Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity: Fighting Talk 3030425088, 9783030425081

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Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity Fighting Talk Peter Herriot

Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity

Peter Herriot

Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity Fighting Talk

Peter Herriot Bromley, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-42508-1    ISBN 978-3-030-42509-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Andrii Yalanskyi / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 What’s the Issue? Modernity, Reaction, and Self  7 3 What Are They? Populism and Fundamentalism 15 4 Who Am I? The Self 31 5 Who Are We? Social Identity 43 6 Who Are They? The Other 55 7 What’s the Story? Fighting Talk 67 8 Who’s in Charge? Leaders and Led 77 9 What’s the Secret? The Role of Technology 87 10 What to Do? Carry on Fighting 97 11 Prescription or Pressure Points?105

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12 When Reality Dawns117 13 When ‘Us’ Cracks Up129 14 When ‘They’ Answer Back137 Index147

List of Case Studies

What Are They? Populism and Fundamentalism Case Study: Anti-vaxxers

25

Who Am I? The Self Case Study: Farage Speech

39

Who Are We? Social Identity Case Study: The Plymouth Brethren

49

What’s the Story? Fighting Talk Case Study: Country Roads

71

Who’s in Charge? Leaders and Led Case Study: Jerry Falwell Case Study: Viktor Orban

79 82

What’s the Secret? The Role of Technology Case Study: Trump’s Tweets

91

What to Do? Carry on Fighting Case Study: Israel and Netanyahu

100

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List of Case Studies

Prescription or Pressure Points? Case Study: Recep Erdogan

106

When Reality Dawns Case Study: ISIS and the Caliphate Case Study: Brexit and Farage

117 122

When ‘Us’ Cracks Up Case Study: USA Fundamentalist Crisis

132

When ‘They’ Answer Back Case Study: Church of England Calvinists Case Study: Jair Bolsonaro

138 142

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Modernity’s Crisis There’s a current sense abroad that the great engine of modernity and progress is coming to a grinding halt. Many seem to feel that their glass is half empty, and that what’s left is mostly the dregs. Several explanations have been suggested for this increasingly sour mood. In sum, the narrative goes, a veritable tsunami of rapid and radical changes is washing over the global social system. It has such powerful impetus that it appears to many to be inevitable, like a force of nature to which people must adapt, but over which they have little control. More specifically, and first on many lists, cultural change is cited as a major issue. The globalisation of business and technology has resulted in increased mobility of people, capital, and ideas. Traditional beliefs, values, and norms of behaviour are challenged. People arrive in ‘our’ country with different religious and family values to our own, and they will persist in treasuring them. And the mobility is in the other direction as well. Those who would have been ‘pillars of the community’ in a previous generation are now ‘citizens of the world’, cosmopolitans rather than locals,1 and far more prosperous than their parents would ever have considered possible. Their glass is considerably more than half full. Moreover, social media have made it next to impossible to socialise many young people into current societal institutions, as myriad corporations and groups proselytise and compete for their attention on the internet.

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Changes in the financial system have had equally unsettling results. Speculation has replaced investment as the dominant method of increasing capital, with risky financial instruments magnifying the probability of sudden recession. Capital can be moved with ease, so that businesses and industries are transported to new locations which offer lower labour costs. The consequent loss of jobs, and the destruction of local industry-based communities, hits hard. And above all, the owners and executives of corporations become richer in terms of wealth and income, even during recessions, while at best the income of ordinary employees is remaining static. Indeed, for a considerable proportion, it has been declining in real terms.2 Insecurity, hostility, or alienation are the likely results of this growing inequality, together with many more tangible damaging outcomes.3 A specific recent collaboration of business and technology has had a uniquely powerful impact, of which we are only gradually becoming aware. Shoshana Zuboff has called it ‘Surveillance Capitalism’.4 She argues that we are mistaken in believing that we are extracting information from digital media. On the contrary, its owners are extracting information from us, about ourselves. They then sell it on to third parties, who in their turn use it to sell things to us, influence our voting intentions, and generally predict and control our behaviour. Surveillance capitalism is largely unregulated, and furthermore is conducted without our knowledge and consent. Its activities, when we realise their secrecy and extent, certainly add to our general sense of loss of agency. Here are people who apparently know a lot more about us than we do ourselves, and what’s more, we didn’t know that they knew it. Mistrust also features powerfully in the political arena, as the ideals of liberal representative democracy are becoming tarnished.5 The motive of public service in representing the interests of the electorate is now seldom attributed to politicians. Rather, personal ambition, financial gain, and party advantage are assumed to be their dominant motives. A variety of reasons may be adduced for this loss of trust. These include the increase in parliamentary lobbying by commercial and other interests, and also, ironically, greater accountability and transparency. The latter has resulted in very public scandals, such as corrupt expense claims and the abuse of power for purposes of sexual gratification or bullying. Both traditional and social media have contributed to the increased personalisation of politics, and a corresponding decrease in attention to policies and their consequences.

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Developments in the nature of work and employment have likewise increased uncertainty and insecurity. Artificial intelligence is now capable of more effective decision-making than human beings in a variety of occupations, including those previously considered to require professional expertise.6 What is more, AI can learn rapidly and effectively from its own experience. The resulting replacement of many technical and administrative jobs has ‘hollowed out’ organisations, so that much of the work that remains is unskilled and contracted out. The legal and psychological contracts of organisations with employees are often temporary and precarious, with zero-hours contracts as the ultimate in unpredictability and insecurity. Add to these developments the long-term trend towards service occupations and away from manufacturing, and the threat to traditional occupational identities is clear. The recent dominance of liberal free market ideology has involved a trend towards privatisation of service provision,7 particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. The consequent decay of the public sector has now reached crisis point for many services, including health, social care, housing, law enforcement, local government, and education. In the United Kingdom, the recent decimation of social services for the unemployed and disabled in the name of austerity justifiably aroused indignation, especially in those personally affected. However, the crisis in more widely used services has now also affected the lives of the vast majority of citizens for the worse. This especially disturbs them when the services in question are crucial for those for whom they feel responsible—their children and their aged parents. They will have noticed that taxes which could have funded improvements in public services have been cut primarily for the better off, who are more likely to be able and willing to pay for these services. The result has been not only been personal distress and hardship but also damage to the social infrastructure which enables people to meet and form relationships. The final and most fundamental change of all is our increasingly headlong rush towards climate disaster8 which threatens massive social disruption and hardship, and ultimately human and natural extinction. Scientific evidence, personal experience, public demonstrations, and extensive media coverage have forced this issue to the forefront of people’s consciousness. Rising awareness of a common fate and concern for subsequent generations leads to an impatience with leaders and institutions who are failing to address this existential issue.

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All these changes bring uncertainty about the future, and hence feelings of anxiety and insecurity. Some of them involve the loss of traditional identities. Others lead to feelings of unfairness, as people compare their own situation with that of others. In most cases, there is a lack of agency: most feel they have no influence whatever on changes which affect them individually. Such a social climate is highly likely to lead to the development of social movements in reaction. Two such movements have dominated the recent past and the immediate present: populism and fundamentalism, the subjects of this book.

Book Outline The first chapter describes the book’s approach, first from a social scientific perspective and then acknowledging my personal beliefs and values which inevitably influence the argument. In Chap. 3 various social scientific perspectives on populism and fundamentalism are briefly outlined, before a psychological approach is proposed. In Chap. 4, I look at the various approaches people adopt in deciding who they are, their concept of their selves. The recent cultural emphasis on creating and developing one’s own self, in authoring one’s own story, overlooks the importance of social relations in determining who we think we are. Our self-concept is of central importance to living in society, since it enables us to adapt to, but also to shape and choose, our social environment. Reactionary social movements such as populism and fundamentalism provide people with a clear and simple notion of who they are, and help them to value themselves more highly. Chapter 5 expands on the nature of the specific social identities9 which the movements provide. Both movements extract important elements of existing political or religious institutions and make them central to a new identity. These elements form the basis of an ideal prototype, the ‘real people’ or ‘the true believers’. This good and virtuous ‘Us’ is also defined by its opposite, ‘Them’ (Chap. 6). ‘They’ form a stereotyped Other, the elite, or immigrants, or apostates, or secularists, who display the vices which are the binary opposite of Our own virtues. A view of the world as continuous conflict, ‘Us’ vs. ‘Them’, naturally follows, as Chap. 7 describes. Dramatic tales of conspiracy and persecution, perils and struggle, fuel the fires of the conflict. Fear grips and fury rages against both the enemy without and the enemy within. But who are the authors of these stories? The nature of leadership in populist and fundamentalist movements is explored in Chap. 8. Movement

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leaders exemplify the movement prototype, and speak their followers’ language. They cannot risk any association with ‘Them’, the career politicians or the heretical religious establishment. Above all, they have to enact the movement’s narrative, modelling or promising simple common-sense action (build a wall, or create a sect). This will result in the longed-for restoration of the mythical golden age, the idealised past, which characterises reactionary movements. In Chap. 9, I outline leaders’ skilful use of information technology, noting how its features make it eminently suited to enabling identification of Us and Them. Many populist and fundamentalist projects appear at present to be progressing apace. Chapter 10 concentrates on the action which reactionary movements have to take if their narrative is to convince and inspire their adherents. Such powerful emotions have been aroused that some form of visible and decisive action is essential. While most such actions face obvious difficulties, some are currently successful, particularly when populisms and fundamentalisms join forces. The rest of the book is concerned with the more general implications for theory and practice of this psychological analysis of how populism and fundamentalism work. In Chap. 11, I summarise the account thus far, and caution against the idea that interventions directly derived from social identity theory are likely to be applicable in the case of reactionary movements. This is because they pay insufficient attention to other perspectives. A less ambitious project is to point up those pressure points in the way reactionary movements work where they are most likely to lose adherents and momentum. The final three chapters discuss three such points. The first is located at the end of the process. What happens when populism’s common sense solutions, or fundamentalism’s establishment of God’s rule, fail to work out in practice (Chap. 12)? The second concerns social identification. Absolutist ideologies require the self to be defined in terms of one central social identity, Us, which is salient in all situations and requires close conformity. How feasible and acceptable is this for any modern person (Chap. 13)? And finally, I argue in Chap. 14, why on earth should those designated as Them accept that identity? Why, in other words, should they accept the populist or fundamentalist narrative, since these narratives position them as conspirators or persecutors or heretics or infidels in a political or cosmic war of survival? All chapters conclude with a summary, some discussion questions, suggested further reading, and references.

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Summary The current crisis in modernity may be caused by some or all of: cultural change, inequality, social media, mistrust of politicians, changes in work, austerity, and climate change. Populism and fundamentalism are the two major social reactions. Questions for Discussion Am I justified in talking of a crisis of modernity, or am I merely a person whose glass is half empty? Are there any major current issues which you feel I have omitted? Or which I have included, but which you feel are of little importance? Which do you feel are the three most critical issues, and why?

Notes 1. Goodhart, David (2017) The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2. Piketty, Thomas (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Boston: Harvard University Press. 3. Wilkinson, Richard, & Pickett, Kate (2009) The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better: London: Allen Lane. 4. Zuboff, Shoshana (2018) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile. 5. Davies, William (2018) Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World. London: Cape. 6. Ford, Martin (2015) Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. London: Oneworld Publications. 7. Lansley, Stewart & Mack, Joanna (2015) Breadline Britain: The Rise of Mass Poverty. London: Oneworld Publications. 8. Goodell, Jeff (2017) The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilised World. New York: Little Brown. 9. Hogg, Michael & Abrams, Dominic (2003) Intergroup behaviour and social identity. In Hogg, Michael & Abrams, Dominic (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage.

Further Reading Any of the books listed in the Notes above which cover an area with which you are unfamiliar. As a prelude to the fairly advanced reference 9 (above), try the following: Jenkins, Richard. 2008. Social Identity. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 2

What’s the Issue? Modernity, Reaction, and Self

Humanity’s Common Fate How, then, are we to respond to the current crisis of modernity and the consequent recent growth of the two reactionary movements? We might traditionally suggest that we should examine them objectively from an external position as neutral observers. Or we could position ourselves as modern people, and therefore in opposition to these reactionaries who are attacking our modern values and institutions. Alternatively, however, we could reject the triple distinction in the first sentence of this paragraph between ‘us’, ‘modernity’, and ‘reactionary movements’. Instead, we will start by including ourselves as people within the global social system,1 of which modernity in crisis, and reactions against it, are both currently central elements. The major social systems which constitute modernity are all global communicative networks. Each of them has its own central aim, values, and practices.2 However, as befits global networks, they all share a concept of humankind as the most inclusive social category. Consider, for example, the law. Law is a universal social system. Admittedly, legal systems differ across nation states, but they all share a basic aim—justice—and all hold certain defining beliefs, values, and practices. Among them is the insistence that everyone is equal before the law. This ideal is not always realised in practice, but the social category of humankind is assumed as valid and important.

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Or take religion. Religion too is a global social system. All the great modern world religions recognise the transcendent, and respond in awe and wonder. They all construe human beings as children of God. People everywhere are therefore worthy of equal dignity and respect. The arts, likewise, assume a common humanity. All great art, drama, and literature succeed in expressing profound universal experiences and emotions. And science, especially the biological and social sciences, treats humankind as a whole as a subject of study. All these global social systems, law, religion, arts, and science, and others too, encourage us to see ourselves as members of the most inclusive possible social category—human beings. But there is one currently overwhelming stimulus to embrace this inclusive identity—the climate crisis.3 Climate scientists, the media, and our own experience all force us towards a realisation of our common fate as a species. Everyone, whatever their nationality or social status, is in the same boat, although some will have to board it before others. The need to collaborate and make sacrifices in the universal present and future interest is a strong impetus towards a common sense of belonging.

More and More About Less and Less However, if the global social system is to survive and function, the universal always has to relate to the particular, the global to the local.4 Communication has to be up and across as well as down from the top. Human solidarity has to be demonstrated at the level of the work group, club, family, or neighbourhood as well as at international and institutional levels. All parts of the system should be informing the others. If they do not, then the system ceases to be global. Unfortunately there is a risk of interpreting ‘local’ as referring literally to place. This is understandable, since many discussions of culture compare global with local cultures, where ‘local’ always refers to a region or city or other physical location. But social systems are essentially networks of communication, and occupy social rather than literal space.5 ‘Local’ therefore refers to smaller parts of the global social system. Needless to say, information technology has enabled far easier communication between local and global. Now the essence and history of modernity is the constant differentiation of social systems into more and more sub-systems.6,7 The global science system is a case in point. There were great scientists at work in Europe, the Middle

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East, and the Far East for many centuries. It was, however, only in the nineteenth century that they all began to accept the same standards of what constituted sound method, evidence, theory, and inference, thus enabling the global science system to develop. Towards the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the social sciences made their decisive break from the discipline of philosophy. They rapidly differentiated out into separate sub-systems: sociology, psychology, economics, political science, and so on. Psychology began with a concentration on cognitive mental processes, but, again, soon bifurcated into cognitive, social, clinical, organisational, and other specialities.8 Social psychology concerned itself with the dynamic relationship between individuals and their social context.9 Specialities soon developed within this sub-system, however. Some social psychologists concentrated primarily on the individual side of this relationship, investigating such topics as attitudes and values. Others focussed on relationships between people in small groups and how such groups, and their members, changed. Yet more looked at collaborative and conflictual relationships between groups, favourite topics being prejudice, stereotype, and social identity. A classic and well-developed theory was developed to account for identity formation and social conflict,10 and it was applied to a variety of real-world situations in institutions, organisations, and politics. The first purpose of this tedious history is to exemplify the continuing explosion of modern social systems into a vast number of sub-systems, sub-sub-systems, and so on. But the second is to indicate my own position as author. For I am located at the bottom of the multi-level family tree which I have just described. Like many other academics, I have spent my working life finding out more and more about less and less. I have sought to apply social identity theory in organisational and institutional settings, obstinately believing that there is nothing so practical as a good theory. And since this is the only knowledge and expertise to which I can lay any claim, I have used this same theory as the basis for this book. At which point readers must all have incredulously asked the same question: how can a specific theory from a sub-branch of a particular social science possibly do justice to the sweeping global process of reaction against modernity and against its present ills? I will attempt an answer by, crab-like, moving, first back upwards, and then sideways along the academic ‘family tree’ in an effort to be explicit about where I am coming from.

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The Russian Doll Perhaps, though, a better metaphor than moving in a reverse direction up the family tree of the social sciences is that of putting Russian dolls back inside each other, having first revealed them one by one right down to the smallest. The innermost doll is, then, in this book, a particular approach, social identity theory. This approach, however, is contained within that emphasis in social psychology on the dynamic nature of the relationship between the person and their social environment, whether that relationship is face to face or mediated. Human behaviour is not to be understood solely as the result of the individual’s ‘internal’ psychology, nor of their environment, but rather in terms of the continuous interchange between the two in which each impacts upon the other. This basic assumption automatically rules out any explanation of populism or fundamentalism solely or mainly in terms of individual differences in personality or ability. People are not populists or fundamentalists just because of the sort of people they are. They are not by nature gullible or aggressive or arrogant or stupid (the usual derogatory attributions). Likewise, however, it is not possible to attribute their adherence simply to their environment. They do not helplessly fall under the spell of charismatic leaders, nor are their actions totally determined by their history or circumstances. Any such impression inadvertently given in this book is entirely mistaken. The next larger Russian doll is that of social science. It is not possible for social scientists to stand outside social reality like natural scientists conducting a microscopic examination of a specimen. But we are still required to relate theory and evidence in a principled way in an effort to understand that reality. Hence I might justifiably be expected not to represent my personal beliefs, values, and attitudes as if they were theory or evidence. Part of the justification for my excessive self-reference in this chapter is to enable readers to judge better when I am guilty of prejudice against populists or fundamentalists. As the Russian dolls get bigger and bigger, so their demands become still more daunting. Any member of the next bigger doll, the intellectual/ academic/scientific social system, carries a major societal responsibility. Given our privileges, we academics might be expected to appreciate and maintain the institutions which support both our own and other social systems. At the same time, though, we should argue the need for their radical reform. There are often good reasons why populists and

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fundamentalists are so angry that they wish to destroy them. How, then, can one tread the narrow path between conservation, renewal, reform, and revolution? And finally, into the biggest doll of them all: the global social system. We are all inside this monster doll together, sharing a common fate and a common humanity. An author must therefore write about anyone and everyone with respect for their dignity and difference. There should be no arrogant ridicule or disdain of our human brothers and sisters. There are already far too many insults flying around. So readers are justified in their suspicions of the narrow academic perspective from which I come. I hope to demonstrate, however, that a single broad-ranging psychological theory can direct a specific light onto these two reactionary movements, and indicate that both of them work in the same psychological way. But readers will justifiably expect me to make some attempt to put the Russian doll together again and adhere to the principles and values of social psychology, the social sciences, academia, and humankind.

Crabbing Sideways But replacing the dolls inside one another is not the only way to go. If the global social system is to survive, the different specific systems have to communicate. So I could with benefit compare and contrast other separate Russian dolls with my own professional one. Indeed, there they all are, sitting on my bookshelves, representing the other social systems which have formed my life. The two most dominant ones in my case are religion and politics, so it is hardly surprising that I should choose to write about fundamentalism and populism. I was brought up by kind and loving parents who worshipped in a Plymouth Brethren assembly (congregation).11 Modernity, called by the Brethren ‘the world’, was represented as inherently evil, and so this young Brother was encouraged to be separate and pure from its influence. The Brethren ideal was the early Christian church, a golden age of which all subsequent Christianity was but a pale reflection or a downright distortion (except the Brethren themselves). University, and the more liberal theology of the Methodist Church, informed my subsequent spiritual and intellectual journey, with the consequence that I am still located in the global religious system, but in a very different space. It is to be hoped that this experience of religion will inform my analysis of fundamentalism.

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I travelled a similar personal journey in the political system. Brought up in a socially and politically conservative environment, and educated at a traditional British public [private] school, I soon reacted by embracing a strong sympathy for ‘the underdog’ and radical political beliefs. However, after a lifetime’s experience of organisations of all sorts, I have developed a belated appreciation of representative social democracy. As a result, I am far more likely to favour the reform of social and political institutions than their revolutionary overthrow. However, I am increasingly convinced that that reform has to be radical and rapid, and that additional institutions are likely to be needed.12 So readers will hopefully continue with this book with a better understanding of where I am coming from, and make allowances accordingly. My major concerns are, first, to point up the value of perspectives from all of the great global social systems; second, to demonstrate the understanding, respect, and sense of wonder which they enjoin; and third, to recognise the potential contribution of even the most specialised perspective. By contrast, I believe that a cultural climate of disrespect for others and the abuse of language and of power is developing which is corrosive and dangerous.

Summary The current crisis of modernity, and the reactionary responses to it, has to be considered in the context of the global social system. This is characterised by continuous differentiation into multiple sub-systems. A crucial requirement for its survival and function is therefore continued global– local communication, both within and across the great global sub-systems. The author describes his own position within a small sub-system of social science. He acknowledges the specificity of the perspective he offers and the requirement upon him to take account of the beliefs and values of the larger systems of which it is a part. Questions for Discussion What are the implications of defining a social system as a network of communication? What are the advantages of the increasing differentiation of social systems? What are the consequences of the increasing gap between ever more differentiated systems and the global social system? Think of some ­examples of the difficulties that have resulted, and how they are being addressed.

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Which areas of your own knowledge and experience do you feel are particularly specialised and differentiated? Do you feel any sense of imbalance as a result?

Notes 1. Scholte, Jan (2005) Globalization: A Critical Introduction (2nd edn.) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2. Beyer, Peter (2006) Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge. 3. Goodell, Jeff (2017) The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilised World. New York: Little Brown. 4. Robertson, Roland (1992) Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. 5. Castells, Manuel (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. 6. Weber, Max (1978) Economy and Society. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. 7. Casanova, Jose (1994) Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 8. Leahey, Thomas (2017) A History of Psychology: From Antiquity to Modernity. New York: Routledge. 9. Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) (2003) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 10. Hogg, Michael & Abrams, Dominic (2003) Intergroup behaviour and social identity. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 11. Grass, Tim (2006) Gathering to His Name: The Story of Open Brethren in Britain and Ireland. Milton Keynes: Paternoster. 12. Monbiot, George (2017) Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis. London: Verso.

