinduism and indigenous faiths that were practiced there prior to Islam. No generalizable point here, just an interesting observation on how complex matters of religion and culture can be.
If I were to look for something analogous in Christianity, I might note the veneration of Saints in Catholicism and the parallels with pagan faiths. The old world church ladies of Catholic immigrant neighborhoods, with their rosaries and saint statues and candles (not to mention a bunch of good luck charms and remedies that even a priest from the home country might not endorse), adhere to a completely different set of practices and traditions than suburban WASPs attending a fundamentalist megachurch. (And their socioeconomic divide isn’t so different from the one described for Indonesian Muslims.) Were it not for the fact that they both claim to read from the same book, an anthropologist visiting from another planet, with no prior knowledge of Christianity, might not find any significant similarities between their religions.
Comment by Barry —
September 13, 2009 @ 9:38 pm
Probably the urban Indonesian and suburban American fundamentalists are reacting to the same thing – rapid change and severing of social bonds. The rural Indonesians probably still have large, intact and old social networks. The classical post-WWII Catholic church ladies would, as well (I’m sure that mid-1800’s immigrant Catholics would have presented an interesting picture).
Comment by improbable —
September 14, 2009 @ 3:45 am
Barry makes an interesting point about social networks.
I was going to say that I think this divergence of religious practice is enormously interesting. The village practitioners of faiths based on different books probably have more in common with each other than they do with the fundamentalists of the same book. Theology has very little to do with everyday practice. And yet we fall easily into grouping people into christian / muslim etc.
I wonder sometimes whether understanding this point can be turned into a tool for reducing strife. The fundamentalists draw strength from the number of followers their book has, and I’d very much like them not to…
Comment by TGGP —
September 14, 2009 @ 10:31 am
Reminds me of an old GNXP post: Nerds are nuts.
Comment by Ceri B. —
September 14, 2009 @ 11:11 am
As support for Barry’s point, I note that American fundamentalism went from primarily a phenomenon of traveling revivals to one of established institutions and congregations in southern California early in the 20th century – offering new shelter to uprooted people.
Comment by Seward —
September 14, 2009 @ 4:21 pm
Nozick claimed that people are basically authenticity seeking creature (i.e., his experience machine)s; that is true to some extent. But as I heard Tyler Cowen say recently this isn’t all that we are; we are also pleasure seekers. So yeah, dealing with uprootedness is something that these things help with, but that isn’t all that they do and may not be the most important thing for any particular individual.
Comment by dhex —
September 14, 2009 @ 8:43 pm
communitas is a hell of a drug.
Comment by Taktix® —
September 15, 2009 @ 10:14 am
“No, my fairy tale is right, yours is just fanatsy!”
Pingback by Arugula Akbar? —
September 15, 2009 @ 11:03 am
[...] over at Unqualified Offerings writes: In a report on Indonesia, the Economist makes the interesting point that urban Muslims in [...]
Comment by Seward —
September 15, 2009 @ 12:49 pm
dhex,
It is an aspect of Heidegger’s thought that I never really thought about until I heard that interview with Cowen. Knowing what I know of Heidegger’s biography it is pretty clear that he got shit tons of pleasure from pretending to be a peasant. I guess that would apply to Marie Antoinette as well.
Pingback by Religion and culture : Prof. Pam’s Religion Blog —
September 15, 2009 @ 6:23 pm
[...] discussion in class today about the similarities between religions. Sullivan quotes from a blog by Thoreau (no not that one): In a report on Indonesia, the Economist makes the interesting point that urban [...]
Comment by razib —
September 20, 2009 @ 1:25 am
yeah, i think as suggested by commenters above there is a generalizable point. the same phenomenon is common across the muslim world. ‘buddhist fundamentalism’ in the form of soka gakkai. protestant fundamentalist in early reformation europe.
Comment by the pick up artist lars —
September 27, 2009 @ 7:12 pm
hi das ist ja mal wirklich schön, weiter so ich werde noch zum Stammleser hier