Secular Fundamentalism

• Davie 2013: recent decades have seen the emergence of secular forms of fundamentalism due to changes in the nature of modern society. 2 phases of modernity. 
• Davie 2013 - first phase: Enlightenment Worldview created a reaction in the form of fundamentalism: gave way to the certainty of progress based on science and reason. Undermined religious certainties and thus religious fundamentalism is a reaction to this secularisation of process. 
• Davie 2013 - second phase: Optimism of enlightenment under attack by a growing mood of pessimism and uncertainty - caused by globalisation, concerns about the environment and the collapse of communism. Loss of faith in major secularisation ideologies such as liberalism, rationalism and marxism have been undermined
• secular ideologies are struggling for survival. 
• Disintegration of Yugoslavia led to secular nationalist fundamentalism that justified ethnic cleansing to create a clear cut separation between groups to create ‘us and them’.
• 2010 France made it illegal for women to wear the veil in public. 2015 some councils stopped serving alternatives to pork in school meals. 
• Ansell 2000: form of cultural racism that uses liberal language of universal equality to legitimate the exclusion of religious and cultural minorities. 
• Davie 2013: both religious and secular movements can become fundamentalist as a result of greater uncertainties in late modernity and postmodernity. Competing fundamentalisms have become a normal feature of today’s society. 
• Hervieu-Leger 2000: fundamentalism a form of ‘recreated memories’ in late modern societies that have suffered from ‘cultural amnesia’ and forgotten their historic religious traditions.