Further Reading Scholte, Jan. 2005. Globalization: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Castells, Manuel. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

CHAPTER 3

What Are They? Populism and Fundamentalism

Different Ideologies? What can populism and fundamentalism possibly have in common? Populism surely has to do with politics and fundamentalism with religion—their subject matters are entirely different. Anyway, in our differentiated late-modern world, politics and religion are separate social systems which many have done their utmost to keep apart (witness the French and the American constitutions). Furthermore, they are entirely different sorts of activity. Politics is perceived as a very public activity, while religion is considered a private matter for individuals to choose or reject. From many perspectives, it is entirely reasonable to concentrate on the content of populism and, separately, that of fundamentalism. What, commentators might ask, are their respective subject matters, and how do their arguments hang together? For example, political scientists have studied populism as an ideology. For them, the use of the term ‘ideology’ is not a criticism. Rather, it suggests that populism is a dominant belief system. Students of religion, likewise, look at what very religious people say and do. They conclude that there are certain beliefs and practices which justify categorising some religious groups as ‘fundamentalist’. Again, this word is not used pejoratively by scholars, although it is in ordinary conversation. And, like ‘populism’, it refers to a logically coherent system of beliefs and values. Most political scientists1,2 see populism as focussing on one definitive feature of democracy, the right of the entire adult population to © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_3

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participate in the political process. By inventing an abstract notion of ‘the real people’, however, populists deny the essence of participatory democracy by their exclusion of some citizens from this category. The ‘real people’, they allege, are being exploited by the ‘elite’, a category which includes politicians who claim to represent the electorate and its varied interests and values. The real people are also, runs the narrative, being taken advantage of by others, such as immigrants or the unemployed. Instead of a pluralistic liberal democracy, where different beliefs and values are acknowledged and represented, populists seek to impose a single belief system, ‘the will of the (real) people’, on everyone. In the case of fundamentalism, the same sort of analysis is proposed by students of religion.3,4 Religion’s defining feature is a belief in the transcendent, which has been revealed to humankind in a variety of ways. Fundamentalists claim that they alone possess the true revelation of the transcendent, and that all other approaches are in error. Their enemies thus are both the ‘heretics’ within religion and the ‘secularists’ without— in other words, everyone other than themselves. The conflict, according to the fundamentalist worldview, is therefore between ‘the faithful’ and ‘this evil world’, which has even infected their religion itself with its sin. Yet these analyses of populism and fundamentalism have their critics.5 Some argue that they are not properly descriptive and analytic, but rather merely reflections of their proponents’ own values. Populists, suggest these critics, are actually those who offend most political scientists’ liberal democratic values; fundamentalists can instead be regarded merely as people who take their religion seriously, paying particular attention to their holy book.6 The categories of ‘populist’ and ‘fundamentalist’ are just pejorative labels, created in order to maintain the dominant ideology and power of their proponents. Consequently, populists and fundamentalists are regularly stereotyped as emotional or extremist (as opposed to rational and mainstream). For these radical critics, then, those who are labelled populist or fundamentalist have a justifiable point. The powerful may well be failing to fulfil democracy’s or religion’s prospectus. And perhaps that prospectus is ideologically in error anyway. However, despite these criticisms, it is clear that those labelled populists and fundamentalists are indeed hostile to modernity and its institutions. The quotations which follow reveal, by way of example, how they feel about liberal democratic values.

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Today the liberal order is collapsing, because it has become clear that its ideals are based not on life, not on reality, and not on history, but on artificial constructs which simply cannot accommodate concepts which they see as irrational configurations, but which have shaped and determined Europe and the lives of Europeans for two thousand years: concepts such as faith, nation, community, and family. (Viktor Orban 2018) [Ignorance of the Divine guidance] takes the form of claiming that the right to create values, to legislate rules of collective behaviour, and to choose any way of life rests with men, without regard to what God has prescribed. The result of this rebellion against the authority of God is the oppression of His creatures. (Sayyid Qutb 2001, p. 11)

Why These and Why Now? A different perspective comes from sociologists. Populism and fundamentalism are part of a cultural backlash, they argue. Long-term changes in social values have resulted from the deindustrialisation of society and the increased availability of education. These have occurred over the last two generations in particular.7,8 In general, attitudes have become more liberal, particularly regarding minority groups. Over the more than thirty years of administrations of the British Social Attitudes Survey, for example, the biggest single change has been the increase in favourable attitudes towards LGTB people.9 This revolution in culture has, however, produced a hostile reaction from many. Particular demographic categories, such as older people and those with less formal education, are more likely to vote for populist parties and to support their stance on immigration. While their children and grandchildren may have become cosmopolitan ‘citizens of the world’, they remain staunchly nationalist and local.10 As for fundamentalists, they find their strict moral framework and zeal for purity increasingly threatened by these secular inroads. Many of them engage in specific campaigns on ‘moral’ issues, for example, against equal marriage or in defence of conversion therapy (a procedure designed to ‘cure’ LGTB people).11 Recent events, particularly of an economic character, offer further explanations for the popularity of populism in particular.12 For example, the recession of the second decade of the twenty-first century resulted in a regime of austerity. This political response, and the hardship which it caused, further highlighted the unregulated nature of liberal free market

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economics and its benefits to the already rich. When both the poor and disabled and those on middle incomes suffer as a consequence, the sight of the rich growing richer is more than enough to drive many into the arms of a Trump or a Farage. Whatever the explanation offered, whether political, religious, sociological, or economic, the styles of social exchange have clearly changed to match this increasing dissatisfaction.13 Since populists and fundamentalists deny legitimacy to political and religious authorities, they feel free to act out this rejection by being provocative, transgressive, and just plain rude. The communication is direct, not only in its style, but also in the sense that there is no mediation between speaker and audience. Trump tweets directly to ‘the American people’ using informal and often aggressive language, by-passing the ‘fake media’. Fundamentalists, for their part, demonstrate what they mean by sin by their homophobic and misogynistic teaching and actions.14 Clearly, there is a lot of effort being put into describing and understanding the ideological content of populism and fundamentalism, and into discovering the likely reasons for their current prominence. The ‘What’ and the ‘Why’ questions are being thoroughly addressed by commentators, and, as the two quotations below demonstrate, populists and fundamentalists are only too willing to supply their answers: We uphold a culture of traditional families and all the other eternal, most natural and universally human values which certain globalist-technocratic propaganda wishes to corrupt and abolish. (Matteo Salvini 2014) People must ask themselves why this earthquake occurred in this area and not in others. These areas were notorious because of this type of modern tourism which has become known as “sex tourism”. Don’t they deserve punishment from Allah? (Yusuf al-Qaradawi 2005)

Social Movements However, in this book I will try to explore the ‘How’ question, rather than the ‘What’ and the ‘Why’. How do individuals become populists or fundamentalists, and how is their support maintained and utilised? How does their adherence affect them as people? How do they become so hostile towards other groups and institutions?

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To attempt an answer to these questions, we first have to define populism and fundamentalism as reactive social movements,15 aiming to change or overturn modern social institutions which fall short of their ideals. If they are to achieve this aim, they will need to employ the social processes of influence and identification, which constitute the dynamic interaction between individuals and their social environment. Social psychology offers powerful empirically based theories of these processes, which can generalise across such apparently diverse reactive movements as populism and fundamentalism.16 From a psychological perspective, then, the most important shared characteristic of populism and fundamentalism is that they are reactive social movements. But what exactly is it that they are both reacting against? From my account so far, it might be assumed that they are responses only to the current crisis of modernity, outlined in the Introduction. However, there have been historical spikes in populism and fundamentalism well before our present debacle.17,18 Rather, we need to look deeper, to realise that both are reacting against modernity itself, and therefore date back further. The current crisis of modernity is their proximate cause, but their ultimate stimulus is modern social systems and what they stand for. What then is modernity? How are we to understand the social condition in which we live? Its central feature is differentiation, the increasing process of separation out of the overall social system into different function systems. Each of these has its own basic aim, values, language, and practices, and each also has its own criteria as to what is true.19,20 Government, law, science, business, religion, arts, and media are examples of function systems. Within them different institutions and organisations proliferate, and new sub-systems are continuously being formed (see Chap. 2). Scientific sub-disciplines, political parties and movements, and religious sects, for example, develop, often in profusion. Some fade and die because they no longer are attractive to adherents, or because they achieve their fundamental aim and are incorporated back into their parent system. But overall, the great social systems have flourished because each new sub-system has helped them achieve their overall aim: increasing power or justice or knowledge or wealth or worship or feeling or information, for example. And society as a whole values these outcomes. As a result of this increasing differentiation, people have had to become ever more specialised within the social systems in which they operate. For late-modern society to function effectively and equitably, however,

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differentiation has to be matched by a compensating degree of integration.21 The specific has to be related back to the general. Citizens, for example, have to know what their governments are doing; consumers need to be confident that the products they are buying are safe, and patients likewise regarding their treatments. And governments need to be aware of, and involved with, the activities of corporations and scientists. Such integration is necessary because modern citizens seldom possess the knowledge themselves to make these judgements. They depend on science and the media to find out and inform, on legislation to protect them, and on regulatory mechanisms to ensure such laws are obeyed. Two forms of trust22 are therefore required: trust in the gatekeeping institutions to inform and protect; and trust in the systems themselves and those who operate in them. Otherwise, the mad scientist and the power-crazed dictator easily become popular bogies. And the more differentiated social systems become, the less likely we are to understand or even know about them, and the more we take on trust. Thus from a political perspective, citizens within a democracy have to understand how ‘the system’ works. They have to work out how well it is functioning at present, and in whose interest, in order to exercise their democratic rights. They need an army of intermediaries to help them understand what’s going on. Are they, for example, being properly represented by their elected representatives? Who is lobbying the latter, and for what purpose? What longer term strategies, if any, does the government propose? And if they can’t find anyone they can trust, they have to collaborate in finding out for themselves. Similarly with religion. Religious adherents may be aware of some of the workings of their local mosque, church, or synagogue, although they may feel they have little influence on it. But they have to trust not only their local imam, priest, or rabbi, but also an institution: their denomination, sect, or movement. Seldom do religious institutions offer a great deal of accountability or transparency, virtues which become all the more difficult to achieve as sects multiply and escape central control. Trust in God may be flourishing, but not trust in religious authorities. But it is not just modernity’s structural differentiation into specialised social systems against which populism and fundamentalism are reacting. It is also some of the values which these systems have embraced. Their immense achievements have encouraged a high view of humankind’s abilities to predict and control. They emphasise the importance of rationality and evidence in making decisions, and the value of specialised expertise.

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High value is also placed on everything which could be instrumental in reliably achieving the fundamental aim of each of the different social systems, thus reducing uncertainty. Scientific, technical, and empirical explanations have tended to become valued more highly than supernatural or moral ones, universal standards than local loyalties. And finally, instead of the pre-modern single identity within a ‘natural’ social order, people can develop identities within several social systems and become socially versatile. Individual self-development has become possible and desirable, and people’s rights, they believe, should be defended by governments which represent them. This is modernity’s ideological prospectus. And populists and fundamentalists are reacting not just against its current crisis, but also against some of its fundamental values. To quote: We, the millions with national feelings, are on one side; the elite ‘citizens of the world’ are on the other side. We who believe in nation states, the defence of borders, the family and the value of work are on one side. And opposing us are those who want open society, a world without borders or nations, new forms of family, devalued work and cheap workers – all ruled over by an army of shadowy and unaccountable bureaucrats. (Viktor Orban 2018) The two ideologies, secularism and communism, are essentially the same because they are godless and anti-Christ. These people have taken control of our country and Washington. Today we live in a secular society of people calling themselves ‘progressives’. The only hope for this country is for men and women of God to stand up and take a stand. (Franklin Graham 2015)

Against Whom? Both populists and fundamentalists, then, are actively hostile to modernity. They believe themselves to be in danger from other social systems (the enemy without), and from traitors and heretics (the enemy within). Differentiated modern systems have taken over the power which they imagine the ‘true religion’ or the ‘real people’ used to have in the good old days. They consequently mistrust ‘experts’ from new-fangled specialisms, and also the institutional checks and balances designed to control complex modern social systems. Their hostility encompasses all the world’s major social systems, and is especially directed against government, the legal system, media, the arts, science, and education. In terms of government, many fundamentalists

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wish to establish or re-establish theocracies. They have occasionally succeeded (e.g. in Iran), but more often they simply promote God’s rule in their prospectus. The Reconstructionists, for example, a radical Reformed Protestant sect in America,23 fondly imagine the land of the free governed under Biblical law. As for populists, they too wish to reverse the historical trend towards democratic pluralist societies. There is only one populist political force permitted—the ‘real people’, exemplified and embodied in the person of their leader.24 The same retreat from modernity is found in fundamentalist attitudes to the legal system. Radical Islamists and ultra-orthodox Jews would like to replace common law with Sharia law and the Torah, respectively. So too with populists. In the British popular press, three judges were slated as ‘enemies of the people’ regarding Brexit.25 They had ruled that Parliament should, as the legislature and representative of a plurality of interests, take the decision before the executive, the Conservative government of the day, initiated departure from the European Union. Such a division of powers with its checks and balances is, of course, inimical to the sovereign power of the ‘real people’. The media and the arts are similarly dismissed by populists and fundamentalists alike. Both movements are absolutist. They believe that there is only one truth, their own, and everyone should believe it. Hence populists disdain the free press (‘fake news’) and seek to gain control of social media surreptitiously.26 They act thus because both press and social media are liable to present different versions of the truth from their own. Fundamentalists, on the other hand, treat their holy book as the only ultimate source of truth.27 If the media or the arts fail to propagate its fundamentalist interpretation, they must have fallen under Satan’s control. He, the Prince of Darkness, is scheming away in this immoral and degenerate modern age. The same logic is applied to science. For fundamentalists, if the holy book gives an account of the natural or the social world which is incompatible with scientific research, then the book always wins out.28 No, the universe is certainly not billions of years old, and yes, mentally ill people are indeed inhabited by demons. And for populists, scientific findings can always be discounted as propaganda or self-interest. Vaccination is a co-­ conspiracy by the pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession. Climate change discoveries can be attributed to political or commercial motives. It’s all an elite conspiracy.

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The education of the young is yet another battleground. Education in mature democracies aims to help young people to develop in a pluralist society. They learn to be aware of different cultural perspectives and to flourish in the social systems of modernity. Fundamentalists, however, want children to be educated according to their religion, and not only so, but in their particular version of it. They take this opportunity where democracies offer it, but many would like it to be obligatory in the context of a theocratic state. Christian fundamentalists, meanwhile, send their children to Christian schools or colleges, and, in the United States, to Christian Universities (e.g., Oral Roberts University, or Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.29). Or else, they home school them, under the lightest imaginable regulatory system.30 Students in many Muslim and Jewish schools spend a large proportion of learning time mastering their religion’s holy texts, often learning them off by heart.31,32 Populist leaders, on the other hand, identify with their followers by emphasising their own education in the school of hard knocks. In sum, as far as populists and fundamentalists are concerned, modern social systems and institutions are impediments to the rule of the people or the rule of God. It takes real heroes to take down these elitist structures. Only whistleblowers tell the truth about politics, they believe, and only prophets from God see through organised religion. Both groups are heroes, inspired by patriotism or God, unlike the experts and the functionaries, who are only in it for themselves. Populists are in the habit of attributing actions only to individuals and their motives or character. The idea that people might act as they do because they are fulfilling an institutional or organisational role is alien to their worldview. For too long a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. (Donald Trump 2017)

Fundamentalists, on the other hand, tend to blame worldly beliefs: The spirit of liberalism permeates the Church today, though its catchwords are thinly veiled: liberty is religious freedom; fraternity is ecumenism; equality is collegiality. These are the three principles of Liberalism, the legacy of the 18th century philosophers and of the French Revolution. The Church today is approaching its own destruction because these principles are absolutely contrary to nature and to faith. (Archbishop Lefebvre 1975)

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Where To? Since both movements are defined by their hostility to the essence of modernity (differentiation and complexity), it is hardly surprising that they are both restorationist in their programmes. That is, both of them wish to return to a mythical past which is purer and simpler than globalised modernity. Populists look back to a golden age when everyone shared the same righteous values, cleaving fast to family, township, and nation. Fundamentalists likewise yearn to re-enact the early church, or the caliphate, or the return to the original Land of Israel. The psychological motive is that of re-establishing a mythical identity, and thereby reducing uncertainty and anxiety. Reactive social movements, such as fundamentalism and populism, are to be contrasted with progressive ones. Both are seeking radical change. However, the former want to revert to what they believe to be a better past than the present, the latter to move forward to a similarly idealised vision of the future. While progressives are motivated primarily by hope and idealism, a major driver of populists and fundamentalists is a fear of, and anger about, the present and future, together with a nostalgic longing for a mythical narrative of the past to come true. I have argued in this chapter that these two surprising bedfellows, populism and fundamentalism, share a most fundamental characteristic—they are both reacting against the same enemy, modernity and its values. But also of the utmost importance for my argument, both are social movements. The dynamic exchange between these movements and their adherents, affecting as it does both the individual’s identity and the movement’s direction, is, I will argue, the key to understanding how they work. Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again. (Donald Trump 2015) In the days when the Bible was universally acknowledged in the churches as “God’s Word written”, it was clearly understood that the promises of God recorded in Scripture were the proper, God-given basis for all our life of faith, and that the way to strengthen one’s faith was to focus it upon particular promises that spoke to one’s condition. These things were understood once; but liberal theology, with its refusal to identify the written Scriptures with the word of God, has largely robbed us of the habit of meditating on the promises. (Jim Packer 2004)

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Case Study: Anti-vaxxers The mistrust of modern institutions and a romantic yearning for a simpler past are defining features of reactive social movements. For a recent example, we need look no further than the Anti-vaxxers. These are people who hesitate or refuse to allow vaccines to be administered to themselves or their children. Like populism and fundamentalism, hostility to vaccination has existed for some time. The first vaccine, against smallpox, was itself received with considerable scepticism. But, again like populism and fundamentalism, the anti-vaccination movement has grown rapidly in the last very few years. Indeed, so effective has the movement become that the World Health Organisation has named ‘vaccine hesitancy’ (reluctance or refusal) as among the top ten global health threats for 2019, thereby putting it on a par with air pollution and obesity. A recent decrease in childhood and infant vaccination rates in countries such as France and the United States has resulted in an increase in dangerous diseases which in these and other rich nations had almost been eradicated: measles, mumps, whooping cough, tetanus, and polio, for example. This rapid increase in infections is due to the loss of ‘herd immunity’. That is, if nearly all a nation’s children are vaccinated and then a new source of the disease enters the country, it is unlikely to spread. However, even a relatively small decrease in the percentage of already vaccinated children leads to a corresponding multiplicative increase in infections. This is because there are now more children contracting the disease and more for these new cases to infect. The implication of course is that, if you refuse vaccination, it is not just you or your child who is more likely to be infected. In the case of measles, a highly infectious disease, the result is catastrophic. Within one year, 2018, there was a 30% increase in measles cases world-wide, with the highest number in Europe for twenty years.33 In the first three months of 2019, there was a 300% increase in cases world-wide over the same months of 2018.34 So how are we to explain this development? The anti-vaxxer movement is, like populism and fundamentalism, a reaction against modernity itself, and its current crisis. It shares with them a narrative of elite conspiracy, victimhood and persecution, nostalgia for a pure and natural past, and a penchant for social media. Elite conspiracy is a very well developed theme in the anti-vaxxer narrative. The conspiracy, runs their story, is the work of three villains: ‘Big Pharma’, the medical profession, and ‘busybody’ organisations such as the

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USA Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Big Pharma funds the very research which creates and legitimises the vaccines. It then persuades doctors to use them. It denies responsibility for their side effects, such as autism. Why, it even spreads viruses to increase sales! The individual citizen’s liberty to choose is threatened by compulsory vaccination, but fortunately some champions of freedom have recently emerged, such as the President himself, Robert De Niro, and Joseph Kennedy Jr. Indeed, the President has tweeted: Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes – AUTISM. Many such cases!

Trump’s autism reference is to the research of the British doctor Andrew Wakefield, who published an article in the Lancet journal in 1998 associating the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine with the development of autism in a sample of twelve children. Subsequently (twelve years later) the Lancet retracted the article, and the British General Medical Council revoked Wakefield’s medical license. He soon became a persecuted whistleblowing hero of the anti-vaxxer movement.35 By now an American celebrity, he announced at President Trump’s inaugural ball that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention “needs a shake-up”. Another anti-vaxxer value held in common with populists and fundamentalists is the restorationist longing for a return to a purer, simpler past. Mother Nature knows best, runs the narrative. Why not let children develop natural immunity by being exposed to the disease, rather than enforcing all this modern artificial interference? The appeal to Nature comes, of course, from the Romantic Movement, itself a reaction against modernity. Parents who are hesitant about vaccines are more likely to place a high value on purity and liberty.36 The demographic for anti-vaxxers, at least in the United States, is white, wealthier, and better-­educated than average. Perhaps this discourse is particularly attractive to those who have had little experience of the diseases in question. It is noteworthy that where infection rates have recently increased, the demand for vaccination has increased concomitantly. There is a fundamentalist version of the ‘Mother Nature’ discourse, which references ‘Father God’ instead. The omnipotent God controls all outcomes, and guards the faithful. If they do suffer disease, it is His will, within the context of His ultimate purpose for them. There is no need for human intervention to seek to prevent it; living in accord with the divine instructions is what is required:

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The Prophet shows us that immunisation should come from the regular daily consumption of healthy substances: honey, herbs, olive oil, dates, and goat’s milk. If we don’t follow that, we can be easily infected with diseases.37

Indeed, Boko Haram, a militant fundamentalist movement operating in Northern Nigeria, alleged that the polio vaccine was compromised by additional substances designed to sterilise Muslims and give them AIDS. The United States and the United Nations were the conspirators responsible.38 Another fundamentalist source of opposition is ultra-­ Orthodox Judaism. A disproportionate percentage of the measles cases in the United States occurred in Jewish enclaves in New York State. This is reportedly due to these parents’ belief that the MMR vaccine contains a non-kosher substance.39 A final feature of the anti-vaxxers’ successful movement is their use of social media. The persuasive power of personal experiences trumps scientific evidence every time. A recent article describes the persuasive process as ‘emotional contagion, digitally enabled’.40 Social media are used by a self-contained on-line community who read no conflicting perspectives. Like populists and fundamentalists, confirmed anti-vaxxers maintain one absolutist belief system which is not amenable to dispute or dialogue. Indeed, recent research suggests that the belief systems may be related41: the population percentage of voters for populist parties is highly correlated with the percentage of those who believe that vaccines are neither important nor safe. And another recent study, the Wellcome Global Monitor,42 found that the level of trust in science was closely related to the level of confidence in other institutions such as the government, judicial system, and the military. Scepticism about authority of any sort, and the attribution of unworthy motives to those wielding it, are typical of populist movements.

