A reaction to uncertainty

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 638.

Fundamentalism is one response to an uncertainty born of social change. It may be a reaction to problems in those areas or countries where people have become disappointed that promises lor development and modernisation have been unfulfilled. They return to the security of traditional religious values.

We could relate this state to Durkheim's mechanical solid­arity. This concept, little used by contemporary sociologists, seems to have significance when aligned with fundament­alism. Durkheim saw mechanical solidarity as a feature ot traditional, agrarian societies, based on similarities between individuals. Members adhere to one set of common beliefs and sentiments which form the conscience collective. Social cohesion within these societies depends upon the imposi­tion of rigid social collective norms that enforce total conformity.

It is significant that, along with mechanical solidarity, we find repressiiv laws whose primary purpose is punishment often exemplary — an act of vengeance on the pan of the society against the criminal. We have become used to this type of punishment in states ruled by Islamic law. The Taliban in Afghanistan, for example, instituted a repressive regime under which public execution has been the penalty for individuals daring to challenge the new order. (Some young girls were executed for continuing to attend schools after education for females was outlawed.) Penal law is, therefore, rewritten within the religious framework