The Dialectic of Unenlightenment: Toward a Critical Theory of Islamic Fundamentalism *

Abstract

The foundational critique of modernity, (DoE), showed how the quest for domination, rooted in the Greek pursuit of control over nature, articulated in the emancipatory promise of Enlightenment based rationality, indeed led to new forms of totalitarian thought and practice. While the (il)logic of capital and the erosion of meaning disposed WWII and its final solution, contemporary global capitalism has fostered wide spread anti-modernist, reactionary movements throughout the Islamic world. Understanding Islamisms is by aided Critical Theory's Marxian understanding of the role of political economy, mediated through Weberian insights into the “elective affinity” between political economy and religious ideologies, and Freudian psychodynamics. Islam emerged as a trader's religion that would enable a vast, flourishing empire to flourish. But a seamless web between Sharia law (kadi justice) and commercial practices would limit the rationalization of commerce, forestall a Reformation, and dispose the relative demise of Islamic hegemony in face of ascendant Christendom. Between indigenous barriers to rationality, and the interventions of capitalist imperialism, globalization has bypassed the Middle East. A powerful ressentiment has taken root among the marginal, disenfranchised and otherwise powerless who are disposed to religious understandings of social problems, with religious based remedial actions to achieve redemption. Fundamentalist doctrines of salvation and renewal preach authoritarian submission, hatred to outsiders (infidels), and demands for death. The fusion of 8th century doctrines and 21st century technologies, portend greater human suffering. The logic of the Frankfurt school remains as relevant as when the world faced its darkest moments.