Summary Populism and fundamentalism are not merely a response to modernity’s current crisis. They are, rather, social movements which are hostile to the beliefs and values of the modern project as a whole. They dismiss its different social systems such as government, science, the law, the media, religion, education etc., accusing them of acting on behalf of ‘the scheming elite’ or ‘this evil world’. Instead they urge their absolutist ideologies on everyone, representing them as a return to an idealised past.

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Questions for Discussion What are the differences between social movements, institutions, and organisations? What is the major contribution of each to society? Why is a past golden age attractive? Why do many prefer reactionary to progressive social movements? What personal experience do you have of either populism or fundamentalism? Would you be willing to share it with the group? How has it increased your understanding of society and of yourself?

Notes 1. Mudde, Cas & Kaltwasser, Cristobal (2017) Populism: A Very Short Introduction. New York, Oxford University Press. 2. Muller, Jan-Werner (2016) What is Populism? Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 3. Lawrence, Bruce (1989) Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age. Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press. 4. Almond, Gabriel, Appleby, R. Scott, & Sivan, Emmanuel (2003) Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 5. Mouffe, Chantal (2018) For a Left Populism. London: Verso. 6. Bruce, Steve (2000) Fundamentalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. 7. Norris, Pippa & Inglehart, Ronald (2018) Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Authoritarian Populism. New  York: Cambridge University Press. 8. Rensmann, Lars (2017) The noisy counter-revolution: Understanding the cultural conditions and dynamics of populist politics in Europe in the digital age. Politics and Government, 5, 4, 123–135. 9. www.natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/british-social-attitudes 10. Goodhart, David (2017) The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 11. Herriot, Peter (2017) Warfare and Waves: Calvinists and Charismatics in the Church of England. Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock. 12. Judis, John (2016) The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics. New  York: Columbia Global Reports. 13. Moffitt, Benjamin (2016) The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Palo Alto CA: Stanford University Press. 14. Juergensmeyer, Mark (2003) Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (3rd edn). Berkeley CA: University of California Press.

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15. Della Porta, Donatella & Diani, Mario (2010) Social Movements: An Introduction (2nd edn.). Oxford: Blackwell. 16. Hogg, Michael & Abrams, Dominic (2003) Intergroup behaviour and social identity. In Hogg, Michael & Abrams, Dominic, Handbook of Social Psychology, London: Sage. 17. Greenberg, David (2016) An intellectual history of Trumpism. Politico, December 11th. 18. Armstrong, Karen (2000) The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. London: HarperCollins 19. Weber, Max (1978) Economy and Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 20. Beyer, Peter (2006) Religions in Global Society. New York: Routledge. 21. Brewer, Marilynn (2009) Motivation underlying ingroup identification: Optimal distinctiveness and beyond. In Otten, Sabine, Sassenberg, Kai & Kessler, Thomas (eds.) Intergroup Relations: The Role of Motivation and Emotion. Hove: Psychology Press. 22. Davies, William (2018) Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World. London: Cape. 23. Ingersoll, Julie (2015) Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press. 24. Reicher, Stephen & Haslam, Alexander (2017) Trump’s appeal: What psychology tells us. Scientific American, March 1st. 25. Slack, James (2016) Enemies of the people. Daily Mail, Nov 4th. 26. Cadwalladr, Carole (2017) The great British Brexit robbery: How our democracy was hijacked. The Guardian, May 7th. 27. Hood, Ralph, Hill, Peter, & Williamson, W. Paul (2005) The Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism. New York: Guilford. 28. Bowler, Peter (2007) Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design. Boston Mass: Harvard University Press. 29. Harding, Susan (2000) The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. 30. Stevens, Mitchell (2001) Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. 31. Berglund, Jenny (ed.) (2018) European Perspectives on Islamic Education and Public Schooling. Sheffield: Equinox. 32. Miller, Helena, Grant, Lisa, & Pomson, Alex (eds.) (2011) International Handbook of Jewish Education (2nd edn.). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 33. The Guardian, 21/12/2018. 34. The Guardian, 25/4/2019. 35. The Guardian, 18/7/2018.

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36. Amin, Avnika (2017) Association of moral values with vaccine hesitancy. Nature: Human Behavior 1, 12, 873–880. 37. www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-15/islamic-anti-vaxxers 38. CBC News, 2/6/2014. 39. The Observer, 14/4/2019. 40. Larson, Heidi (2018) The biggest pandemic risk? Viral misinformation. Nature, 562 (October 16), p309. 41. Kennedy, Jonathan (2019) Populist politics and vaccine hesitancy in Western Europe: An analysis of national-level data. European Journal of Public Health, February 25th. 42. The Observer, 23/6/2019.

Further Reading Beyer, Peter. 2006. Religions in Global Society. New York: Routledge. Bruce, Steve. 2000. Fundamentalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Graham, Franklin. 2015. http://www.eu.timesrecordnews.com/story/ opinion/2018/06/10/letter-rev-graham Lefebvre, Archbishop. 1975. http://www.thecatacombs.org/thread/262/ quotes-archbishop-lefebvre-topic Muller, Jan-Werner. 2016. What Is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Orban, Viktor. 2018. http://www.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/theprime-minister-s-speeches Orban, Viktor. 2018. http://www.freedomhouse.org/blog/his-own-wordspreoccupations-hungary-s-Viktor-Orban Packer, Jim. 2004. Knowing God (ch 11) London: Hodder & Stoughton. al Qaradawi. 2005. http://www.azquotes.com/author/19435-Yusuf_al_Qaradawi Qutb, Sayyid. 2001. Milestones, 11. New Delhi: Islamic Book Service. Salvini, Matteo. 2014. http://www.time.com/5394207/matteo-salvini-timeinterview-transcript-full Trump, Donald. 2015. http://www.time.com/3923128/donald-trumpannouncement-speech Trump, Donald. 2017. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/ donald-trump-inauguration-speech

CHAPTER 4

Who Am I? The Self

Where Does It Come From? Any account of how reactionary movements such as populism and fundamentalism work has to incorporate a psychological understanding of people’s perceptions of who they are: their selves. This is because all such social movements depend upon a continuous interchange between individuals and their social environment. Selves are both changing the movements they belong to, and at the same time being changed by them. An account of the modern self is therefore necessary for understanding the success of populism and fundamentalism. Being reflexive, or, as Charles Taylor1 calls it, ‘the inward turn’, is a major feature of modernity. The Enlightenment thinkers urged people to look within themselves. They encouraged them to discover their reason and feelings, and then to use whatever they found to guide their actions. They could now act rationally and expressively in an informed way, consciously regulating their behaviour. It’s immediately clear, though, that we cannot construe the self as some static part of the mind or the brain, as a structure which changes little. If, on the contrary, ‘self’ is defined as perceptions about who one is,2 we must conclude that our self changes often. This is because of our existence as social animals within social systems, constantly interacting with other people directly through speech and action, or via various media. Our self changes as we infer the sort of people we are from the way others behave towards us, particularly when they are responding to our own behaviour towards them. © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_4

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As usual, however, things are not quite so simple as they appear. It turns out that we are not always too good at looking dispassionately at such behavioural evidence. Rather, we pay more attention to how we believe others think of us, or to how we would like them to think of us. In this teasing hall of mental mirrors, we try to perceive how others are perceiving us.3 And we are not particularly good psychologists, most of us being strongly motivated by our need to think well of ourselves. Hence we may be tempted to assume that others do indeed hold us in the highest possible regard. And there is another source of the self which is a result of our self-­ consciousness: our own behaviour. We can reflect upon what we have done and infer from it the sort of people we are.4 We may have done this or that for any number of different reasons, but they are of secondary interest compared to the inference after the event. I suppose I must be a patriotic Hungarian, I conclude: I went to a Viktor Orban rally. Or, I really am saved for eternity, for I went up to the front at the evangelistic tent mission. Where, we might ask, does the balance of power lie in this complex social process? Do we formulate our perceptions of ourselves, or do we allow others to do it for us? Are we our own authors, or do others write our narrative? In our individualistic late-modern cultures of the West, we like to perceive ourselves as our own authors.5 We are encouraged by the booming self-help industry to ‘become whoever we want to be’, to ‘create and actualise our selves’.6 We are heroic loners, masters of our fate in a social Darwinian world of the survival of the fittest. In other words, we attribute our outcomes to ourselves (provided that they are favourable). It’s worthwhile at this point in the argument to distinguish the idea of the self from that of a social identity. The latter refers to a belief we hold about belonging to a specific category of person; I am an academic, for example, and a Londoner. It follows that we are all likely to have several social identities, as there are several categories to which we believe we belong.7 Thus social identities are a subset of the self, part but only part of all the perceptions we have of ourselves. We share them with others, however, and so they fail to provide that sense of unique and authentic personhood which we may seek as modern individualists. Moreover, our selves don’t exist in isolation. We don’t perceive them as floating around in a social vacuum, but as located within a particular view of the world. If we are social Darwinists for example, we may view ourselves as survivors in a world where dog eats dog in the struggle to be top dog. If we are populists, we are one of the real people, fighting a global

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conspiracy designed to keep us down. If fundamentalists, we constitute the faithful few, battling for God in a world which has rejected Him. The recipients of the following two messages certainly must have felt better about themselves: What happened last Thursday [the UK referendum result in favour of Brexit] was a remarkable result—it was a seismic result. Not just for British politics, for European politics, but perhaps even for global politics too. Because what the little people did, what the ordinary people did—what the people who’d been oppressed over the last few years who’d seen their living standards go down did—was they rejected the merchant banks, they rejected big politics and they said actually, we want our country back, we want our fishing waters back, we want our borders back. (Nigel Farage 2016) The Believer is most superior in his understanding and his concept of the nature of the world, for the belief in one God, in the form which has come to him from Islam, is the most perfect form of understanding, the greatest truth. The picture of the world which this Faith represents is far above the heaps of concepts, beliefs and religions……..[and] is so bright, clear, beautiful, and balanced that the glory of the Islamic belief shines forth as never before. And without doubt, those who have grasped this knowledge are superior to all others. (Sayyid Qutb 2001, p. 142)

Organisation of the Self So how do we organise our perceptions of our selves, so that we can best make sense of who we are? How do we manage to use them to try to understand our social world and act accordingly? A dominant feature of our self is our self-esteem.8 To maintain or enhance self-esteem is a powerful motive for many. I have already referred to how we frequently interpret others’ behaviour towards us in such a way as to put ourselves in a favourable light. We also need to believe that we at least try to act according to any ideals we may have, and that we fulfil at least some of our perceived social obligations. And if we can join a social movement which makes us feel powerful or virtuous, so much the better. A second feature of our selves is the salience of particular perceptions. It is helpful if a social identity comes to mind in those situations where it is appropriate to act accordingly. A Londoner knows that he or she makes no eye contact and initiates no conversations on the Underground with strangers. But if the traveller’s identity as a born-again Christian is habitually salient, he gets out his Bible and seeks to witness to the ‘unsaved’

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person sitting next to him. Being in this ‘ungodly’ social space is his cue to put his evangelist hat on. This example draws attention to the degree of complexity of the self. Some may have a large array of social identities and other perceptions. Others may have relatively few, with one of them perhaps, like the Underground believer, having such importance as to be salient in all sorts of inappropriate situations. But real complexity occurs in terms of the relationships of the perceptions to one another. People may have complex models of their own personality, for example, or attribute a large array of different sorts of motives to themselves. They may have a nested hierarchy of social identities of varying degrees of specificity in which they can locate themselves as appropriate.9 I am a psychologist of religion in some situations, and an academic in others, with the former identity one of a sub-set of the latter. People can use all these constructions of the self to direct and motivate their behaviour, or to explain or justify to themselves or others what they have already done. Another noteworthy element of the self is the degree of balance which individuals achieve between unusual perceptions and common ones: between, in other words, differentiation and integration. Some cherish unique features, typical of a very small social group, for example, an obscure sect. Others see themselves as belonging to major social categories, for example, people of faith. If selves prompt social action, then the highly differentiated self will flourish in its own tiny milieu in an increasingly atomised social world. This is because groups will likely be internally homogeneous, full of like-minded devotees. However, they may find it hard to relate to very different groups. We must also return to the question of attribution.10 Different selves will favour different explanations for events. Late-modern individualists will attribute outcomes mostly to themselves. As autonomous actors, they will believe that it is through their own ability, effort, and actions that favourable outcomes have happened. Given their need for self-esteem, however, they may attribute unfavourable ones to the actions of others. Either way, outcomes, they believe, are due to the actions and motives of individuals. Explanations in terms of luck and chance are disdained, and historical, structural, and systemic explanations are not entertained. It is individuals who are responsible for what happens, they believe; other explanations are mere self-serving excuses. And a final feature of the self is the extent and speed of change which a person is willing to entertain. Do changes in self-perceptions occur

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gradually, and moderate previous perceptions only slightly? Does the narrative of a life retain its coherence and merely add to the story as time goes by? Such consistency within the story and over time suits the earlier modern era, suggests Zygmunt Bauman,11 when family and career stages were predictable and risks could often be predicted and controlled. But today, with less predictability and greater risk, in what Bauman calls post-modernity, narratives break up into mere disjointed episodes. Trump well understands insecurity in times of rapid change, and so do fundamentalist Protestants: But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscapes of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. We are one nation and their pain is our pain. (Donald Trump 2017) Satan hates you and has a terrible plan for your life. If he cannot succeed in robbing you of eternal life, he will do everything in his power to deprive you of the joy, influence, and rewards that come from serving God in this life. Since Satan cannot be in more than one place at a time, he has delegated much of his work to demons, who discourage, distract, and deceive through a variety of means. (Robert Jeffress 2006)

Crisis for the Self? What then are the likely effects on the self of the crisis of modernity which I described in the Introduction? A whole raft of changes has assaulted the lynch-pin of the modern self—the perception that individuals can control their own lives and optimise their own outcomes. How, people may feel, can we have any sense of personal agency when the financial system is at the mercy of reckless speculators, and when corrupt politicians fail to ensure that opportunities are available to be grasped by ambitious people. And there can be no greater challenge to the sense of agency than that thrown down by the digital giants. If they can find out all about me and persuade me to behave in the ways they want, I may reason, I have lost any personal control I once thought I had. How, ask others, can we keep our sense of ourselves as community when localities are being transformed by newcomers very different from

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ourselves. And all the old landmarks are going: the high street shops, the pub, the library, the playground, to be replaced by virtual substitutes. The entire direction is away from integrated community, and towards a multitude of different interest groups on Facebook. What hope can we have of telling a consistent story about ourselves when all the potential story lines keep dropping out of the narrative. There’s no work sub-plot now because the occupational niche which we thought we occupied disappears overnight, to be replaced by an algorithm. There’s no career progression because organisations and institutions offer only temporary and fleeting employment relationships. There’s no general theme of social mobility and improvement because real incomes remain constant or decline, while the rich get richer. And the sequential acts of the generational drama become all mixed up, as the young fail to make it to responsible adulthood, while the old refuse to leave the stage. And finally, self-esteem is frequently shattered. How can we think well of ourselves if we cannot hold onto a job and support ourselves and our dependents? If others, whom we may never have met, abuse and denigrate us on social media? If we are treated badly merely because we are members of a minority? If politicians, who are supposed to represent us, scapegoat us in order to enhance their personal prospects or their party’s power? Modernity’s current crisis, then, can so easily become a crisis for the self. And the enveloping anger and fear which result provide a fertile recruiting ground for reactive movements such as populism and fundamentalism, for both are adept at meeting the needs of the besieged self. Here are two skilful examples: Patriotism is often branded as fascism. But patriotism is not fascism. On the contrary, every democrat and defender of freedom must by definition be a patriot. The spirit of political freedom cannot thrive outside the body of the nation state. The nation state is the political body in which we live. Therefore we have to maintain the nation state so we can pass on to our children the freedom and democracy which we enjoy. Do not allow German identity to be swept away by Islam. Do not allow German identity to be swept away by the EU. (Geert Wilders 2013) It is not suicide; it is martyrdom in the name of God. I consider this kind of martyrdom operation as an indication of the justice of Allah almighty. Allah is just. Through his infinite wisdom, he has given the weak what the strong do not possess and that is the ability to turn their bodies into bombs as the Palestinians do. (Yusuf al-Qaradawi 2006)

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Movements to the Rescue So how do movements which try to lure followers back into a mythical past succeed in rescuing the self from its modern discontents? First of all, they provide a clear and attractive narrative. This is embedded in a worldview and contains enough traces of the currently failing narrative to reassure potential adherents. Yes, of course the populist movements are democratic: the people hold the power, don’t they? And of course fundamentalisms are truly religious: why, look at them, they are more holy and orthodox than the mainstream. Both populists and fundamentalists set their narratives in the context of a battlefield or war zone; they both engage in fighting talk. However, for neither is there ever a clear-cut cease-fire or victory. For populists, even present victories have to be continually protected against conspiracies. For fundamentalists, a complete victory, the Kingdom of God on earth, the caliphate, or God’s Israel, is only ultimately achieved in the future.12 Anyway, a worldview of continued conflict has its benefits for both movements. First, many of the rules of society are normally considered null and void in war,13 subordinated to the ultimate need to survive and win. Hence the democratic practices of dialogue, due process, agreed decisions, and accountability are no longer obligatory. On the contrary, civility is hard to discover as the conflict continues indefinitely. Rather, such strong passions as fear, anger, and contempt are aroused and used to motivate hostile and illegal actions. ‘Peacetime’ rules no longer apply. School children are abducted and raped in Nigeria, the norms of parliamentary procedure are ignored in Britain, abortion clinics and hospitals are bombed in America. Features of the two narratives are similar. For example, they are both punctuated by stories of persecution and repression (fundamentalists) or of being ignored, treated with contempt, or taken advantage of (populists). This discourse of victimhood plays to the sense of injustice and outraged self-righteousness of adherents. ‘We are fighting a just war of freedom against oppression’ is the message. The narratives provided by populism and fundamentalism thus provide meaning and motivation, both of which are absent if personal narratives have been reduced to a sequence of unrelated aimless episodes and relationships. But the movements restore the self in other ways too. They renew a sense of agency with their claims to seize and exercise power. The jihadis are the vanguard, Allah’s shock troops. The settlers rightfully

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reclaim Eretz Yisrael for God’s chosen people. Populists identify with Trump and Orban, Le Pen and Wilders, who are one of us and exercise power as proxies for us all. Protestant fundamentalists look forward to ruling with Christ when He returns in glory. And apart from this increased sense of agency, self-esteem is boosted in other ways too. Both movements proclaim a degree of separation from, and superiority over, the rest of the world. Populists have to be the real people, of native stock, hard-working, and authentic. Fundamentalists have to be pure and separate from the evil world, and completely doctrinally sound. These requirements ensure that they are sufficiently different from out-groups, but highly similar within the movement. Both sets of adherents are proudly different and proudly together, the real people and the faithful remnant. So meaning has been provided, a sense of agency revived, and self-­ esteem restored. From the adherents’ perspectives, the self has been repaired. But their gratification may be short-lived. Perhaps these apparent psychological benefits have been gained at the expense of features of the self which are very important for their longer term survival and that of global society. How can a person contribute and flourish in a complex social world if their self is dominated by a single feature, for example, a national or sectarian identity? How can they hope to decide on beneficial policies if they are suspicious of knowledge and consumed by strong emotions? How can they engage in dialogue if they are continuously hostile to other groups than their own? But the old tunes continue to play the best, as these quotations show: Our response to this changed world, the Hungarian people’s response, has been to replace the shipwreck of liberal democracy by building 21st century Christian democracy. This guarantees human dignity, freedom and security, protects equality between men and women and the traditional family model, suppresses anti-Semitism, defends our Christian culture and offers our nation the chance of survival and growth. We are Christian democrats, And we want Christian democracy. (Viktor Orban 2018) As we walk before the unbeliever then, the thing that makes us different is our submission to the Word of God. Our lives and thinking are founded on Scripture, while the essence of the unbeliever’s life is rejection of the revelation of God. Our presupposition of Scripture’s truth is at diametric odds with that of the world, and because we have been given the Word of God, the world hates us. From the outset, the focus of the world’s opposition to the faith is the Word of God itself. (Greg Bahnsen 2008)

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Case Study: Farage Speech This speech14 aims to provide a meaningful context, emphasise the audience’s sense of agency and control, enhance its self-esteem, and characterise it as the real (British) people. These are all aspects of the self which the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) sought to cultivate in its supporters. When we launched our party just 17 percent of British people agreed we should withdraw from the European Union. Today that figure is 67 percent. The British Social Attitudes Survey shows how much Britain has been moving UKIP’s way. On many different areas of our national life. On welfare-that benefits should be there for need, not as a lifestyle choice. On education-that grammar schools are a great engine of social mobility. And yes, on the European Union. Yes, on immigration. It’s the biggest single issue facing this country. It affects the economy. The NHS [National Health Service]-Schools-Public Services-The deficit. But the establishment has been closing down the immigration debate for 20 years. UKIP has opened it up. We need to. From the 1st of January next year the stakes are rising dramatically. Let’s have that debate! Openly. We need to talk about it! We are a nation that has always been open minded about immigration. But more people came to this country in one year, 2010, than came in the thousand years before it. I’m not against immigration. Far from it. Migrants have qualities we all admire. Looking for a better life. They want to get on. I like that. We admire that. So I’m speaking here as much for the settled ethnic minorities as for those who have been here forever. Half a million new arrivals a year! It’s just not sustainable. Anyone who looks at it honestly knows it’s not sustainable. UKIP talks about it honestly. Directly. We’ve had a lot of stick for it. Normal, decent people have been bullied out of the debate. Maybe that’s why none of the London commentariat has noticed what’s going on out there in Telford, and Aylesbury, and Kettering, and Buxton, and Harrogate. It’s a long way from London. But all over the country I’m getting audiences of five hundred or six hundred a night to talk about this. This debate has been filling theatres. And not with party members. On a show of hands, 80 percent are non-members. But they’re interested. They’re engaged. They’re concerned. These people aren’t disconnected from politics. They’re disconnected from politicians. And UKIP is the only party that isn’t afraid to talk to them about it. So who are we? Who is the typical UKIP voter? I’ll tell you something about the typical UKIP voter-the typical UKIP voter doesn’t exist. When I look at the audiences in those theatres, there is a range of British society from all parts

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of the spectrum. Workers, employers, self-employed. Big businessmen, corner shop owners. Well off, comfortably off, struggling. Young as well as old. Not ideologues. Some left, some right, mostly in the middle. Some activists, some haven’t voted for twenty years. One thing many have in common: they are fed up to the back teeth with the cardboard cut-out careerists in Westminster. The spot-the-difference politicians. Desperate to fight the middle ground, but can’t even find it. Focus groupies. The triangulators. The dog whistlers. The politicians who daren’t say what they really mean. And that’s why UKIP attracts this eclectic support. Because when we believe something, we don’t go “are you thinking what we’re thinking”. We say it out loud. That’s why UKIP is the most independent-minded body of men and women who have ever come together in the name of British politics.

