Christian Fundamentalism and the Culture of Disenchantment

3. Fundamentalist Exclusivism, Radical Democracy

fundamentalist exclusivism, 3 radical democracy Perhaps the most effective challenge to the political influence of fundamentalism will come from moderate Republicans, who feel that the hijacking of much party policy by the Christian Right will, eventually, prove an electoral liability. John Danforth, a former senator for Missouri, has spoken in the New York Times of his party as “transformed . . . into the political arm of conservative Christians.” Chris Shays, until 2008 the Republican representative for Connecticut, conceded that “this Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy” (qtd. in Nagourney). Other sources of opposition include mainline Protestant ministries, for whom fundamentalists have betrayed the Gospels’ message of compassion and forgiveness, and the liberal press, which alerts its readers to the dangerous politics of a movement that believes its agenda is divinely sanctioned . Postmodern critique can also play the part of a political adversary. Its ideals of radical democracy supply a standard by which to critique the undemocratic tendencies inherent in fundamentalism. First, we should note that postmodernism’s adherence to radical democracy logically follows from its pluralist epistemology. In his 1962 monograph Nietzsche and Philosophy, Gilles Deleuze promoted Nietzsche as the philosopher of pluralism, for whom there is “nothing beyond multiplicity ” (23). Recall Nietzsche’s assault on systems of thought founded on an all-unifying, final totality and his substitution of “a necessary perspectivism by virtue of which every force center—and not only man—construes the whole rest of the world from its own point of view” (Will 636). Here we have a readiness to theorize difference on its own terms, without recourse Maltby, Christian Fundamentalism.indd 91 Maltby, Christian Fundamentalism.indd 91 10/29/12 11:01 AM 10/29/12 11:01 AM 92 / fundamentalist exclusivism, radical democracy toagrandsynthesizingscheme;aproto-postmodernlogicofnon-totalizable multiplicities. Matei Calinescu chiefly defines postmodernism as a “pluralist renaissance,” wherein “our consciousness exists in a multiplicity of (actual and possible) worlds in perpetual ‘chronotopical’ change” (284). And, finally, Lyotard has argued that the discontinuities between everincreasing “petits récits” (little narratives)—each like an autonomous language game that plays by its own rules—can no longer be resolved by appeal to the consensus and closure of an overarching metanarrative; hence, “postmodern knowledge . . . refines our sensitivity to differences” (xxv). The collapse of the metanarratives of modernity facilitates the development of a micro-politics of cultural and ethnic identities, minority rights, and single-issue movements. This is the radical democratic politics whose pluralist goal Chantal Mouffe has defined as “a society where everyone, whatever his/her sex, race, economic position, sexual orientation, will be in an effective situation of equality and participation, where no basis of discrimination will remain and where self-management will exist in all fields” (“Towards” 143). Speaking specifically of radical democracy and its recognition of the “irreducible plurality” of subject positions, Mouffe “welcomes [postmodern philosophy] as an indispensable instrument in the accomplishment of its goals” (“Radical” 44). And Henry Giroux has developed a critical pedagogy grounded in this kind of pluralizing agenda. He embraces “the postmodern emphasis on the proliferation of local narratives , the opening up of the world to cultural and ethnic differences, and the positing of difference as a challenge to hegemonic power relations parading as universals” (“Modernism” 40). He believes in “the emancipatory promise of plurality and heterogeneity as the basis for new forms of conversation, solidarity, and public culture” (“Postmodernism” 222). A pluralist politics also follows from Richard Rorty’s anti-foundationalist epistemology. If we accept that no belief system can be grounded in or authorized by some final truth, situated beyond the limits of culture and time, then, he argues, the validity of our beliefs may yet be measured in terms of their pragmatic consequences. While fully cognizant of how an inevitable ethnocentrism separates communities, nonetheless the criterion for measurement must be in terms of progress toward “solidarity”: “We try to extend our sense of ‘we’ to people whom we have previously thought of as ‘they.’ This claim, characteristic of liberals . . . rests on nothing deeper than . . . historical contingencies . . . which brought about the development of the moral and political vocabularies typical of the secuMaltby , Christian Fundamentalism.indd 92 Maltby, Christian Fundamentalism.indd 92 10/29/12 11:01 AM 10/29/12 11:01 AM fundamentalist exclusivism, radical democracy / 93 larized democratic societies of the West” (Contingency 192). That no creed or worldview, including our own, has yet been irrefutably established on a universal foundation...