Malise Ruthven, Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning

Oxford University Press, 2004.

Summary: Fundamentalism is a response to Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment and includes particularly religious people of all conservative stripes. Fundamentalists behave as if will-to-power is necessary to establish the regimes or the public space they feel is necessary for them to practice their faith. Individual Fundamentalists may not be stupid, but their behavior leads to stupid outcomes—“they are selfish, greedy and stupid” (pg. 217). “Protestant fundamentalism is a dangerous religion” (ibid.) as are all other forms of fundamentalism.

Malise Ruthven lacks any sense of epistemological or philosophical humility or irony. As far as I can tell, he is what he loathes in “fundamentalists,” only well-educated, sophisticated, and published by Oxford Press.