Summary The self is the set of our perceptions of who we think we are. Social identities are a sub-set of these perceptions, and are the categories of person to which we believe we belong. Our self performs vital functions in our social lives: the need for self-esteem motivates us; the complexity and salience of the self guide our actions; and its ongoing consistency gives meaning to our lives. But modernity’s crisis is a crisis for the self. We now have more doubts about our ability to have any effect on what happens, or to have a consistent story to tell, or to belong anywhere. Populism and fundamentalism can temporarily remedy these disorders by providing narratives of threat, persecution, conflict, and victory, which enhance self-esteem, and give a sense of agency and meaning. Questions for Discussion To what extent do we depend on others for our perceptions of who we are? On what bases do we understand and evaluate their reactions to us? How powerful are the needs for agency, self-esteem, and meaning as motivators? What happens when they are not met? Which are the three most dominant narratives in late-modern society? Why are they dominant, and what needs does each of them best meet?

Notes 1. Taylor, Charles (1989) Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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2. Baumeister, Roy & Bushman, Brad (2011) The Self: Social Psychology and Human Nature (2nd edn) Belmont CA: Cengage Learning. 3. Shrauger, J. Sidney & Schoeneman, Thomas (1979) Symbolic interactionist view of self-concept: Through the looking glass darkly. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 549–573. 4. Bem, Daryl (1972) Self-perception theory. In Berkowitz, Leo (ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Vol 6. New  York: Academic Press. 5. Markus, Hazel & Kitayama, Shinobu (1991) Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–253. 6. Giddens, Anthony (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. 7. Hogg, Michael & Abrams, Dominic (2003) Inter-group behaviour and social identity. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 8. Baumeister, Roy (1993) (ed.) Self-esteem: The Puzzle of Low Self-Regard. New York: Plenum. 9. Tajfel, Henri & Turner, John (1986) The social identity theory of intergroup behaviour. In Worchel, Stephen & Austin, William (eds.) Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. 10. Ross, Lee & Nisbett, Richard (1991) The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill. 11. Bauman, Zygmunt (1996) From pilgrim to tourist—or a short history of identity. In Hall, Stuart & du Gay, Paul (eds.) Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage. 12. Wojcik, Daniel (1997) The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America. New York: New York University Press. 13. Juergensmeyer, Mark (2003) Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (3rd edn.). Berkeley CA: University of California Press. 14. www.ukpol.co.uk/nigel-farage-2013-speechtoukipconference/

Further Reading Bahnsen, Greg. 2008. http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/265621. Greg_L_Bahnsen Baumeister, Roy, and Brad Bushman. 2011. The Self: Social Psychology and Human Nature. 2nd ed. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Farage, Nigel. 2016. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigelfarage-brexit-speech Giddens, Anthony. 1997. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Hood, Ralph, Peter Hill, and Paul Williamson. 2005. The Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism. New York: Guilford. Jefress, Robert. 2006. http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/pathway-tovictory/read/articles/what-demons-want-to-do-to-you Orban, Viktor. 2018. http://www.visegradpost.com/en/2018/05/12/viktororbans-full-speech-for-the-beginning-of-his-fourth-mandate al Qaradawi, Yusuf. 2006. http://www.azquotes.com/author/19435-Yusuf_ al_Qaradawi Qutb, Sayyid. 2001. Milestones, 142. New Delhi: Islamic Book Services. Trump, Donald. 2017. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/ donald-trump-inauguration-speech Wilders, Geert. 2013. http://www.parlementairemonitor.nl/9353000/1

CHAPTER 5

Who Are We? Social Identity

Identification So how do populists come to think of themselves as ‘real Americans’ or ‘Christian Europeans’ or ‘true French patriots’? How do fundamentalists become ‘the faithful few’ or ‘the Islamic vanguard’ or ‘God’s elect people’? How have they come to place themselves into this or that category? What, in other words, is involved in the process of social identification? The use of ‘social’ implies two things: first, that the category is a social one: it is a category of persons, not of objects. But second and more important, identification is a social process1: it involves communication between people in which all parties participate. Individuals do not decide to adopt an identity in a vacuum; rather they develop one in a process of social exchange with others. First, they bring their existing identities, which may include nationality, political orientation, social status perception, religious affiliation, gender, community membership, and family. Some features of these may make them more likely to be open to a populist or fundamentalist identity, for example, a perception that they are losing, or have already lost, social status.2 Next, they bring their own experiences of the crisis of late modernity, such as changes in their neighbourhood and community.3 They are likely to have strong feelings about these, such as anxiety, uncertainty, anger, contempt, or disgust.4 They will also develop theories about why the crisis has occurred. In particular, they may attribute it to categories of people (e.g. ‘the politicians’) and their motives (‘greed’, ‘power’).5 Many, © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_5

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therefore, are already primed and ready to engage in a new identification process which might offer back their lost self-esteem, agency, and certainty. Leaders and adherents of movements are also prepared for this process. Indeed, except in the earliest stages of their movement’s development, they are likely to be very well organised. They are aware of the existing identities of their targets, and take care to label and offer an identity which is compatible with them.6 Frequently the offer simply emphasises an element which is already present and valued, and turns it into the core feature of a radically transformed identity. Many Americans are patriotic already, but Trump offers them the opportunity to be ‘real Americans’, with the exclusive and nativist implications of the qualifying adjective. Religious people may have been observant and orthodox already, but fundamentalist leaders pick up a need to be different, separate, and more certain of the truth. The choice of identity labels is revealing. An identity is not the same as a group. It does not have to be described in the concrete terms which do justice to a group’s existence in real time and place. Rather, identity can represent an ideal, a prototype with admirably virtuous features.7 Such features can be emphasised: hard-working, straight-talking Americans, in fact, ‘real’ ones. So the category label ‘real Americans’ can become shorthand for a whole bundle of positive elements which one might be delighted to claim for oneself. The qualifier also enables the target to identify with something different and exclusive. These are real Americans, as opposed to fake ones, and so the potential populist can be special as well as virtuous. Binary words possess an immense power to define and to evaluate identities.8 The word ‘American’ is not binary in this sense. It certainly denotes a category which implies, as does every category word by definition, a set of non-category members. In this case the category is all non-American nationalities. Of course, a person who believes that America is truly exceptional may well consider all other nations inferior. But in general there is no negative out-­ group implied by ‘American’. However, populists and fundamentalists take care to use positive qualifying words which have negative binary opposites. So ‘real’ invokes ‘fake’; hard-working, lazy; straight-talking, evasive; native, immigrant; and so on. And speaking of real and fake, populists are not averse to creating some fakes themselves, specifically virtual ‘people’ who broadcast ‘their’ messages on social media. They target them on demographically and

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psychologically selected samples who are probably unaware of the real identity of the sender.9 Fundamentalists are no less fond of binaries than populists: saved invokes unsaved; faithful, apostate; pure, defiled; separate, compromised; holy, sinful; spiritual, carnal; and so on.10 The use of binaries in populist and fundamentalist discourse enables adherents to feel good about themselves. But it also emphasises the fact that identification with an ‘us’ always implies a ‘them’. Furthermore, given that prototypes are idealised, ‘we’ are likely to be good, and so ‘they’ are likely to be bad. The distinction between Chaps. 4 and 5 of this book is thus entirely arbitrary, for conflict is written into the script as soon as the word ‘us’ appears. There is never an Us without a Them. Add the cleverly crafted slogans such as ‘Take back control’, ‘Make America great again’; the careful use of the same language registers as the audience habitually uses; and the repetition of performance rituals such as rallies, and it is evident that persuasive and powerful social influence is brought to bear on a target audience by leaders and organisations to take on the desired social identity.11,12 By way of example: We will very shortly be the largest in the world in energy, the largest in the world, think of that. [Applause]. And, most importantly, America is being respected again, we’re respected again. [Applause]. And I told the story the other day, I get to meet all these world leaders. Virtually everyone comes into the Oval Office or wherever we’re meeting and they don’t know me. I’m meeting them in many cases for the first time. I’m not sure they like me, like in the case of NATO. I said you got to pay your bills, folks, got to pay up, got to pay up [Applause]. (Donald Trump 2018) The Jewish nation is indeed the heart of the world, and there is no reason for the existence of empires, kings, rulers, masses or systems aside from their reaction to the Jewish people. (Meir Kahane 1985)

Internalisation One of the key features of social identities, then, is that they are social, the outcome of social exchange and influence processes. Another is that they are internalised: they form a large proportion of those perceptions known as ‘the self’. When their social identities are salient in their minds, people perceive themselves not as unique individuals, but as category members.

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They are ‘depersonalised’.13 Populist and fundamentalist movements place such great emphasis on social identities because they are reacting against modernity; and one of the features of late modernity is the high value it places on personal individualism14 rather than social categories. It follows that if the internalised category in question boasts prototypical virtues, people believe themselves to possess these. Their self-esteem receives a welcome boost, albeit that esteem is based on their category membership, not on their individual achievements.15 Indeed, they may be encouraged to try to become even more prototypical, that is, to more closely resemble the ideal exemplar of the category. Fundamentalists may seek to be holier than thou, populists prolier. Fundamentalists, for example, may renounce even more of the cultural riches of this sinful world than their fellow believers, while rich and powerful populists will ensure their language is appropriately demotic, at least in public. This ploy has recently been ridiculed as ‘virtue signalling’. So identifying with a populist or fundamentalist movement in itself enhances self-esteem. This is further increased by the acceptance and approval of fellow identifiers, and by one’s efforts to be holier or prolier. But another major source is the perceived success of the category with which one identifies, particularly a success which also involves the failure of an out-group. Trump’s victory over Clinton is one such example, the reaffirmation or restitution of homophobic and misogynistic legislation another. It is ‘we’ who are victorious, ‘we’ who are reaffirmed. However, the populist or fundamentalist is identified with threat as well as with triumph.16 A threat to one’s category is a threat to one’s self. If there is no real threat, an imagined one is sufficient to arouse feelings of fear and anger, and to increase solidarity. A real or imaginary threat therefore increases hostility to its source, and enables the movement’s leaders to identify enemies and mobilise against them. And the number of such potential enemies is legion, from foreigners through to traitors, from the heathen through to apostates and heretics—enemies within and enemies without.17 And if a threat is real, and fundamentalists or populists do suffer, it proves their point. For if ‘the world’ persecutes them, they must by definition be pleasing God.18 If the elite gain the upper hand, it only serves to demonstrate the extent of their power and the breadth of their conspiracy against the people.19 So in sum, as the following quotations demonstrate, we can be proud of ourselves:

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A writer observed: “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity”…….I grew up with those people. They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars. They love their country, in good times and bad, and they’re always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids’ public education better. (Sarah Palin 2008) We need to admit that successful attempts have been made to infiltrate our ranks, that these attempts have attracted some of our prominent names, and our enemies have added them to the crowds that serve their purposes…………….. [However, our vanguard cadres] possess a quality that their enemies cannot hope to acquire. They are the people who most eloquently bear witness to their God’s power, Who has given them a strength drawn from His Own strength, until they have turned from a scattered few who possess little and know little into a power that is feared and that threatens the stability of the new world order. (Ayman al-Zawahiri 2009)

Worldviews Identification, then, is not an internal ‘psychological’ process but a social one. This does not, of course, imply that no psychological processes are involved. I have already referred to self and identity in terms of perceptions. Rather, it implies that psychological processes are a part only of the social identification process. But being reflexive social animals, we are likely to reflect on the process as well as on the category: we are going to become conscious of the self in context. We are, in other words, going to position the self within a view of the social world.20 And our worldviews are certainly psychological in nature. The most obvious feature of the populist and fundamentalist worldviews is their take on the nature of relationships between social groups. They concentrate on their own prototype to which they conform so as to be homogeneous in their beliefs and values and norms of behaviour. But this concentration on achieving prototypicality necessarily involves them in contrasting its virtues with their binary opposites, the vices. These they attribute to other social categories. They thus achieve the meta-contrast effect—that is, they are simultaneously as similar to each other as possible within their own category and as different as possible to other categories.21 We are all separated and holy believers, while they are compromised and worldly sinners.

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So if we are very different from other categories, it is very easy to distinguish ‘Us’ from ‘Them’. And if we are very similar to each other within our category, then there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind, our own included, who ‘we’ are. As Michael Hogg and Barbara Mullin put it, “certainty about attitudes and feelings and behaviours is actually certainty about who we are. If we did not know what to think, feel, or do, then we really would not know who we are”.22 The resulting worldviews are characterised, first, by their hostility.23 Their social world is one of conflict and struggle between very distinctive categories of people. Their distinctiveness makes it possible to draw clear boundary lines, sometimes even geographically. You know you are accidentally in an ultra-Orthodox district of Jerusalem on a Saturday when bearded men dressed in a distinctive way start throwing stones at your car. Moreover, hostile attitudes and behaviour become normalised. Adherents quickly grasp the importance of their own conformity, and learn how to spot the equally distinctive Other. After all, what we do is only natural; what they do is weird or worse. Boundaries, literal and metaphorical, are guarded jealously, and offence is easily taken. How dare black American footballers ‘take the knee’ when the national anthem is played? They are Americans, and their identity as people of colour is irrelevant. There’s no such category as black Americans. Worldviews are not only conflictual, however. They are also clear and simple. It is clear both who we are, because we are all the same, and also who they are, because we are so very different from them. Nice clear boundaries separate us,24 so it is not difficult to work out who the contenders are. It’s also easy to know what to do, since the prototype we seek to exemplify has clear values and norms about how to act. This degree of predictability gives us a sense of our ability to control events—it restores our lost sense of agency.25 So the effect of internalising a populist or fundamentalist social identity is to decrease uncertainty not just about who one is, but about how one should act in a fundamentally hostile world. The greater the uncertainty felt by late-modern citizens, the more they may be attracted to simple certainties and ‘common sense’ actions in pursuit of victory: But I strongly believe that whatever the causes of the current drive to the caliphate was…………we have to face a very unpleasant fact. And that unpleasant fact is that there is a major war brewing, a war that’s already global. It’s going global in scale, and today’s technology, today’s media, today’s access to weapons

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of mass destruction, it’s going to lead to a global conflict that I believe has to be confronted today. Every day that we refuse to look at this as what it is, and the scale of it, and really the viciousness of it, will be a day where you will rue that we didn’t act. (Steve Bannon 2014) Let others seek to remove that great old hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” from their hymnals. Let us go forth, the Cross of Jesus going on before. In the final analysis, He must lead us against the foe; at home and abroad. The battle is His. It has been; it is now. And His will be the victory. (Rus Walton 1988)

Case Study: The Plymouth Brethren The Plymouth Brethren exemplify fundamentalist sects, which are usually internally conformist and externally separate and different. The sect started in the 1820s as an idealistic movement within the Anglican Church of Ireland.26 It emphasised two doctrines in particular: the fellowship, and the priesthood, of all believers. All believers were welcome at their meetings for the Breaking of Bread [Holy Communion], although it is not clear whom the movement founders would have considered to fall within the category of ‘believer’. And all were credited with possessing spiritual gifts, which, the founding fathers argued, the mainstream denominations were not allowing to flourish. As a consequence the Brethren’s structure was congregational, with each assembly [local congregation] being self-­ governed by a system of elders. Their worship was conducted without benefit of ordained clergy, and addressed by whichever adult male felt ‘led by the Spirit’. They grew rapidly, especially in the South of England, with many, both laity and clergy, ‘coming out’ from the denominations, especially from the Anglicans. However, in 1848 the movement split decisively into the Exclusive Brethren and the Open Brethren sects. Subsequently the Exclusives split further into several different smaller sects, but the Open Brethren remained as a loose grouping of independent congregations. These could, however, be meaningfully categorised into conservative and liberal factions, particularly in the later years of the twentieth century. Since then the picture has become very confused. Many assemblies have appointed paid ministers and collaborated with other denominations in evangelical projects, while others have retreated into total sectarian isolation.

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In general, the Brethren have been dominated by two complementary concerns, authority and separation.27 The former derives from their need for certainty regarding what they should believe, and how they should act. In particular, they wished to be absolutely clear about how they should conduct worship and regulate the assembly. In line with classic Calvinist doctrine, they treated the Bible as their sole authority. They believed that the Bible is God’s Word to the individual believer, and has a straightforward and clear meaning for those prepared to receive it. The sectarian splits which characterise their history derive from the fact that one Brother’s clear meaning can be another’s heresy.28 A particular area of dispute has been the proper role of women within the assembly.29 Various devotional magazines and itinerant teachers circulating among the assemblies sought to maintain conformity to ‘assembly truth’. Equally important was the Brethren emphasis on separation.30 Boundaries had to be maintained against the incursion of ‘the world’ into the lives of the assemblies and of the individual Brother or Sister. The carnal must not be allowed to pollute the spiritual. ‘The world’ was taken to include the institutions of modern society, which included cultural and artistic activities of all sorts, but also membership of trades unions, political parties, and professional organisations. University education was suspect, with certain disciplines considered especially unsuitable. Friendships with the ‘unsaved’ were considered dangerous, and should only be engaged in for purposes of evangelism. Particular hostility, however, was reserved for all aspects of mainstream Christianity, and especially the Roman Catholic Church. So carefully did assemblies have to protect the purity of their doctrine and practice that Brothers and Sisters, when visiting from other assemblies, had to bring with them letters which vouched for their soundness.31 Ironically, the original movement had welcomed all (or at least many) believers; the subsequent sect in the end became afraid even of its own members. The Brethren perfectly illustrate the process of identification described in this chapter. First, their emphasis on authoritative doctrine and practice ensured that a homogeneous prototype was available and mandatory for all adherents.32 There were few unique and different individuals whose beliefs and behaviour might create ambiguity within the assembly. Any such non-conformists tended to leave discouraged, as their ideas for change were rejected by the gerontocracy. And second, the Brethren insistence on separation from other social systems, and even from the rest of the religious system itself, ensured that they were highly differentiated.

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Like ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and women, Sisters even looked different with their ‘modest’ dress.33 They thus fulfilled the requirement for maximum possible meta-contrast–internal similarity and external difference. Such a degree of meta-contrast ensures that identification is thoroughly carried through. And a thoroughgoing identification is a necessary condition for fundamentalism, which by definition treats modernity as its enemy, to survive. But danger lurks everywhere: Overseeing brethren who permit younger married sisters in the assembly to organise youth activities for young sisters in their teens and twenties need to be very careful as to what they are condoning. House meetings may spring up easily, but who is in control; who regulates what is taught; what other recreational or ‘cultural’ activities are promoted? To what kind of role model are these young believers being exposed? (Brother Samuel McBride 2008)

Summary Identification is a social process: people communicate the categories to which they expect others to belong, and the latter respond. Where there is uncertainty or resentment, reactionary categories are likely to be sent and received. Senders are likely to emphasise respondents’ existing identities and add powerful labels and virtuous prototypical features. These are often binary, implying a non-virtuous opposite. Respondents internalise identities, so that threats to the category are taken personally. The context of social identities is the worldview in which they feature. In the case of populism and fundamentalism, this worldview is one of boundaries, hostility, and conflict between Us and Them. Questions for Discussion Select a specific reactionary movement with which you are familiar. From which existing aspects of its environment is its narrative derived, and how has it adapted these for its own use? With which adjectives does it describe its adherents, and which stereotypes are described by these adjectives’ binary opposites? How are narratives formed and propagated? How do they differ from worldviews, and what is their relationship with these? Is this a useful distinction?

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Notes 1. Jenkins, Richard (2008) Social Identity (3rd edn.). London: Routledge. 2. Brown, Rupert (2000) Group Processes (2nd edn.). London: I.B.Tauris. 3. Goodhart, David (2017) The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 4. Yzerbyt, Vincent & Kuppens, Toon (2009) Group-based emotions: The social heart in the individual head. In Otten, Sabine, Sassenberg, Kai & Kessler, Thomas (eds.) Intergroup Relations: The Role of Motivation and Emotion. Hove: Psychology Press. 5. Trope, Yaacov & Gaunt, Ruth (2003) Attribution and person perception. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Social Psychology. London: Sage. 6. Norris, Pippa & Inglehart, Ronald (2018) Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Authoritarian Populism. New  York: Cambridge University Press. 7. Tajfel, Henri & Turner, John (1986) The social identity theory of intergroup behaviour. In Worschel, Stephen & Austin, William (eds.) Psychology of Intergroup Relations (2nd ed.) Chicago: Nelson-Hall. 8. Almond, Gabriel, Appleby, R. Scott, & Sivan, Emmanuel (2003) Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 9. Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Select Committee (2019) Final Report: Disinformation and ‘Fake News’. London: House of Commons. 10. Herriot, Peter (2009) Religious Fundamentalism: Global, Local, and Personal. London: Routledge. 11. Morgan, Nick (2017) The Astonishing Rhetoric of President Trump’s Inaugural Address. www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorgan/2017/01/20 12. www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/08/01 Trump’s Tampa Bay Rally Speech. 13. Wright, Stephen & Taylor, Donald (2003) The social psychology of cultural diversity: Social stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Social Psychology. London, Sage. 14. Brown, Rupert & Capozza, Dora (2006) Motivational, emotional, and cultural influences in social identity processes. In Brown, Rupert & Capozza, Dora (eds.) Social Identities: Motivational, Emotional, and Cultural Influences. Hove: Psychology Press. 15. Tajfel, Henri & Turner, John (1986) The social identity theory of intergroup behaviour. In Worchel, Stephen & Austin, William (eds.) Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. 16. Stephan, Walter & Stephan, Cookie (2000) An integrated threat theory of prejudice. In Oskamp, Stuart (ed.) Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 17. Gerges, Fawaz (2005) The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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18. Juergensmeyer, Mark (2003) Terror in the Mind of God (3rd edn.) Berkeley CA: University of California Press. 19. Muller, Jan-Werner (2017) What Is Populism? Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 20. McGuire, Meredith (2002) Religion: The Social Context (5th edn.) Belmont CA: Wadsworth. 21. Turner, John, Oakes, Penelope, Haslam, S. Alexander, & McGarty, Craig (1994) Self and collective: Cognition and social context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 454–463. 22. Hogg, Michael & Mullin, Barbara-Ann (1999) Joining groups to reduce uncertainty: Subjective uncertainty reduction and group identification (p. 254). In Abrams, Dominic & Hogg, Michael (eds.) Social Identity and Social Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. 23. Rensmann, Lars (2017) The noisy counter-revolution: Understanding the cultural conditions and dynamics of populist politics in Europe in the digital age. Politics and Government, 5, 4, 123–135. 24. Barth, Fredrik (2000) Boundaries and connections. In A.P.Cohen (ed.) Signifying Identities: Anthropological Perspectives on Boundaries and Contested Values. London: Routledge. 25. Cote, James & Levine, Charles (2002) Identity Formation, Agency, and Culture. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 26. Grass, Tim (2006) Gathering to his Name: The Story of Open Brethren in Britain and Ireland. Milton Keynes: Paternoster. 27. Herriot, Peter (2018) The Open Brethren: A Christian Sect in the Modern World. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. 28. Hood, Ralph, Hill, Peter, & Williamson, W.Paul (2005) The Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism. New York: Guilford. 29. Scammell, Peter (1995) Women priests: An ecclesiastical debate. Precious Seed, 46, 5. 30. Davis, Malcolm (1990) The Christian and the world. Precious Seed, 41, 5. 31. Cooper, Ken (2012) Letters of commendation (2) The Believer’s Magazine, May. 32. Vine, William (1962) The sufficiency and finality of Scripture. Precious Seed, 12, 5. 33. Browne, M. (2007) Dress for Christians in today’s world. The Believer’s Magazine, October.

