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Kritische theoretische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Begriff des Fundamentalismus. Die Autoren wenden sich gegen die Auffassung, Fundamentalismus sei ein Relikt traditioneller Gesellschaftsformen und im großen Maße irrational. Statt dessen muß Fundamentalismus im sozialen und historischen Kontext gesehen werden. Im Zentrum des Interesses steht die Frage, wie sich politische Entwicklungen, wie z.B. die Neue Weltordnung, und religiöse Entwicklungen, wie der sogenannte Fundamentalismus in Afrika, gegenseitig beeinflussen. (DÜI-Spl)

It is argued that the renewed importance of religion in US politics stems from a reaction against the antitraditional element of 1960s culture & the economic changes behind that element. The reconstituted "older Mcs" have rallied behind political forces that cloak their opposition to 1960s-style culture in religious garb, without addressing the underlying economic issues. Drawing on earlier work (Vidich, A., & Bensman, J., The New American Society Chicago: Quadrangle, 1971), the ideas of C. Wright Mills & Max Weber on the Protestant ethic in the US are updated. The religious ethic of hard work, thrift, & honesty devolved into a business ethic linked to a laissez-faire ideology, which were both challenged by the Great Depression. The New Deal form of Keynesianism, the response to the Depression, depended on the cooperation of business & labor, which had to restrain demands for price & wage increases, respectively. The breakdown of this cooperation & the resulting inflation, worsened by the Vietnam conflict, accompanied a wholesale attack on tradition by 1960s culture. A collection of diverse but economically prospering groups (eg, midwestern entrepreneurs who had migrated to Calif, retirees living in the Sun Belt, southern US fundamentalists, etc) felt they embodied the hard-work ethic & laissez-faire ideology, & also felt threatened by challenges to tradition, by welfare programs, & by the US's eroding geopolitical position. The Reagan administration has capitalized on this traditional business ethic, using a religion-based rhetorical approach. Modified AA

In this article author analyzed, on one side, important theoretical determinants of basic categories by which ontological integrity of the Orthodox religion has been based and contained of, in comparison with other religions. On the other side, the author analyzed important theoretical determinants of the basic categories of ontological integrity of the Orthodox religion with basic principles and contents of neo-liberal economic politics. In the context, the Orthodox religion, not even by its one single value or principle, is not signifi cantly contrastive to authentic values of liberalism, universal humanism, development, active attitude and love toward life, and to overall progress, in material and economic sense. Thereby, it is possible to consider that individualism within the Orthodoxy is not in contrast with democratic principles of neo-liberalism (accumulation of the wealth of nations, emancipation of poverty, etc.) The Orthodox individualism is against global political power, which has been imposed by economic centers of the world power in the name of neo-liberalism.

In a post Cold-War world riven with 'minor' conflicts, and a West anxious about the intermittent threat of terrorist attack, human equality and sodality (fraternity and sorority) require urgent review. Among interesting proposals for a theoretical foundation to human equality is Martha Nussbaum's call for a revived, modern version of Stoicism to teach indifference to race and a neighbourly goodwill. Yet in her concern to avoid 'teleologies' Nussbaum denatures Stoicism by disconnecting it from its transcendent foundations. A problem for the modern world is to maintain the authority of states, with their capacity to produce relief for the poor and oppressed along with their capacity to dominate, while having them absorb the ideals of cosmopolitanism into their own policyformation. It is incumbent on the democratic state, the progenitor of the cosmopolitanism of both Cynicism and Stoicism, to promote the ideals of human dignity and equality. Nussbaum's Stoicism scarcely helps, but there are globalizing organizations, such as the United Nations and its agencies, and globalized religious organizations, as advanced by Hans Küng, which may supply the institutional foundation.