Further Reading Bannon, Steve. 2014. http://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lesterfeder/thisis-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world Brown, Rupert. 2000. Group Processes. 2nd ed. London: I.B.Tauris.

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Hogg, Michael, and Dominic Abrams. 2003. Intergroup Behaviour and Social Identity. In Handbook of Social Psychology, ed. Michael Hogg and Joel Cooper. London: Sage. Kahane, Meir. 1985. http://www.brainyquote.com/authors/meir_kahane McBride, Samuel. 2008. The Local Church and its Conflict. Assembly Testimony 3: 12. Palin, Sarah. 2008. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId= 94258995 Trump, Donald. 2018. http://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/ 2018/08/01/heres-a-full-transcript-of-president-trumps-speech Walton, Rus. 1988. http://www.azquotes.com/author/Rus_Walton al Zawahiri, Ayman. 2009. Knights under the Prophet’s Banner. In The Theory and Practice of Islamic Terrorism, ed. Marvin Perry and Howard Negrin. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 6

Who Are They? The Other

They Are Not Us and We Are Not Them It is very important for populists and fundamentalists to be able to select which category of person they should attack as their enemies. In order to achieve their objectives, reactionary movements always choose their enemies carefully, for enemies can provide many advantages. For a start, a good choice of enemy enlists greater numbers of reactionary followers, and being conflictual is the raison d’etre of reactionary movements. Without conflict, they would be lost. But what makes an enemy a suitable choice? First, and most obviously, They have to be distinctively not Us. Our choice of our own prototype narrows down the range of possible enemies. The features which constitute our prototype provide the opportunity to stereotype an enemy, for the stereotype is the binary opposite of the prototype.1 If we are ‘real, hardworking straightforward Americans’, then our stereotypical enemy is likely to be fake, idle, and devious people pretending to be Americans, such as Mexican immigrants and the effete and cosmopolitan bureaucrats of Washington. When we are ‘Christian Europeans’, whether Hungarian or not, then our plausible enemies are Muslim immigrants or cosmopolitan Jews such as George Soros. And that is enough to get conflict started. There is no real need to further stigmatise Mexicans, Muslims, or Jews, since general negative cultural stereotypes of these categories already exist. Just to make sure, however, Trump adds the features of criminal and rapist to the Mexican stereotype, © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_6

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while Orban calls Soros a billionaire speculator who does not want to defend Hungary’s borders but rather to admit migrants. So a first definition of Them is that they are Not Us. All we have to do is say who We are, and a stereotype of Them comes to mind. But when we have succeeded in eliciting that stereotype, then we can talk about it openly and enlarge upon it. Orban says, for example: We must fight against an opponent who is different from us. Their faces are not visible but are hidden from view; they do not fight directly but by stealth; they are not honourable but unprincipled; they are not national but international; they do not believe in work but speculate with money; they have no homeland, but feel that the whole world is theirs. They are not generous but vengeful, and always attack the heart – especially if it is red, white, and green [the colours of the Hungarian flag]. (Viktor Orban 2018)

Now the fully detailed reverse inference can be made: not only are They Not Us, but We are Not Them. We, on the contrary, are open, direct, native, hardworking, local, and generous. In a word, We are Christian Hungarians, not cosmopolitan Jews.

Stereotypes So how do such stereotypes work? Their basic function is to simplify social relationships in the same way that object categories simplify the physical world.2 And just as people do not normally have to think about whether or not an object is a table, so they do not consciously have to stereotype a person as a Jew or a sinner or a Muslim or a heretic. Rather, people instantly and automatically put them into that category.3 The features of their stereotype are looked for, noticed, and confirmed, and, without thinking, people have categorised them. Some categories have signalled their membership loud and clear by their mode of dress or speech. Others give off less obvious clues. But once they have been successfully categorised, then people ‘know’ from the stereotype what can be assumed about them and how they should be dealt with.4 Having recognised sinners as unsaved, for example, fundamentalist Christians will notice other things about them. They are not only showing a fair amount of cleavage, which had immediately placed them as unsaved. They are also about to enter a popular music venue. They are wearing a cross, but clearly this is merely a fashion statement. Thus the initial

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automatic stereotyping had resulted in other consistent inferences being drawn. But of course, the music venue could have been being used as a place to witness to the unconverted, and the ‘sinner’ might be an ardent evangelist seeking to save souls by adopting their style. It is very hard to disconfirm a categorisation based on a stereotype, because all the subsequent information is interpreted accordingly.5 One of the reasons fundamentalist leaders seek to keep their followers separate from ‘the world’ is that when an adherent actually meets a non-­ fundamentalist in the flesh, aspects of their individuality can weaken the stereotype by disconfirming some of its features.6 The strength of stereotypes depends on the perceiver only coming into contact with stereotypical examples of the category, and this is difficult to ensure. Alternatively, perceivers can learn to behave in such a way towards category members as to confirm their categorical features.7 Of course Muslims will act affronted if fundamentalist Christians cross the street to avoid them, or else cross it to try to convert them. So stereotypes enable immediate social interaction since they permit very rapid judgements about the other. Stereotypes are not necessarily unfavourable, but they do result in the assumption that all category members demonstrate the characteristics which the stereotype attaches to that category. Those characteristics may mostly be positive ones. Nurses are by definition angels of mercy. It is only when people identify themselves with a category with positive characteristics which imply a binary opposite that consequent stereotypes are likely to be negative. Faithful saints do not approve of faithless sinners.

Dispositional Attributions Stereotypes also serve yet another function for their users: they suggest possible reasons for the behaviour of others.8 If people stereotype a category as having negative characteristics, they are providing themselves with a ready-made explanation of category members’ actions. So the reason judges behave formally and expect respect is because they are arrogant elitists. The press write critical stories about populist leaders because journalists are greedy and in the pay of wealthy liberal backers. Mainstream religious leaders hold their eminent positions because they have weakly compromised with ‘the world’. Thus the stereotypes of these categories have provided the personal characteristics—arrogance, greed, and weakness—which are held

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responsible for their actions. All these attributions, in other words, are dispositional. They are all explanations in terms of the person rather than of the situation. There is no possibility entertained that the judge may be maintaining the dignity of the law, the press performing its function of reporting the truth, and the clergy supporting the religious institution to which they belong.9 There are major advantages for populist and fundamentalist leaders and movements in encouraging dispositional attributions such as these. Once they have blamed people and their bad motives and characters, it is easier to engender and motivate conflict. Further, the enemy can be portrayed as a huge conspiracy, since obviously individuals could not have been responsible on their own for the existential threat to livelihoods and nation, to congregations and faith. Conspiracy theory in turn encourages the persecution narrative, which serves to motivate followers and unite them as victims of unjust and powerful Others.10 What are they to do? Get angry and fight? Or be afraid and hide? Dispositional attributions and the conspiracy theories which they support also have a deeper purpose. They strike at the essence of modernity, that is, the differentiation of society into functional systems such as science, government, religion, and law.11 They remove the possibility of explaining and justifying actions and outcomes in terms of the purposes, values, and norms of these systems and their institutions. No, judges are arrogant, journalists greedy, and religious leaders weak, and they’re all in it together. For populists they are ‘the elite’, and for fundamentalists ‘the world’. But in both cases, the institutions and values of modernity are denigrated in favour of a simple conflict narrative of Us versus Them, the good people versus the bad people. The wide range of explanations which modernity makes available to give meaning to our complex and changing world are jettisoned in favour of children’s morality tales. We are good because that’s the sort of people We are; and They are bad, because that’s the sort of people They are. And the good cowboy wins out in the end and rides off into the sunset.

Different or Weird? So populists and fundamentalists choose their enemies with care. Both are exclusive and different in their prototypical identity. But while populists do put some limits on who they are willing to admit into the ranks of ‘the people’, fundamentalists tend to be much more exclusive. Fundamentalist

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Christians are particularly given to extreme differentiation, since they are both absolutist and sectarian. They are absolutist in the sense that they believe that they, and only they, are right in their belief and practise; and they are sectarian because their belief in their direct line to God via His Word results in many different ideas about what He wants His people to believe and do.12 Sects proliferate as a result. Fundamentalist Jews and Muslims are somewhat less differentiated, perhaps because authority is less located in the personal piety of individual adherents. In all fundamentalisms, however, the emphasis is on difference, and consequently membership is exclusive and adherents fewer in number. While there are many fundamentalists, there are also many fundamentalisms, each of which believes the others are wrong (especially those from their own religion). Hence the idea of a general fundamentalist movement is not so strong as in the case of populism. A major consequence of the extremely differentiated nature of fundamentalist sects is that the category of Them which opposes the fundamentalist Us is hugely inclusive. For many fundamentalisms, such opposing categories as ‘the world’, or ‘infidels’ include everyone else but themselves.13 Populists, on the other hand, tend not to specify in the same detail the beliefs, values, and practices which distinguish them from other people. Rather, they concentrate on their enemies, and define themselves as protagonists in a conflict against more specific and powerful foes. Recruits are welcome, and not put through a stern entrance examination or initiation ritual. In sum, fundamentalisms tend to be very exclusive and different, but their enemies are undifferentiated and inclusive. This is not a good place from which to start mobilising widespread support for conflict, since the two sides are unequal in power and numbers and it is hard to be specific about whom one is fighting. Populists, on the other hand, are not so differentiated, even though they do have to be ‘real’ Americans or ‘Christian’ Hungarians. Their adversaries, furthermore, are somewhat more specific, especially when they are scapegoated minorities as well as powerful elites. The consequences of this difference between fundamentalists and populists are clear to see. Some fundamentalists fear the power and influence of ‘the world’ to seduce and corrupt them, and try to separate themselves from it in order to remain pure. A few others engage in murderous and indiscriminate violence. They thereby ensure that they suffer retributive loss of adherents, but they certainly succeed in maintaining conflict and a narrative of persecution and martyrdom.14 Both of these sorts of

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fundamentalist have some difficulty in recruiting and retaining members. But the majority of fundamentalists concentrate on seeking to live in accord with what they believe to be God’s revealed will. When they do intervene in the political process, it is in order to reverse modern developments in certain areas of social or sexual morality which they believe are ungodly. They have had relatively little legislative success, but have succeeded in keeping their favourite issues in the public eye.15 The contrast with populists is clear. Populists can mobilise large numbers very rapidly, and have had considerable success in influencing political and social direction.16 This is partly because populists do not have to feel particularly different to others in order to identify as populists, nor to conform to a strict prototype. But while they may currently be enjoying different degrees of prominence, the essential psychological process underpinning the two reactionary movements remains the same: both define themselves in terms of favourable prototypes, and therefore identify stereotyped categories of other people as their enemy. And both imagine a return to a mythical golden age.

Modern Enemies of Fundamentalism I have characterised both populism and fundamentalism as reactionary, reacting against modernity in essence, and also against its more recent expressions and failings. So how do their choices of modern enemies to fight against reflect the differences between them which I have described above? The tendency of fundamentalisms to contrast themselves with every other social system lends itself to a choice of ‘the world’ as the enemy of Christian fundamentalisms, and to ‘Jahiliyyah’ as the enemy of Islamic ones.17 To quote: Our whole environment, people’s beliefs and ideas, habits and art, rules and laws  – is Jahiliyyah, even to the extent that what we consider to be Islamic culture, Islamic sources, Islamic philosophy, and Islamic thought are also constructs of Jahilliyyah. (Sayyid Qutb 2001, p. 20)

This is a classic fundamentalist statement that every modern social system, including the fundamentalists’ own religion in its mainstream forms, is the enemy. However, as far as fundamentalist Islam is concerned, it is the modernity of the West to which it is most hostile18:

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Look at this capitalism with its monopolies, its usury, and whatever else is unjust in it; at this individual freedom, devoid of human sympathy and responsibility for relatives except under the force of law; at this materialistic attitude which deadens the spirit; at this behavior, like animals, which you call ‘Free mixing of the sexes’; at this vulgarity which you call ‘emancipation of women’, at these unfair and cumbersome laws of marriage and divorce, which are contrary to the demands of practical life. (Sayyid Qutb 2001, p. 139)

Fundamentalist Christians have an equally broad definition of their enemy as ‘the [modern] world’: the world, used in its New Testament moral sense, forms part of a kind of trinity of evil opposing the Holy Trinity……..It is clear, therefore, that Christians today need much wisdom in relating to the evil system of the world around them, since, although its structure was originally good and made by God, it is not in this age characterised by God, but rather by Satan, the evil one. Hence the need for principles to follow in our daily pathway of faith through the enemy territory around us. (Malcolm Davis 1990)

However, as the first quotation from Qutb’s Milestones (above) illustrates, fundamentalists do tend to make a binary distinction within this huge category of ‘the world’, consisting as it does of every single social system apart from themselves. This is the distinction between the enemy without and the enemy within. The former are all other modern social systems than religion, the external enemy. The latter is modern religion, the internal fifth column which has been corrupted by Satan.19 To quote a Christian example: At its heart, and in many of its central institutions, and with much of its leadership and style, it [the Church of England] is a worldly church – a church that is of the world, that is infected by the world, that is unbelieving like the world, that is as immoral as the world, that is not very present in the world, and is running away from the world. (Paul Perkin 2013)

Occasionally fundamentalists are more specific about the enemy. Some rail against specific errors of doctrine or practice, others criticise particular institutions of modernity. Here, for example, is what a Plymouth Brother thinks of democracy:

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the essence of democracy is rejection of any notion of absolute truth or higher authority, and rejection of absolute values through acceptance of the rightness of whatever the majority think. This is anti-scriptural. (Kenneth Cooper 2011)

Fundamentalists, then, reject modernity in its entirety. They are hostile to its diverse social systems, since these permit different perspectives and therefore cultural and moral relativity.20 Further, such systems, they believe, are the invention of Man and not of God, and endow human beings with agency and power when in fact it is Almighty God who determines the course of history. They have led to the growth of human rationalism and instrumentalism in place of divine revelation and inspiration21; to liberalism and individualism as opposed to the acceptance of divinely ordained institutions such as the family and the religion.22 So different to the mainstream are fundamentalisms that they have an embarrassment of riches in terms of targets at which to aim if they are so disposed. As a consequence they may be tempted to withdraw entirely (e.g. the Amesh23), or to attack the global social system in an indiscriminate and terrifying way (e.g. ISIS24). Neither of these extreme strategies is likely to prove attractive to many, the first because of what is foregone, and the second because of the likely retributive consequences. However, within a closed belief system, different rewards such as affiliation, submission, and martyrdom may compensate.25

Modern Enemies of Populism The new populists are more sophisticated than fundamentalists in their choice of enemy and how they communicate that choice to their actual and potential followers. One popular format is to name different enemies in sequence, associating the specific with the more abstract and conspiratorial. For example: Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have total control over every single thing she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings. That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. Never ever. (Donald Trump 2016)

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But the greatest danger among them is that millions of migrants threaten from the South. European leaders together with a billionaire speculator do not want to defend our borders but rather to admit migrants. That’s the truth. We built the fence, we defended the southern border, and said no to every attempt on Brussels’ part to settle migrants here……..They deny and lie. They prevaricate and defame. There is censorship. Films are deleted. Videos are banned. That is why we need to speak clearly and precisely. We need to speak openly and directly about the kind of future Brussels, the United Nations, and George Soros’ workshops have planned for us. (Viktor Orban 2018)

So Orban starts with the favourite nationalist issue of immigration, but associates it with the cosmopolitan supranational institutions and individuals of global modernity.26 Geert Wilders is more specific than Orban about who the immigrants are, but joins him in blaming the modern elite: …… almost all establishment politicians today are facilitating Islamization. They are cheering for every new Islamic school, Islamic bank, Islamic court. They regard Islam as being equal to our own culture. Islam or freedom? It does not really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire establishment elite – universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians – are putting our hard-earned liberties at risk. They talk about equality but amazingly fail to see how in Islam women have fewer rights than men and infidels have fewer rights than adherents of Islam. (Geert Wilders 2011)

To make it quite explicit that his target is modern multiculturalism, Wilders turns on that old bête noir, ‘political correctness’, ensuring that his audience interpret it as an assault upon their identity: One of the things we are no longer allowed to say is that our culture is superior to certain other cultures. This is seen as a discriminatory statement – a statement of hatred even. We are indoctrinated on a daily basis, in the schools and through the media, with the message that all cultures are equal, and that, if one culture is worse than the rest, it is our own. We are inundated with feelings of guilt and shame about our own identity and what we stand for. We are exhorted to respect everyone and everything except ourselves. That is the message of the left and the politically-correct ruling establishment. They want us to feel so ashamed about our own identity that we refuse to fight for it. (Geert Wilders 2011)

While the previous quotation was aimed at generating angry resistance, the next presents Islam as a threat to be feared:

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Instead of expediting the assimilation of immigrants into our countries, our governments support the creation of an Islamic parallel society – a Trojan horse inside our borders. Do not accept it. Since there is no such thing at all as a moderate Islam, the Islamisation of our society is a dangerous threat……We must look the bitter and uncongenial truth in the face: the bitter truth that Islam today is the greatest threat to freedom, and the uncongenial truth that Islam is already present everywhere around us. (Geert Wilders 2013)

In sum, populist leaders have seized the moment to mobilise and motivate supporters. They have created a relatively inclusive Us, enabling growth in their support. They have focussed Our feelings against specific targets, but left the ultimate enemy sufficiently vague and conspiratorial to give themselves room to manoeuvre and pick their next battle.

Summary Populists and fundamentalists choose enemies who are as different as possible to themselves. They build on stereotypes which already exist in the culture. Stereotypes result in immediate identification of a person as belonging to a category. They direct social behaviour towards others, and permit explanations of their behaviour in terms of their stereotypical characteristics. When stereotypes are the binary opposite of our own favourable social identity, they are hostile and inspire narratives of conflict, conspiracy, and persecution. Fundamentalists tend to have more inclusive categories of enemy than populists, but to distinguish more clearly between the enemy within and the enemy without. Questions for Discussion Think of a stereotype which you hold, whether positive or negative. How do you recognise someone who represents this stereotype? How do you confirm or disprove its correctness? What experiences have led you to modify a stereotype? Do you tend to attribute more events to personal or to situational causes? Compare your own attributional style with that of others in your group; of populists; of fundamentalists; and of social scientists. Consider a specific populism or a fundamentalism with which you are familiar. How does its attributional style relate to its beliefs and practices?

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Notes 1. Brewer, Marilynn (2009) Motivation underlying ingroup identification: Optimal distinctiveness and beyond. In Otten, Sabine, Sassenberg, Kai, & Kessler, Thomas (eds.) Intergroup Relations: The Role of Motivation and Emotion. Hove: Psychology Press. 2. Quinn, Kimberley, Macrae, C.  Neil, & Bodenhausen, Galen (2003) Stereotyping and impression formation: How categorical thinking shapes person perception. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 3. Bargh, John (1999) The cognitive monster: The case against the controllability of automatic stereotype effects. In Chaiken, Stephen & Trope, Yaacov (eds.) Dual Process Theories in Social Psychology. New  York: Guilford. 4. Schneider, David (2004) The Psychology of Stereotyping. New  York: Guilford. 5. Wright, Stephen (2009) Cross-group contact effects. In Otten, Sabine, Sassenberg, Kai & Kessler, Thomas (eds.) Intergroup Relations: The Role of Motivation and Emotion. Hove: Psychology Press. 6. Waldzus, Sven (2009) The ingroup projection model. In Otten, Sabine, Sassenberg, Kai & Kessler, Thomas (eds.) Intergroup Relations: The Role of Motivation and Emotion. Hove: Psychology Press. 7. Brown, Rupert & Hewstone, Miles (2005) An integrated theory of intergroup contact. In Zanna, Mark (ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 37. San Diego CA: Elsevier. 8. Ross, Lee & Nesbitt, Richard (1991) The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill. 9. Trope, Jaacov & Gaunt, Ruth (2003) Attribution and person perception. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 10. Juergensmeyer, Mark (2003) Terror in the Mind of God. The Global Rise of Religious Violence (3rd edn.). Berkeley CA: University of California Press. 11. Beyer, Peter (2006) Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge. 12. Hood, Ralph, Hill, Peter, & Williamson, Paul (2005) The Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism. New York: Guilford. 13. Herriot, Peter (2008) Religious Fundamentalism: Global, Local, and Personal. London: Routledge. 14. See 10 (above). 15. Murray Brown, Ruth (2002) For a “Christian America”: A History of the Religious Right. New York: Prometheus.

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16. Judis, John (2016) The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics. New  York: Columbia Global Reports. 17. Qutb, Sayyid (2007) Milestones (2nd edn.) New Delhi: Islamic Book Service. 18. Gerges, Fawaz (2005) The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. New York: Cambridge University Press. 19. Sageman, Marc (2004) Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 20. Bruce, Steve (2000) Fundamentalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. 21. Lawrence, Bruce (1995) Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age. Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press. 22. Tamney, Joseph (2002) The Resilience of Conservative Religion. The Case of Popular Conservative Protestant Congregations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 23. Kraybill, Donald (2001) The Riddle of Amish Culture: Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. 24. Chulov, Martin (2014) Isis: The Inside Story. The Guardian, December 11th. 25. Herriot, Peter (2008) Fundamentalist Religion and Social Identity. London: Routledge. 26. Goodhart, David (2017) The Road to Somewhere: The New Tribes Shaping British Politics. London: Penguin.

Further Reading Cooper, Kenneth. 2011. Why I Believe that Christians should not be Involved in Politics. The Believers Magazine, August. Davis, Malcolm. 1990. The Christian and the World. Precious Seed 41: 5. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2003. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart. 2018. Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Authoritarian Populism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Orban, Viktor. 2018. http://www.freedomhouse.org/blog/his-own-wordspreoccupations-hungary-s-viktor-orban Perkin, Paul. 2013. http://www.anglicanink.com/article/battle-soul-of-britaingafcon-address-paul-perkin Qutb, Sayyid. 2001. Milestones, 20, 139. New Delhi: Islamic Book Services. Schneider, David. 2004. The Psychology of Stereotyping. New York: Guilford. Trump, Donald. 2016. http://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12253426/donald/ trump/acceptance/speech/transcript Wilders, Geert. 2011. http://www.pvv.nl/index.php/component/content/article.htm1?id=3586 Wilders, Geert. 2013. http://www.parlementairemonitor.nl/9353000/1

CHAPTER 7

What’s the Story? Fighting Talk

The Conflict Narrative My account so far of how populism and fundamentalism work from a social and psychological perspective has doubtless felt very dry and intellectual. If there is one outstanding feature which characterises them both, we feel, it is the huge outpouring of emotion which accompanies their activities. There always seem to be a lot of angry old men around, shouting. Yet the basic building blocks of my explanation so far have been such terms as categories and binaries, as though this were a philosophical or linguistic text book. Even when motivation has been mentioned, the reference is to needs for meaning, affiliation, and self-esteem. These appear hardly likely to generate the extreme, and sometimes violent, hostility, or the fearful and anxious separation and avoidance which are typical behavioural patterns of reactionary movements. Surely we cannot avoid citing the hotter emotions in our search for explanations: anger, fear, disgust, contempt, and shame, for example?1 There is one explanatory construct which bridges the gap between academic theories of self and social identity and the passion of the true believer, political or religious. It is the idea of narrative.2 Narratives can be communicated in different ways, using the various resources of social media, the press and traditional media, or the old-fashioned hot and sweaty rally. They can also be ‘told’ by symbolic actions which perfectly illustrate the narrative without having to use words. The founders of the monotheistic religions were all past-masters of this action mode of communicating. © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_7

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The narrative for both populists and fundamentalists typically follows the following structure. First comes the idea of imminent threat.3 The threat is to Us, where ‘Us’ represents the identity category of the particular populism or fundamentalism in question. The threat derives ultimately from a conspiracy of powerful people and organisations, whose identity is seldom fully known. They feel no obligation to Us, being concerned solely with their own power and wealth. They disrespect and humiliate us.4 However, there are also more tangible scapegoats to blame for the threat, more specific categories of person.5 These tend to be impure and degraded types, sinners or foreigners of some sort or another, and we are completely justified in defending ourselves against them. They are a danger to the purity of our religion and our nation. This threat now becomes a crisis, a point at which we have to decide whether to take action. If we do not, we face political or cosmic disaster. Our moral integrity, and indeed our very existence, is at stake. It is time for heroes to step up to the plate and withstand the villains in this epic drama.6 We cannot just carry on as usual—we must take decisive action. Something has to be done, and it’s obvious what it is. Most of it is common sense.7 All we need is leadership and courage for the struggle. And that struggle will be decisive. For most adherents it will require courageous attack, persevering through thick and thin until the enemy is defeated. For some, however, it will involve the desperate defence of their integrity and purity against the devilish wiles of a hidden foe.8 But when victory comes, for come it surely will, virtue will have its reward. The golden age will return,9 the time when strong authority ensured that the laws of God and nation were always obeyed. Things will go back to how they always used to be and how they always should be. We will be proud and strong once more.

Narrative and Emotion It is evident how specific emotions are likely to be aroused at the different phases of this morality tale. The perception of threat will arouse both fear and anger. Fear is natural when dangerous and damaging outcomes are seen as possible or likely, anger when these outcomes are attributed to the greed or power of the Other. We are likely to feel shame when They humiliate Us with their disdain and contempt, and the shame serves only to increase our fury.10 Such furious anger is likely to motivate aggressive

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action, while fear can result in withdrawal and separation in an effort to stay safe and pure. Fight and flight are thus the usual options.11 Other emotions are likely at different stages of the narrative.12 The point of crisis can stimulate feelings of excitement, determination, and trepidation. The realisation of the evil tricks and motives of the enemy can arouse disgust, while the prospect of their ultimate defeat and our own triumph fill us with hopeful expectation. And the expected return to the good old days of the golden age bring Us reassurance that all will be well again. The relationship between emotion and identity now becomes clear. The emotions are all aroused as a consequence of the relationship between Us and Them, between the prototype and its opposing stereotype. At different stages of the narrative, different aspects of the relationship are recounted and different emotions aroused. They threaten Us, and We feel anger and fear. The crisis point comes, and we feel excitement and trepidation. We overcome Them, and feel triumph and elation. We return to the golden age which They corrupted, and for the moment feel comforted and reassured. While the narrative is about Us and Them, however, its real impact is on Me. For the social identity as Us, whether of Christian Hungarian or real American or born-again Bible believer or Islamic vanguard or Haredi Jew, is internalised into the self. The narrative is really about Me. It is I who am ‘marginalised in my own country’ or ‘persecuted for my faith’. It is I who win for a change, and it is I who return to the glorious golden age. It is I, therefore, who feel these emotions personally and powerfully, because the narrative is about Us, and I am one of Us.13 The passionate involvement of adherents of populisms and fundamentalisms now becomes explicable in terms of identity and self, even though these theories are expressed in terms of dry categories and labels. Identification is important because it is part of how we conceive of ourselves and our relationships with others; and that is indeed an emotive topic. But there is still some explaining to be done, given the extreme degree of emotion, and of anger in particular. At least part of the explanation lies in the relationship between prototypes, stereotypes, and attribution (see pp. 57–58). To recapitulate, the favourable features of our prototype of Us are reproduced in their unfavourable binary opposite form in our stereotype of Them. We are real and They are fake; We are faithful and They are infidel. Our narrative helps us realise that it is They who are the threat, and They against whom We must

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struggle. But we already know from their stereotype what sort of people they are – they are naturally fake, infidel, etc. So that’s why they hate us and are seeking to destroy us, and that’s why we are so furious in our own defence. We attribute their actions to their character and so we are angry specifically with them.14 Our anger isn’t mere generalised fury but has specific targets against which we mobilise. And the fact that They are the exact opposite of Us really helps us to work up a fine fury. We generally like those who are like us, but we frequently hate our opposites.15

Emotion and Worldview This opposition of Us and Them, of prototype and stereotype, does not occur in a conceptual vacuum. Our anger and action may be directed at Them, but We and They are only perceived within the context of a worldview.16 The worldviews of populists and fundamentalists each provide a theatre already waiting and ready for the narrative drama to unfold. For the populist, the world is a place of continuous conflict. The battle is between Us, the victims of injustice, and Them, the powerful liberal elites who steal our democratic rights. They make us angry at this injustice, and at the same time humiliated by the disrespect with which they have treated us. But the power struggle may not be as uneven as first appears. We are really the majority, strong and united in our just cause. We have a proud history to boast, and a return to those glory days to hope for. But we must beware. Our enemy is cunning and easily capable of inserting spies and traitors into our movement. We must guard against these black sheep, and make a painful example of them when we do detect them and root them out. They are the worst ‘enemy of the people’, for they conspire to subvert the people’s will. Suspicion and retribution are the emotions aroused in this case. Conflict also dominates the fundamentalist worldview, but here it is cosmic rather than national in scope. Once again the struggle is existential. Unless the fundamentalism in question survives, God’s own people, His faithful few, will perish. Fear is the paramount response. The forces of this world, Satan and his devils, have secularised global society, corrupted religion, and now threaten the faithful remnant itself. The evil one has even succeeded in inserting himself into the ranks of the people of God, seducing some with his false teaching and others with worldly pleasures. Such apostates are worse than the infidels, for they know the truth but deny it. We have our hands full guarding against this impurity and cleansing it when we discover it (suspicion, disgust, and retribution again). But some

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are called to go forth and fight the world and the prince of darkness himself (anger, obedience, and humility). However, in the end God will reign on earth supreme, and His faithful followers with Him. The world will return to its original state of purity and simplicity. Satan and all who followed him will face eternal punishment. While we may be fearful for the present, we have a sure and certain hope for the future (expectation and excitement). Clearly, the basic structure of the populist and the fundamentalist worldviews is the same. Both feel victimised, facing existential threat, one political and the other cosmic. Both feel themselves to be in crisis against cunning foes, one only too human, the other spiritual. Both are suspicious of traitors inside the gates as well as the more obvious enemy outside them. Both see the world as a battleground, where the usual rules don’t apply. And both look forward to final triumph and a return to a golden past. Both, in a word, are reacting against modernity. Case Study: Country Roads Throughout both his 2016 campaign for the presidency and his 2018 stump speeches for the mid-term elections, Trump orchestrated essentially the same version of his narrative drama. All of the dramatic elements were present: identity, victimisation, threat, crisis, conflict, victory, and restitution. But, as if to remind his audience and reinforce their emotional responses, he does not merely introduce these themes in sequence. Rather, he returns to them time and time again throughout the performance. The following account is based on his 2018 speech in support of the Republican candidate for West Virginia,17 but with characters and scenery altered it represents the Trump populist narrative on the stump wherever it is acted out. First, Trump sets the scene both locally and dramatically. The President is played in with the iconic song by John Denver, Country Roads: “Country roads, take me home, To the place I belong, West Virginia, mountain mama, Take me home, country roads”. Having established their local identity, he addresses his audience in its terms, and makes them feel good about themselves: The people of West Virginia, they’re loyal, they’re hard-working, and they’re true American patriots.

But this is not simply a flattering greeting. Trump continues with the same rhetorical ploy throughout the speech. In response to subsequent cries of “Trump, Trump, Trump”, he hails them as great and brave people

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and even calls the West Virginia coal which they produce beautiful. He summons up the past generations of West Virginia miners—great strong men, who are now being asked to make widgets and things. It was tough pioneer men and strong pioneer women who settled West Virginia. They didn’t have money or luxuries, but they had grit and faith and they loved each other. The local and occupational identity, then, is the first and dominant identification which enhances the feelings of pride and self-esteem of the audience/actors. But the superordinate national identity also features from the very beginning—“true American patriots”. It is of course implied in the local identification, since that includes the trope of pioneers which is central to the American foundation myth. National pride is added to local pride: Under our administration, America is winning again, and America is being respected again. All over the world, it’s America first.

Later in the performance, Trump rehearses other national achievements, in space exploration and medical research. “We’re the greatest economy in the world” (audience: “USA, USA, USA”). And, to bring the curtain down: We stand on the shoulders of American patriots, and we’re winning again, like them. We’ll make America great again.

So the Us is set up from the start of the performance, and its associated pride is continually reinforced. It is only when Trump talks about the deals he has done and the improvements he has achieved in the national finances that he refers to himself. But even here, he is identifying with the typical small business concerns of the audience, such as calling in debts, as opposed to the liberal preoccupations of those distant Washington politicians. The identity of Us is central. Another immediate dramatic objective, having identified Us, is to do the same for Them. They serve to point up Our virtues. We are patriotic, but the American footballers who ‘take the knee’ are disrespecting the flag which We honour. But the overt purpose of the performance is to firm up the support for the local candidate. Trump achieves this by calling the candidate’s opponent a liberal and a supporter of Hillary Clinton (audience: “Lock her up, Lock her up”). He then launches into an attack on the Democrats in Congress:

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They’re not in favour of West Virginia. They don’t know that West Virginia exists. They don’t like coal. They don’t like energy (voice from the audience: “We don’t like them”).

So They are actively hostile to your central identity, Trump asserts, and what’s more They ignore you. Humiliation and anger are aroused. But worse, They support a much greater threat: aliens: The Democrats want to turn America into one big fat sanctuary for criminal aliens……..they’re more protective of aliens, the criminal aliens, than they are of the people. And again: The Democratic Party is held hostage by the so-called resistance, left-wing haters, and angry mobs. They’re trying to tear down our institutions, disrespect our flag, demean our law enforcement, denigrate our history, and disparage our country.

The Democrats, in sum, are a threat to the nation, because of the more dangerous threat which they will unleash if elected. A vote for the Democrats, Trump shouts, is a vote to open borders and set loose vicious predators and violent criminals. Add his customary reference to the attendant press as fake news, and Trump has assembled a full set of villains designed to serve as Them in this drama of conflict and struggle. To set up the conflict is only the First Act, however. Trump also gives glimpses of the triumph that is already in train. They’re back to making steel and mining coal again, he announces, addressing the nostalgic restitution which means most to his local audience. Nationally the economy is booming. And on the global stage we’re doing individual deals with other national leaders, and setting up our embassy in Jerusalem: We’re going to do it. Politicians, they don’t do it. In the final act of the drama, Trump reinforces his own identity as one of Us, the ignored real Americans, and finally identifies the worst enemy, the elite: You hear the elite – they’re not elite; we’re elite. You’re smarter than they are.

And then comes a stroke of breathtaking audacity. He claims to be richer, more educated, smarter, and with nicer homes (note the plural!) than the elite, and asks why it is they who are called the elite. I am, he avers: We are. The ultimate identification of the billionaire with the

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dispossessed, the American dream with its dreamers, is pulled off. They’re not the elite, Trump concludes—they’re insulting you. The Trump stump performance is a masterpiece of demagogic drama. But instead of the cathartic effect of classical tragedy, it serves to stir up hatred against imagined foes, hatred which undermines the very national institutions which Trump claims to admire, and stokes the fires of anger upon which populism depends for its continued existence.

Summary Populists and fundamentalists tell narratives to themselves and others about the conflict between Us and Them. These follow a structure of threat, crisis, leadership, action, struggle, victory, and return to a golden age. They naturally elicit emotions of fear, anger, shame, disgust, excitement, hope, and reassurance. Emotions are personal, since each individual identifies with Us, and attributes Their actions to Their evil character and intentions. The worldviews which provide the context for these narratives stress the existential nature of the conflict, whether political (populists) or cosmic (fundamentalists). Questions for Discussion Choose a recent conflict involving a populism or fundamentalism. How well does the emotionally charged narrative (p. 68) describe the course of this conflict? Reactionary narratives are derived from a worldview of conflict. Why might adherents hold such a worldview? Do they bring it with them, or is it embedded by the movement? If the latter, how? Why are emotions such as fear and anger, excitement and hope, important for the success of reactionary movements?

Notes 1. Stanley, Robb & Burrows, Graham (2001) Varieties and functions of human emotion. In Payne, Roy & Cooper, Cary (eds.) Emotions at Work: Theory, Research, and Applications in Management. Chichester: Wiley. 2. Ammerman, Nancy (2003) Religious identities and religious institutions. In Dillon, Michele (ed.) Handbook of the Sociology of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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3. Hogg, Michael & Hornsey, Matthew (2006) Self-concept threat and multiple categorization within groups. In Crisp, Richard & Hewstone, Miles (eds.) Multiple Social Categorization: Processes, Models, and Applications. Hove: Psychology Press. 4. Strongman, Kenneth (1998) The Psychology of Emotion: Theories of Emotion in Perspective (4th edn.) chapter 8. Chichester: Wiley. 5. Pettigrew, Thomas (2017) Social psychological perspectives on Trump supporters. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 5, 1, March 2017. 6. Lienesch, Michael (1993) Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right. Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press. 7. Rensmann, Lars (2017) The noisy counter-revolution: Understanding the cultural conditions and dynamics of populist politics in Europe in the digital age. Politics and Governance, 5, 4, 123–135. 8. Herriot, Peter (2018) The Open Brethren: A Christian Sect in the Modern World. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. 9. Boyer, Paul (1992) When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press. 10. Strongman, op. cit. 11. Brewer, Marilynn & Caporael, Linnda (2006) Social identity motives in evolutionary perspective. In Brown, Rupert & Capozza, Dora (eds.) Social Identities: Motivational, Emotional, and Cultural Influences. Hove: Psychology Press. 12. Strongman, op. cit. 13. Sedikides, Constantine & Gregg, Aiden (2003) Portraits of the self. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 14. Trope, Yaacov & Gaunt, Ruth (2003) Attribution and person perception. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 15. Byrne, Donn (1971) The Attraction Paradigm. New York: Academic Press. 16. McGuire, Meredith (2002) Religion: The Social Context (5th edn.) Belmont CA: Wadsworth. 17. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dFvGZToi2w

Further Reading Strongman, Kenneth. 1998. The Psychology of Emotion: Theories of Emotion in Perspective. 4th ed. Chichester: Wiley. Rensmann, Lars. 2017. The Noisy Counter-Revolution: Understanding the Cultural Conditions of Populist Politics in Europe in the Digital Age. Politics and Governance 5 (4): 123–135. Riis, Ole, and Linda Woodhead. 2010. A Sociology of Religious Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 8

Who’s in Charge? Leaders and Led

The Attribution of Leadership It would be very easy on the basis of the previous chapters to conclude that the current growth of populism and fundamentalism is down to the genius of a particularly prolific recent crop of demagogues. In this account, Trump, Farage, Orban, Falwell, Qutb, Lefebvre, and other populist and fundamentalist leaders might leap out from my italicised paragraphs as master puppeteers or potters, pulling the strings or moulding the clay of a naïve and gullible following. Consider, for example, the case study at the end of the previous chapter, Trump’s rally in West Virginia. By the close, he had succeeded in persuading his audience that they were more elite than the elite. In which case, he himself clearly wasn’t really much different from the West Virginians, since he too was better than the elite. We are Us, Trump was emphasising, not just (billionaire) Me and (poor) You. This was a truly astonishing piece of rhetorical virtuosity. Or take the punter at Trump’s El Paso rally: I really think Trump can help put order in this world, because right now it’s just a mess. And I think he can do that because of his attitude. He just, he don’t give a damn if the next person gets mad or not. As far as becoming a president and putting shit in order, I think he could be that dude to put shit in order.1

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But to put the current surge of populism and fundamentalism as primarily down to skilful leadership would be a mistake. Such a conclusion results from the tendency of individualist Western cultures to favour dispositional attributions; that is, to believe events to be the outcome of people’s characters or abilities or motives rather than of situations.2 It is leaders, this account suggests, with their qualities of charisma and decisiveness, who mould the course of history. We need only recapitulate the contrary situational attribution to realise the inadequacy of quality of leadership as the dominant explanation. Leaders don’t make history, we might equally well conclude; history makes leaders. It is the current context of the crisis of modernity which leads to situations of insecurity and threat. And these in turn result in conflicts based on social identities of Us and Them, ideal social arenas for the type of leadership behaviour exhibited by our gallery of fighting talkers. So what’s the answer? Where does the balance lie? Leaders are people who demonstrate that they share Our identity. They are prototypical models, in two senses. The first is that they clearly possess that identity’s key characteristics. They speak and act in a definitive way, showing what it means in practice to be truly American, Hungarian, Catholic, patriotic, inspired, faithful, humble, or holy. And second, they can help to develop such characteristics further, so as to place different emphasis on which are important, and even to add new ones when they are needed.3,4 We remain Us, but a slightly different Us, thus ensuring our continued success as a movement. But to succeed in this second aim, leaders have to be careful to continue maintaining the core features of the prototype. For if they fail to do so, they will lose their followers – “he’s not one of Us any more” (given that, in reality, he really never was). Therefore leaders can’t create an identity for followers and then impose it on them, even if they wanted to. Rather, followers confer leadership on would-be leaders because they embody who followers think they themselves are or would like to become. Leaders identify with followers, so followers respond in kind. This is not to deny that leaders may have taken prior steps to ensure that they fulfil followers’ notions of what a leader should be like.5 They are careful to cultivate those elements of the stereotype of leader which fit in with the identity. Populist leaders have learned to speak directly in the vernacular and ‘tell it how it is’, for example. Trump’s tweets are not accidental in their choice of style and medium. Fundamentalist leaders, on the other hand, are frequently noted for their holiness and asceticism (e.g. the

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Ayatollah Khomeini). This gives them the authority to promote their own particular interpretation of the holy book of their religion, which in turn legitimates their fundamentalism’s project.6 However, the main point is that leadership of both populist and fundamentalist movements is essentially a social relationship. This relationship is the product both of the situational context and of the people in it. In a context of social conflict, this leader-follower relationship enables leaders to show us and the rest of the world who We are, to distinguish Us clearly from Them, and to adapt to changes in the situation as they occur.7

Adapting to Change Populist movements can suddenly and surprisingly find themselves in power rather than in opposition. Trump’s shock, for example, when he unexpectedly found himself elected POTUS was palpable. Fundamentalisms, for their part, can seize an opportunity to exercise political influence when they have hitherto emphasised their purity and separation from such compromised activity. The issue for leaders and followers alike in such times of change is to adapt their social identity so as to emphasise different and more relevant features. Leaders can lead this process by demonstrating by their words and actions a change in the prototype which they present. However, they can only hope to succeed in leading change if they have stored up some ‘idiosyncrasy credit’.8 That is, they have had to put in a long stint demonstrating the core prototypical elements of the identity before followers will permit them to introduce some new ones. The two case studies which follow illustrate the two tasks of the leader of reactionary movements: to help the movement to adapt to change and survive and prosper, but, equally important, to embody and exemplify those features which are fundamental to the prototype of the movement adherent. The first, the fundamentalist leadership of Jerry Falwell, is historical but also currently relevant. It demonstrates the capacity of a leader to change the orientation of a fundamentalism from withdrawal and separation to involvement with ‘the world’. The second, Victor Orban, describes what it takes to be one of the iconic populists of the twenty-first century: complete prototypicality. Case Study: Jerry Falwell An outstanding historical example of flexibility in movements not normally known for their flexibility occurred in the 1980s, in American

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Protestant fundamentalism.9,10 The American religious context of the 1980s was shaped by the previous part of the twentieth century. Conservative Christians who placed great authority on their literal interpretation of the Bible had been engaged in the first quarter of the century in a struggle with more liberal believers. This struggle reached a climax in the famous Scopes trial of 1925,11 when John Scopes, a teacher from Tennessee, was convicted of teaching evolution contrary to state law. The trial as it eventually occurred represented a battle between conservative revealed religion and secular agnosticism and rationality. Religion won the legal battle, but liberalism won the cultural war. National ridicule resulted in the Othering of religious conservatism, which withdrew into itself, developed a strong identity of its own, and called itself fundamentalism. Thereafter it emphasised its belief in inerrant Biblical authority, its separation from the evil world which was rushing towards the apocalypse, and its absolutist and angry condemnation of sin. However, conservative Protestants quietly established a set of organisations and institutions in the media, education, business, and politics.12 Particularly in the years after the Second World War, Christian movements were gaining traction: evangelicals, charismatics, and Pentecostals. All of these were more nuanced in their treatment of the Bible’s authority than fundamentalists, and all were less strict in their demand for separation from the world. By the late 1970s and early 1980s these latter movements were commonly perceived as constituting ‘Born-again Christianity’. They were united by a desire to rebuild and revive America, their Christian nation which had fallen into sin and immorality (witness abortion, homosexuality, feminism, etc.). They planned to infiltrate the ‘enemy’ camp, where the enemy was labelled ‘secular humanism’. But left out of this Christian crusade were the fundamentalists. For them, contact with other (errant) Christians, with worldly occupations and professions, and, above all, with politics, was taboo. Unless they remained pure, holy, and separate, they lost one of the definitive pillars of their identity. Enter Jerry Falwell, hitherto a prototypical fundamentalist leader. Realising that the fundamentalists risked total isolation and possible extinction in the volatile cultural environment of the 1980s, he (and others) started looking outwards instead of inwards. He set about establishing relationships with the Evangelicals, encouraging fundamentalists to penetrate the professions, and cultivating sympathetic politicians. Before long fundamentalists who had refused to share platforms with other fundamentalists because of an argument about the meaning of inerrancy were

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happily sermonising away in the company of Christians who periodically spoke in tongues. Fundamentalist organisations started operating in business and in universities. Indeed, Falwell even founded a fundamentalist university of his own, which educated students to become Christian professionals, not just professional Christians. And the Moral Majority movement was making political ripples, if not waves.13 How had Falwell (and others) succeeded in helping many sectarian fundamentalists redefine themselves as Born-again believers? He had to maintain a central modicum of prototypical fundamentalist features, while adapting them so as to re-align the identity. First, he re-affirmed the inerrant authority of the Bible, but stopped talking about taking the literal meaning of every word. He carried on ‘preaching the gospel’, seeking for individual conversions in the time-honoured fundamentalist narrative of how to win souls for God. However, he added an ambitious new target for evangelism – the nation itself, which needed nothing less than a spiritual rebirth, a moral revival to fulfil its divinely ordained destiny. And to engender national repentance, sin had, as ever, to be angrily denounced. “You don’t change things if you don’t make people mad”, he said. So Falwell was seeking to embed fundamentalism into a superordinate category of Born-again believers. This required, first, the re-emphasis of the basic features of fundamentalism as an identity. For if it was to become overly subordinate, adherents would feel threatened. But he also had to change the prototype by introducing new, superordinate, elements. This he skilfully did by enlarging the context in which the new identity was to be expressed. It was to be exercised in the company of the great army of the Born-again, and in every nook and cranny of the nation. For secular humanism had got there first, and corrupted every such nook and cranny. But at the same time Falwell was angrily maintaining the traditional fundamentalist condemnation of sin and the importance of repentance and revival. Moreover he achieved this reconstruction of identity by acting out the new identity himself in word and deed in collaboration with non-­ fundamentalists. As he engaged in televised debate with liberals and non-­ believers, fundamentalists could feel themselves involved in this great new spiritual struggle against secular humanism, the big lie of Satan himself. As he debated the next steps with his new allies, fundamentalists felt that at last their strength and position was being recognised and respected. Falwell was a master at adapting identity. But little did he realise that he was sowing the seeds of Protestant fundamentalism’s American decline (see Chap. 12).

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Case Study: Viktor Orban The essential task of a populist leader, however, remains that of being prototypical. In particular, he has to establish and maintain the opposition between Us and Them, between the people and the elite. Few are more effective at this than Viktor Orban. An analysis of 728 speeches indicates that Orban ranked fourth of world leaders in terms of amount of populist content, behind only Presidents Chavez and Maduro of Venezuela and Erdogan of Turkey.14 The history and current position of Hungary form a perfect springboard for the rise of a populist leader such as Orban.15 From its pinnacle of influence in the nineteenth century as Austria’s partner in the Austro-­ Hungarian Empire, Hungary lost two thirds of its territory and a high proportion of its inhabitants in the punitive settlement after the First World War. Its victim status was raised further by its subsequent subordination as a Soviet satellite, but it gained the identity of proud and plucky little nation by its revolution against the Russians in 1956. Although that heroic attempt was suppressed, it achieved democracy and freedom from communist government in 1990. Orban himself was involved in this latter struggle for independence. Having lost elections in 2002 and 2006, Orban’s Fidesz party allied with the Christian Democrats to form a government in 2010, routing the Socialist party. Fidesz and Orban tightened their hold on power in the next two elections, by which time the judiciary, the press, and the national bank could no longer be described as independent of the government.16 Orban was increasing his control of these institutions quietly, by inserting his political allies into positions of power. He was also prominent in the creation of the Visegrad group of four former communist Eastern European states—the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary— as a united bulwark against external threat. He further argued that realpolitik required friendly relations with the powerful neighbouring nations of Germany, Russia, and Turkey, even though they were ideologically different from Hungary. However he opposed the European Union, if it was to be construed as a political project for the unification of Europe. It should simply act as a useful alliance of free nations, he maintained. However, more immediate social and political developments assisted his efforts to create a convincing Them to enhance the need for a strong Hungarian Us. Europe as a whole was facing mass immigration, particularly from Middle Eastern and African countries riven by war, poverty, and famine. In 2015, Hungary received the highest rate of asylum applications

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in proportion to its population of any European nation.17 Also prominent was the threat of Islamist terrorism common to Europe as a whole. Here were two classic candidates for the role of enemy of the people: immigrants and Muslims. So Orban was gifted the perfect stage for his populist narrative: a small and embattled historic nation with a unique religious and cultural identity surrounded by threatening larger powers. But Hungary was also now being infiltrated by the enemy within—immigrants and terrorists, often conflated as terrorist immigrants. He seized his opportunity with gusto, weaving a traditional plot of history, religion, culture, and ethnicity. As a locally born and bred man of the people, he represented the ideal prototype of a proud and independent Hungarian. Indeed, he has been so successful that some credit him with a major role in the development of the present populist surge,18 punching well above his national weight. Here he is speaking on the stump in his home town for re-election in 2018, with an emotional appeal to national identity19: We’ve never hidden our true intent, and we won’t do so now. In the future we’ll continue to govern by strongly representing the nation’s desire for freedom and its aspirations for independence, and by courageously representing the identity which makes Hungarians Hungarian. We commit to a political path which will provide the Hungarian people with a prominent place in the community of nations, and mark out our nation’s place among the company of the worthiest. ……….Now we must defend and preserve what they [historic Hungarian heroes] created, what they fought for, and what they themselves defended and preserved. And when the time comes, we must pass this on to our children and grandchildren. Hungary is our homeland: we have no other. We must defend and must preserve it, because without it we will be homeless orphans, drifters in the wide world…………We are all Hungarians. Being Hungarian means that we love our homeland and respect one another. As long as we stay true to this, we Hungarians have nothing to fear – not even from the mightiest and richest enemies. We have had enough time to learn that as long as we stand together we will always win.

Here is the home boy, one of Us, giving us an example of what it means to identify as a Hungarian. And what a contrast with the hidden enemies, the speculators, the elite citizens of the world20: We do not need to fight the anaemic little opposition parties, but an international network which is organised into an empire. We are up against media

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outlets maintained by foreign concerns and domestic oligarchs, professional hired activists, troublemaking protest organisers, and a chain of NGOs financed by an international speculator, summed up by and embodied in the name ‘George Soros’.

What a threat, indeed, they represent to our little nation, these traitorous enemies within21: They want to take our country away. Opposition parties in the service of foreign interests want to come to power. They want to give power to opposition politicians in the pay of foreigners so that they can demolish the fence and accept from the hand of Brussels the compulsory settlement quota, and in this way turn Hungary into a country of immigrants in order to serve the financial and power interests of their clients.

Pleas for national unity can fall a little flat when one accuses one’s political opponents, fellow Hungarians, of treachery. One’s prototype, on the other hand, gains in patriotism by way of contrast. And there’s nothing like a good conspiracy theory for unifying and motivating the troops. So Orban fits the populist model; he claims to represent a united people, but only those who don’t disagree with him. He is the prototype of a homogeneous Us being betrayed by a different and threatening Them.

Summary Leaders exhibit the prototypical characteristics of Us. They perfectly exemplify the social identity in word and action, and by doing so gain ‘idiosyncrasy credit’—followers’ permission to emphasise particular aspects of the identity or to introduce new ones. This leadership activity is essential if populist or fundamentalist movements are to successfully adapt to their changing contexts. Jerry Falwell and Viktor Orban are profiled as successful examples of fundamentalist and populist leadership, Falwell as a leader of change, and Orban as a rock-solid prototype. Questions for Discussion How do leaders avoid being identified as really one of Them? Indeed, if they are supposed to represent the identity prototype, how do they manage to get away with their manifest failings?

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Would the current populisms and fundamentalisms exist if their present leaders had not been born? Or if they hadn’t had a leader at all? Why (or why not)? Why might you expect social scientists to attribute the success of fundamentalisms more to situational than to personal factors? What about the interaction between the two types of attribution (horses for courses)?

Notes 1. The Guardian Review, March 2nd, 2019. 2. Trope, Jaacov, & Gaunt, Ruth (2003) Attribution and person perception. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 3. Turner, John (1991) Social Influence. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. 4. Haslam, Alexander, Reicher, Stephen, & Platow, Michael (2011) The New Psychology of Leadership, Identity, Influence, and Power. Hove: Psychology Press. 5. Peters, Tom & Waterman, Robert (1995) In Search of Excellence. Lessons from America’s Best-run Companies. London: HarperCollins. 6. Lawrence, Bruce (1989) Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age. Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press. 7. Haslam et al. (op. cit.) 8. Hollander, Edwin (1995) Organizational leadership and followership. In Collett, Peter & Furnham, Adrian (eds.) Social Psychology at Work. London: Routledge. 9. Harding, Susan (2000) The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton NJ: University of Princeton Press. 10. Brown, Ruth (2002) For a Christian America: A History of the Religious Right. New York: Prometheus. 11. Larsen, Edward (1997) Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. New  York: Basic Books. 12. Carpenter, Joel (1997) Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press. 13. Lienesch, Michael (1993) Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right. Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press. 14. The Guardian, March 7th, 2019. 15. Cartledge, Bryan (2011) The Will to Survive: A History of Hungary. New York: University of Columbia Press. 16. New York Times, December 25th, 2018.

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17. www.pewresearch.org/global/2016/08/02/number-of-refugees 18. The Atlantic, April 7th, 2018. 19. www.miniszterelnok.hu/prime-minister-viktor-orbans-speech-at-thefinal-fidesz 20. www.freedomhouse.org/blog/his-own-words-preoccupations-hungary-sviktor-orb-n 21. www.budapestbeacon.com/viktor-orban-only-fidesz-can-protect-hungaryfrom-brussels

Further Reading Haslam, Alexander, Stephen Reicher, and Michael Platow. 2011. The New Psychology of Leadership, Identity, Influence, and Power. Hove: Psychology Press. Harding, Susan. 2000. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton: University of Princeton Press.

CHAPTER 9

What’s the Secret? The Role of Technology

Information Technology and Identity Of course, there isn’t a secret ingredient which might explain the speed and power of the reactions to the current crisis of modernity. But there is one factor which has certainly facilitated populism and fundamentalism: the recent growth of information technology (IT), social media (SM), and artificial intelligence (AI). The relationship between these technologies and the development of reactionary social identities and social conflict is close. The key features of IT from this perspective are its extraordinary immediacy and power. It enables instant connectivity and communication within huge networks of people simultaneously,1 for good or ill. The man who murdered 51 Muslims in New Zealand live-streamed his crime so that millions could view it as it occurred. A trending image or message on SM can almost instantly become a global rumour of a conspiracy uncovered or a heresy revealed. However, it does not follow that the recipients are the undifferentiated mass of humanity. AI provides algorithms which generate and tailor messages to suit selected categories of recipient. If the West Virginians of the case study on pp. 71–74 had missed the Trump rally, they would doubtless have received a personalised message stressing their local identity and sterling qualities. A presidential tweet thus reaches millions, while also providing the means for him, our leader, to talk directly to me personally on SM, in what feels like a one-to-one conversation.2 There is no-one to get in the way: it © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_9

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is immediate rather than mediated contact. They can’t intervene between him and Us and decide what we should and shouldn’t hear about, much though They would like to keep Us in the dark about what’s really happening. But now We know what’s really happening—our leader and a few whistleblowing heroes have found out and told Us. And the truth turns out to be that They, the elite, are enriching themselves at Our expense. Our social identity as Us is confirmed by our connectivity. We forward the leader’s message to others, and recommend it by indicating how much we ‘like’ it. Then we can discuss it further and make sure we’ve got the right message, the unvarnished truth. This isn’t difficult, as We can tell it how it is and talk straight with each other, like our leader does, without the interference of the fake news brigade or the so-called experts. Anyway, the media are all in the pocket of the real power brokers, the liberal elite.3 The existence and identity of Them is firmed up as soon as We have defined ourselves as real patriots or true believers, who have discovered the truth. This identification of Us as real implies a Them who are fake and who put out lies because They are in a conspiracy to exploit Us and keep Us in the dark. They all have different versions of ‘the truth’, these politicians, big businessmen, bankers, experts, and scientists, all of them citizens of nowhere.4 But Their ‘truth’ is simply self-serving stories, wool to pull over ordinary people’s eyes and conceal their own greed for money and power. As our leader has shown us, We have the real truth, the only truth, the people’s truth.5

Who to Trust? So SM permits informal ‘conversation’ to serve as the mode of communication for every purpose. This development is in fact profoundly reactionary. The essence of modernity is the development of different social systems with different aims and purposes, each with their own language code and rules of engagement suited for communication within the system.6 Lawyers, scientists, politicians, religious people, artists, and so on, are, when communicating with each other, frequently incomprehensible to everyone else. Theirs are relatively exclusive social systems: others have to be able to understand their language in order to participate. If people are not part of the particular social system, they have two alternatives. They can rely on the professionals themselves to want to communicate with them and to make themselves comprehensible; or, they can trust

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intermediaries such as the press to give an understandable and honest account of what the experts are doing and its likely implications. Now both these alternatives require a high degree of trust on our part7; trust that the professionals or the intermediaries are telling us truthfully what they are doing. But also, we need to trust that what they are doing is worthwhile and in our interest, or, at the least, not hostile to it. So complex is late-modern society that the days of Renaissance Man are long since gone. We cannot possibly understand most of what’s going on unless we trust the experts and/or their intermediaries. But the populist use of SM urges us not to trust these different systems and their particular account of the truth. On the contrary, populists allege that they are all lying, and that the only real truth is that which we tell each other in conversational terms. We can only trust others if they are one of Us. Just because someone is a lawyer or a scientist doesn’t mean that we can trust them: their so-called professional rules and standards are simply there to cover their backs. However, ‘conversations’ on SM are not necessarily trustworthy. They usually fail even to follow many of the social norms of face-to-face conversation, let alone the conventions of more specialised social systems. Their frequent anonymity or their closed circulation allows unconstrained emotional expression, and the most frequent emotions expressed appear to be anger and hatred.8 It is worth stressing the power of this positive feedback system, which works like this. A person may contribute an expression of hatred on social media. They may do so because they felt hatred and decided to express it. But alternatively, they may have simply adopted the tone of expression which they discovered was already being used. Then their attributional reasoning might run as follows9: “I’ve repeatedly said that I hate immigrants, so I suppose I really do hate them”. Existing emotions may be expressed, but, vice versa, expression can lead to the attribution of emotion. Either way, the expression of hate becomes the norm and is legitimised. The virtual nature of SM, moreover, also makes deceit more possible— we cannot usually look people in the eye or listen to their tone of voice to assure ourselves that they are telling us the truth. Even so, populists rely on the strength of the social identity of Us the People to engender trust in SM messages which actually fail to meet the truth criteria of any of the modern social systems. For, they allege, it is the real people such as

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ourselves whom we can trust, not Them, the elite. We can trust only the people’s truth. Another feature of the conversational style of SM is its unstructured nature. Conversation is often staccato and impulsive, jumping from topic to topic. It is not conducive to connected and logical explanation, but rather to simple observations and self-deprecatory wit; in other words, its aim is to attract attention and gain acceptance. While tweeting may be the ideal mode for these purposes, it is of little use for properly understanding the natural or social worlds.

Look Behind You A further feature of IT has indirectly resulted in decreased trust in the elite. It is the immense quantity of information which can be stored and retrieved within one file. This makes data particularly vulnerable to hackers and whistleblowers, who can reveal for general viewing information which those to whom it refers would much prefer to have remained private.10 These include such documents as the bank accounts of those seeking to avoid paying tax, or the expense claims of Members of the UK or European Parliaments. Such revelations add force to the populists’ narrative of the elite not abiding by the same rules as the rest of us. They create heroes out of whistleblowers, giving status to those who have deserted Them and joined Us. These heroes have enabled us to be privy to Their secrets. It is hardly surprising, then, that recent research across 9 countries using 11,500 respondents reveals the success of the populist conspiracy narrative.11 In the United Kingdom 47% of respondents who supported Brexit agreed with the statement “The government is deliberately hiding the truth about how many immigrants really live in the country”. For American Trump voters, the figure was comparable (44%). Or consider the statement: “Immigration to this country is part of a bigger plan to make Muslims a majority of the country’s population”. Here the figures were Brexiters: 31%, Trumpists: 41%. As to the more general conspiracy allegation “Regardless of who is officially in charge of governments and other organisations, there is a single group of people who secretly control the world”, 15% of Brexiters and 22% of Trumpists agreed. While Remainers and Clinton voters scored 14% and 12%, respectively, on the first of the above statements, and 6% and 3% on the second, they worryingly scored 11% and 13% on the third. In other words, there is a

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not insignificant percentage right across the political spectrum who harbour a belief in the existence of an all-powerful global cabal. John Naughton, the report’s author, suggests that Trump was a catalyst in mainstreaming such conspiracy theories. Case Study: Trump’s Tweets Trump’s tweets support this hypothesis.12 Most of them are composed by the President himself. They tend to name alleged perpetrators of hostile actions, or at least specify a category who are responsible. Here are some examples: Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! What the Democrats have done in trying to steal a Presidential Election, first at the “ballot box” and then, after that failed, with the “Insurance Policy”, is the biggest Scandal in the history of our Country! [“Insurance Policy” refers to allegations of collusion by Trump and his team with Russia]. Lyin’ James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter S and his lover, agent Lisa Page, & more, all disgraced and/or fired and caught in the act. These are just some of the losers that tried to do a number on your President. Part of the Witch Hunt. Remember the “insurance policy?” This is it! With all of the success that our Country is having, including the just released jobs numbers which are off the charts, the Fake News & totally dishonest Media concerning me and my presidency has never been worse. Many have become crazed lunatics who have given up on the TRUTH! Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.

And as for global warming, in different tweets Trump calls it a hoax, a con, stupid, fictional, mythical, and bullshit, “based on faulty science and manipulated data”, and “created by and for the Chinese”. In all these tweets, Trump specifies the so-called conspirators, whether they are individuals such as Obama, or categories such as the Press or the Democrats. There are, however, even more powerful and deeply embedded supposed conspiracies which Trump would like to cite, alleging that there is a ‘deep state’ of government institutions seeking to undermine him.13 There are also potentially libellous or far-fetched allegations which he feels he cannot directly tweet. He gets round this difficulty by re-­ tweeting tweets from other sources. These include allegations that:

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• The Mueller investigation into alleged collusion with Russia is in fact a master plan of Trump himself to investigate the global elites on suspicion of corruption and child abuse (the so-called QAnon story). • A paedophile ring run by the Democratic Party was located in a Washington pizza restaurant (“Pizzagate”). • The massacre of Muslims in New Zealand was staged in order to trigger legislation to limit gun rights (likewise school shootings in America). • An Islamic prayer rug and religious texts have been found discarded near the border with Mexico. • The letter bombs sent to Democratic candidates in the mid-term elections were not real, but rather attempts to gain sympathy for the Democrats. [Trump did venture a tweet of his own on this allegation, calling it “This “Bomb” stuff”]. So why are conspiracy theories so widespread in the Trump presidency? One popular explanation is in terms of character and personality.14 Perhaps people who are narcissistic or paranoid, for example, are more likely to create or believe in conspiracies. Narcissists believe they are superior to others, and so cannot tolerate disagreement or challenge. Paranoia is a symptom of psychotic illness in which the patient believes that others intend them harm. Or perhaps it is merely that those who score low on one of the so-called ‘Big Five’ personality factors, Agreeableness, favour conspiracy theories, since they enjoy conflict and care little about getting along with others. Or maybe those who are used to being in autocratic command find that the checks and balances of democratic institutions frustrate their need to be in complete control. All these explanations in terms of individual psychology can only ever be but a small part of the story, however. We have to look to the social psychological account of identity and conflict to understand conspiracy theories. They are best understood as attempts to identify an out-group, a Them, whom We, the in-group, should fear and fight. We become more of an Us when we believe that We are under threat from hidden and powerful foes. We feel the same impending fate, and We unite in our suspicious efforts to identify Them from the various clues which They leave behind. Indeed, the search can dominate the social media, and we can feel famous and powerful when we unearth supposed proof of who They are and what they are plotting. But conspiracy theories are only one element of the role of SM in the development of Trump’s version of populism. He is interested not only in identifying a Them but also in stirring up conflict between Us and Them.

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The conspiracy theories which I have reviewed are only one way of persuading people that They are indeed a real threat. Another is the categories to which They are allocated. If They are a shadowy and powerful elite, then conspiracy theories will do the trick, since They are capable of anything and are probably doing it without Our knowledge. If They are liberals, then all We need to consider is the arrogance and condescension of their posts. Trump’s favourite way of ensuring conflict is to identify himself with Us, so that Their attacks on him are also attacks on Us. Of course his main role is as Our champion15: Nobody will protect our Nation like Donald J. Trump Nobody beats me on National Security Nobody would fight harder for free speech than me Our Southern border is unsecure. I am the only one that can fix it ISIS is still running around wild. I can fix it I will create jobs like no-one else I am the only one who can Make America Great Again.

Many of Trump’s tweets contrast winners and losers, always emphasising his own skills as a negotiator and deal-maker, but also including Us the people in the winning team. We are part of a mighty army: I have just exceeded 2 million followers – and in such a short time I have over seven million hits on social media re Crooked Hillary Clinton I have been drawing very big and enthusiastic crowds.

It’s clear that SM, and especially Twitter, has played a major role in Trump’s success. Indeed, the president himself says so: Many are saying I’m the best 140 character writer in the world.

It remains to be fully discovered how great a part AI has played in the development of the conflict between Us and Them which he has succeeded in fomenting. However, the role of algorithms in creating and delivering targeted messages has already been established.16

Fundamentalisms and IT It is impossible to give the same general account of the impact of IT on fundamentalism. Some fundamentalisms respond to modernity and its crisis more in fear than in anger. The Chicago research team on

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fundamentalisms17 differentiated world renouncers at one end of the scale from world conquerors at the other, with world creators and world transformers in between. These different responses incorporate very different attitudes and practices regarding IT and SM.  World renouncers, such as the Amesh, some Plymouth Brethren, or some Haredi Jews have as little to do with IT as possible, since it is an artefact of the evil world from which they want to be as separate as possible. World conquerors, on the other hand, weaponise digital media in their struggle to establish their rule on earth. Whether they are Islamist militants intent on establishing the Caliphate, or others eager to impose God’s kingdom on earth, they use IT and SM to plan and organise operations. Violent militants succeed in recruiting new members by the now familiar process of grooming. Young men and women with no previous record of militancy join sleeper cells in infidel countries.18 And expositions of militant ideology are available on websites, providing they have not been taken down by the authorities. In between these two extremes are two further categories: world transformers and world creators. I have already quoted an American fundamentalist Protestant as an example of world transformer—Jerry Falwell (see pp. xxxx). Transformers seek ultimate victory by transforming the institutions of society in a more gradual and non-violent way. Like Trump, they want to ‘make America great again’, but in their case as the light shining upon a hill, the exceptional instrument of God in saving the world from its sins. Their use of IT is indistinguishable from that of any successful business enterprise, that is, diverse, innovative, and professional. It is hardly surprising that the archetypal successful capitalist economy should have invented televangelists and moved on from there. Finally, world creators are those fundamentalisms which create their own separate world. Unlike the renouncers, however, they are not averse to using the tools of the world in which they find themselves. Examples are various Pentecostal movements, particularly in South America and the Far East,19, 20 and certain Buddhist and Sikh enclaves. IT is particularly useful to world creators, for it enables them to organise internally, but without engaging much with other systems. Although these fundamentalist relationships with IT and SM are varied, they can all be understood in terms of social identity. The world creators and the world renouncers use technology sparingly, or avoid it entirely, in order to differentiate themselves from other social systems. They want to remain pure and separate and different, an Us surrounded by high barriers. Everyone else is Them, a completely undifferentiated Other, with

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whom they want little or nothing to do except try to convert them. The world conquerors and world transformers, on the other hand, use IT to help them to victory in their struggle. They are seeking either to conquer or to change particular targets: Western infidels, Muslim apostates, secular humanists, immoral liberals, and so on. They clearly specify Us and Them, and share a view of the world as an arena of conflict. And they don’t hesitate to explain how They are threatening Us.

Summary As far as populism is concerned, the immediacy and power of IT allows rapid mobilisation and communication of ideology. It enables direct unmediated communication between leader and followers, thereby by-­ passing all experts and ‘fake news’, the ‘elite conspiracy’. Social media normalise the expression of anger; the populist aim is to create out-groups and thereby solidify the in-group and cause conflict. For fundamentalisms, the situation is more complex. Those who are oriented away from the world, world renouncers and world creators, either avoid IT or use it simply to differentiate themselves. World transformers and world conquerors, however, weaponise it for the conflict. Questions for Discussion Why are people more likely to trust one of Us? Populists and fundamentalists differ in how they define Us and Them; how does this affect who they trust? What is it about social media which persuades adherents that those with whom they are communicating are one of Us? Emotions are a powerful motivation for adherents of reactionary movements. How do social media succeed in arousing strong emotions when they lack many of the features of live social exchange?

Notes 1. Castells, Manuel (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. 2. Levitsky, Steven & Ziblatt, Daniel (2018) How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future. New York: Viking. 3. www.trumptwitterarchive.com 4. Goodhart, David (2017) The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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5. Muller, Jan-Werner (2016) What is Populism? Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 6. Beyer, Peter (2006) Religions in Global Society. Abingdon: Routledge. 7. Davies, William (2018) Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World. London: Cape. 8. New York Times, October 28th, 2018. 9. Bem, Daryl (1967) Self-perception: An alternative explanation of cognitive dissonance phenomena. Psychological Review, 74, 183–200. 10. The Guardian November 29th, 2018. 11. Zuboff, Shoshana (2018) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile Books. 12. Financial Times, May 21st, 2018. 13. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bf6295 14. www.statnews.com/2017/03/08/trump-wiretapping-tweets 15. www.trumptwitterarchive.com 16. Zuboff op. cit. 17. Almond, Gabriel, Appleby, R. Scott, & Sivan, Emmanuel (2003) Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 18. Sageman, Marc (2004) Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia PENN: University of Pennsylvania Press. 19. Jenkins, Philip (2007) The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (2nd edn.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 20. Noll, Mark (2009) The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith. Downers Grove IL: IVP Academic.

Further Reading Castells, Manuel. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. Zuboff, Shoshana. 2018. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile Books. Almond, Gabriel, R. Scott Appleby, and Emmanuel Sivan. 2003. Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

CHAPTER 10

What to Do? Carry on Fighting

Back to the Future The final element of the identification process to be considered is the decision about what to do. The point of any social movement is to achieve its fundamental aim. The narratives of populism and fundamentalism are clear about what this is: to return to the past and restore a mythical golden age. Each movement has its own view of what their particular golden age was like, but the overall retro-direction is clear. The task is, according to the narratives, to make that journey. Reactionary narratives are not only clear about direction, however. They are also quite specific about some of the milestones along the way. The West Virginians are going to mine coal again; the Hungarians will all live in good Catholic families; the British will rule the (mercantile) waves once more; Islamic theocracies will enforce sharia law by means of the caliphate; Israel will reclaim the land God gave it as its inheritance; nations will be truly independent and national cultures will be treasured. Clearly the achievement of these narrative aims is an impossible ask. The clock cannot be re-wound to an historical past, let alone a mythical one. Yet some action has to be taken. The narrative structure involves the identification of a threat, the alerting of an impending crisis, and the availability of a powerful leader. Emotions of fear, anger, excitement, and hope are aroused. Action of some sort or other is imperative if these emotions are to be contained and channelled. The narratives fortunately provide opportunities for action. They frame the situation as one of injustice and © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_10

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persecution, and the solution as one of struggle and ultimate victory. They also identify a Them, who are supposedly responsible for the situation and therefore need to be overcome. Once reactionary movements have defined Us and Them, the common sense action which they should take against the threats which they fear becomes clear and straightforward (to them). Since these threats come from the corrupt elite or from the evil world, We have to take them on. However, We certainly should not fight Them on their own ground. We cannot play the same game as those social institutions which underpin government, international relations, business, the law, science and technology, education, and the media. They have rigged the rules of the game to suit themselves. No, we don’t want their high-faluting language or expert knowledge. The instructions of the nation’s founding fathers, or the Word of God himself, are all we need. The only way to deal with modern institutions is to ridicule, subvert, and shock them, gain control, and consolidate power under our leader.1,2 He will lead us back to our promised land. But the leaders of reactionary movements are aware of the improbability of easy success. The narratives emphasise the difficulty of achieving victory and power. Our enemies are determined and powerful, caution the stories. When We win a battle, or even the war itself, They will always still be there. For populists, They are ‘the deep state’, plotting to overthrow Us and return to power.3 We must remain vigilant against this shadowy enemy. And for fundamentalists, the wicked world and the apostate faithless must be confronted, though Satan will only be properly beaten in the final conflict, at the End of Days. That’s why there will always be conflict between Us and Them. And it’s also why We must maintain our identity as the real people of our nation and/or the faithful remnant of God as the central pillar and essence of who we are. The narrative which I have just outlined seeks to strengthen the social identities and stereotypes which motivate and justify continuous conflict.4 It also offers a convenient attribution of blame if the common sense solutions turn out not to work. Any failure or setback that we suffer, runs the populist narrative, is down to the cabals of power which are so secret and hidden that it is impossible to dismantle them. Or, in the fundamentalist story, Satan has once again wormed his subtle way into hearts and minds and corrupted them. However, these are hard enemies for movement adherents to identify and recognise. Hence it may be difficult to motivate and mobilise action. More limited categories are more promising

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candidates for the role of Them: Mexicans, for example, or mainstream churches, or LGTB people. These categories have the advantage that common negative cultural stereotypes are already available with which to label and demean them; few adherent attitudes may need to be changed. Sometimes, the enemy is reduced in size even further, becoming personified in a single individual: George Soros, for example, or Hillary Clinton, representing, respectively, the shadowy world (Jewish) conspiracy and the corrupt political elite. As far as the narratives are concerned, all these enemies have one thing in common. Whether they are world conspiracies, minority categories, or famous individuals, they all stand in the way of the restoration of the golden age. Hence they must be subdued before the reactionary movement in question can achieve its aim. Restoration of a mythical past is impossible, however, and the recognition of this reality may well be forced upon movement leaders and followers when progress towards the vision stalls. This directs attention back to the struggle, and alerts observers to the possibility that conflict in itself may become motivating for adherents. Indeed, the motivational power of conflict alone, regardless of success, is perfectly understandable from a psychological perspective. The continuation of the struggle reinforces the identity of Us, since Us is defined in the case of reactionary movements in terms of the hostile relationship to Them. If this identity is central to the self, then the adherent’s very self is dependent upon the existence of the struggle. If there were no hostile Them, then there would be no Us.5 Success or failure in the struggle may enhance or diminish self-esteem, but is immaterial to the survival of the self, since the adherent’s self is only destroyed if the struggle ceases. This explains the implacability and resilience of, for example, the heavily defeated ISIS jihadis. The centrality of social identity and the survival of the self thus provide a psychological explanation for the durability of populisms and fundamentalisms, even in the face of defeats which in political, military, religious, or economic terms might be considered potentially fatal. However, in the present crisis of modernity, the world is facing examples of both types of movement, sometimes in combination, which are, on the contrary, flourishing. While the return to the golden age is by definition impossible, the generation and maintenance of conflict can of itself be a source of power. This reality, together with the unpredictability of outcomes, is illustrated by the following study of recent events in Israel. The checks and balances built into modern nation states and modern religious institutions are, for

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the time being, successfully ignored by totalitarian and absolutist leaders and their followers. The ‘will of the people’ and/or ‘the will of God’ are imposed unilaterally. How will it all end? Modern history suggests: only after convulsive struggles and much suffering. Case Study: Israel and Netanyahu In order to look at the messy reality, with its mixed categories and its as yet unknown outcomes, I now review a current conflict, which involves both populist politics and fundamentalist religion. My overall thesis—that populism and fundamentalism work the same way psychologically—is illustrated in their successful collaboration in recent events in and around Israel. The establishment of the modern secular state of Israel in 1948, shortly after the Holocaust, provided a new and welcome reference point for the Diaspora, the ethnic Jews scattered across the world without a national homeland. However, conflict was almost guaranteed from the beginning, since the Palestinians argued that they had been deprived of land which was theirs by right and by possession. The history of the new nation has ever since been punctuated by armed conflict with the Palestinians and other Arab neighbours, most notably in the wars of 1967, 1973, and 2014.6,7 The perception of existential threat had been a constant for Jews, ever since the Romans destroyed Jerusalem two thousand years ago. The pogroms in Europe and elsewhere, culminating in the Holocaust, led them to expect to have to struggle and fight in order to survive and prosper. Hence, the response of the state of Israel has been an uncompromising use of power. While this strategy both relied on and engendered a strong nationalist feeling, however, Israeli nationalism has only relatively recently become populist in nature.8 How and why has this development occurred? Various constraints had been placed upon Israel until very recently. First, Israel’s generous ally America, the European Union, and international opinion in general had all emphasised the importance of Israel addressing the Palestinian issue and seeking an agreed solution. The preferred option has been the two-state settlement, with a Palestinian nation and the state of Israel co-existing contiguously. However, repeated failure to achieve agreement, together with recent clear signals from Trump that he favours the interests of the Israelis, has now pushed the peace issue down the agenda. It certainly featured little in the rival political campaigns before the first Israeli election of 2019.9

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Trump had recently moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, thereby signalling his belief that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel (and only of Israel). Mike Pompeo, the current US Secretary of State, called the two-­ state solution ‘dead in the water’, and ‘not worth retreading’.10 Attention during the first election of 2019 was focussed on other issues. The election gave a qualified but favourable verdict on the increasingly populist leadership style of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu was on course to become the longest serving prime minister of Israel.11 He had supported Israeli settlers in their illegal occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, and by 2019 was promising to formally annex the settlements into Israeli sovereignty.12 Like Trump, Netanyahu had supported the building of a wall to keep out immediate neighbours, and, like him also, he dismissed judicial investigation into his possible fraudulent conduct as prime minister as an establishment witch hunt.13 He was, he argued, on the side of marginalised and threatened Israelis, not the elite establishment. It is hardly surprising that Netanyahu has spent much time recently cultivating Trump, but it is also significant that his other preferred allies are the new populist leaders of Europe.14 He appears to favour strong leaders who ignore international institutions. So far, the story is a typical populist one. But Netanyahu’s popularity stemmed not merely from his political skills and his position within the history of the Israeli state. It gained added momentum from two fundamentalist movements within Judaism. The first was a general movement, the Haredim (translation: ‘the truly pious’).15 The second was Gush Emunim (‘the bloc of the faithful’). While the Haredim are, as their name suggests, separatist world renouncers (see pp. xxx), Gush Emunim were at the opposite end of the fundamentalist engagement scale; they were world conquerors. But these organisations had at least one thing in common: Israel found both of them integral to its populist and expansionist trajectory. (It should be added that this dichotomy of fundamentalisms is an over-simplification of the complex network of institutions of ultra-­ Orthodox Judaism). As typical world renouncers, hostile to the Enlightenment, the Haredim have sought to separate themselves physically, socially, and spiritually from the secular state and from less observant Jews. They live in enclaves within cities, dress distinctively, observe religious law with extreme zeal (especially Sabbath observance and dietary restrictions), maintain patriarchal family norms, and only allow a few utilitarian secular elements into their

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otherwise entirely religious education system. And, most important, males spend most of their waking hours studying the holy texts and obeying them. This separation, however, comes at a cost. Their relationship with the state is one of mutual dependence. They cannot maintain their way of life without state benefits, and until recently avoided the universal requirement of military service, much to the annoyance of secular Israelis. However, many Israelis originated in Eastern Europe, where ultra-­ Orthodox Judaism had flourished and its leaders been revered. There was perhaps a sense in which the ultra-Orthodox had acted as ‘observant by proxy’ to the Diaspora. Hence they represented the culture of part of the electorate. Indeed, the Netanyahu administration only maintained its majority of seats by courtesy of the alliances of its Likud party with small conservative religious parties.16 The Haredim represent themselves as hastening the coming of the Messiah by study of, and obedience to, the holy law. Then Messiah would bring about God’s kingdom, the true Israel. Gush Emunim, on the other hand, boasted no such historical pedigree. They were founded in the 1970s, and formally dissolved soon after, in 1984. However, their ideological impact has continued to the present day. They owed a great deal to an Orthodox rabbi, Tzvi Yehuda Kook.17 He reinterpreted the religious texts so as to give special importance to one mitzva, or divine injunction. It required them to live and work in the land promised by God to Abraham, “all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession”.18 The foundation of the secular state of Israel was considered to be a divine miracle, and the beginning of the redemption of God’s people Israel. Divine justification was thus provided for the nationalist project of securing Israel against perceived threat by expanding its boundaries. And this expansionist aim was sanctified and strengthened by all the emotions stirred by a narrative of religious destiny. In sum, the recent support of Trump and other populist leaders, and the legitimacy and motivation historically provided by the fundamentalist groups, have added major impetus to the de facto enlargement of the state of Israel and its dominance over the Palestinians. This alliance of religion and politics has provided a strong national and religious identity—the political reality of territory gained has acquired the millennial glory of the promised land. The ‘Them’ against which this ‘Us’ could be defined, was in general an alien Gentile world which only served to make identification as Jew more central. But more specifically, They were constituted of the Palestinians who are directly contesting the land, and also of predominantly Arab adjacent states such as Iran, Lebanon, and Egypt.19

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Yet, just to demonstrate the vulnerability of an apparently impregnable position, by the end of 2019 Netanyahu has failed to form a coalition government after two attempts.20 Despite Pompeo’s supportive proclamation of the legitimacy of the settlements,21 the courts have seized the opportunity to press Netanyahu with corruption charges.22 Should he fall, the policies which he has done so much to promote may become less popular. However, the mutually dependent conflict and identities may well, partly for the psychological reasons argued above, remain intractable.

Summary The narratives of reactionary movements emphasise the aim of the restoration of a mythical golden age. Many powerful enemies seek to prevent this achievement, the story runs, whether global and abstract conspiracies, minority categories, or individuals. Adherents become more afraid and angry as a result of this narrative, and support conflicts conducted against these supposed enemies. They are motivated by their need to maintain their centrally important social identity (Us), which is defined by its conflicted opposite (Them). Hence conflict becomes a psychological end in itself, and yet more intractable as a result. Questions for Discussion Select a populism or a fundamentalism with which you are familiar. How would you describe its aims and strategy for action? Reactionary narratives typically promise a return to a golden age. But could the real aim be to foment conflict? Why might you suppose that it is? And why might adherents prefer this outcome? The case of Israel demonstrates how powerful fundamentalism and populism can become in collaboration. What does each of them bring to the party? What are the likely tensions in their collaboration?

Notes 1. Moffitt, Benjamin (2016) The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Palo Alto CA: Stanford University Press. 2. Wojcik, Daniel (1997) The End of the World As We Know it: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America. New York: New York University Press. 3. Davies, William (2018) Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World. London: Cape.

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4. Schneider, David (2004) The Psychology of Stereotyping. New  York: Guilford. 5. Jenkins, Richard (2008) Social Identity (3rd edn.). London: Routledge. 6. Janner-Klausner, Laura (2016) Jewish Fundamentalism. In Dunn, James (ed.) Fundamentalisms: Threats and Ideologies in the Modern World. London: I.B. Tauris. 7. Kress, Michael (2012) The State of Orthodox Judaism Today. Jewish Virtual Library. 8. The Guardian, 11/04/2019. 9. The Guardian, 11/04/2019. 10. The Guardian, 11/04/2019. 11. The Guardian, 13/04/2019. 12. The Guardian, 11/04/2019. 13. The Guardian, 11/04/2019. 14. The Guardian, 15/04/2019. 15. Lawrence, Bruce (1989) Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age (ch. 6). Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press. 16. The Guardian, 10/04/2019. 17. www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20269 18. Genesis, ch.17 v.8. 19. The Guardian, 15/04/2019. 20. Washington Post, 21/10/2019. 21. Washington Post, 23/11/2019. 22. New York Times, 22/11/2019.

Further Reading Lawrence, Bruce. 1989. Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Bruce, Steve. 2003. Politics and Religion. Cambridge: Polity Press. Thomas, Scott. 2005. The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Relations: The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 11

Prescription or Pressure Points?

How Reactionary Movements Work To sum up the argument of the previous nine chapters, there is a strong case for believing that the same psychological processes are at work in both populism and fundamentalism. Both of them work in the same way. They may have different ideological contents: one is about politics and values, and the other has a primarily cosmic perspective. Furthermore, they may engage with the rest of the social system in different ways. While populists are up front with their opposition to existing institutions, fundamentalists vary. Some are afraid of contact with this wicked world and retreat into secure physical or social enclaves; others are highly visible in their active hostility towards it. However, the two movements have a great deal in common. Both are reacting against modernity, both as an overall social ideology and practice, and also as a currently dominant system. In particular, they disapprove of the central feature of modernity and its consequences—the differentiation of the social system into multiple systems, each with its own aims, values, and practices. The consequences of differentiation are different perspectives on reality, and different truth criteria, with the implication that there is no single overall absolute belief system. Since both populists and fundamentalists are absolutists, holding that there is only one correct belief system (their own), they cannot accept such relativism. They are hostile both to other sub-systems within their own system (politics or religion), and also to other global social systems such as law, science, the media, or the arts. © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_11

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This reactionary hostility results in a particular psychological process which underpins how the two movements operate. Both populists and fundamentalists see themselves as a specific category of person: the ‘real people’ or the ‘faithful believers’, respectively. These social identities are prototypical, that is, they have characteristics which the ideal populist or fundamentalist exhibits. Such features are, of course, positively evaluated, and usually have a very obvious opposite: real versus fake, faithful versus heretical, for example. Hence it becomes easy to contrast ‘Us’ with ‘Them’, where ‘They’ are a negative stereotype characterised by these opposite features. Such stereotypes already exist in the cultural repertoire. They may be found within the same social system as the prototype: ‘the bureaucratic elite’, for example, or ‘false prophets’. Or they may be from another: ‘so-called experts’, ‘fake news’, or ‘sinful culture’. Populists and fundamentalists are motivated and emotionally aroused by narratives, which offer a dramatic account of these identity-based conflicts. Their leaders tell these stories and also act them out. Narratives range broadly enough to enable various different explanations of events and outcomes. However, most such attributions of causality are to people rather than to situations. They tend to credit Us or God if outcomes are favourable, and to blame Them or Satan if they are not. Thus far, it might be argued, these psychological processes could also be used to explain all sorts of conflicts between social institutions, movements, or groups. However, there is one definitive feature of populist and fundamentalist narratives which differentiates them further from other narratives. It is that they are restorationist: they promise a return to an idealised past. This by definition is impossible, first because the past was never really like its idealised version; and second, because the clock cannot be turned back: modernity has happened, is happening, and will continue to shape global society. Case Study: Recep Erdogan In order to keep this abstract summary grounded in present reality, I will examine an example which demonstrates all of the features I have just enumerated. One of the most egregious recent assaults on modern institutions by a populist has been launched by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey. Erdogan has had a long career at the top of Turkish politics, having been Prime Minister from 2003 to 2014 and President from 2014 to the present. Until recently he has retained popular support by delivering public services and economic growth. His party, the AKP (Justice and

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Development Party) is highly organised, and has roots in Sunni Islam. Ever since the foundation of the secular state of Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1924 out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire, there has always been an undercurrent of Islamist opposition to secularisation, particularly in the rural and Eastern parts of the country. Erdogan’s rhetoric has been populist from the start. He is the poor boy from an Istanbul slum, claiming to represent the national will of the people against the bureaucrats and business, the “so-called elites”.1 However, he was proud to represent himself as the upholder of the democratic process, having been properly elected both as Prime Minister and as President. In 2016 there was an attempted coup, put down by the loyal majority of the armed forces. Approximately 160,000 public servants reportedly lost their jobs, 50,000 people were arrested, and a state of emergency declared, with the President assuming extra-ordinary powers.2 Erdogan capitalised on this opportunity to weaken the institutions of modernity. He attacked the judiciary and the press in particular, dismissing 4000 judges and state prosecutors and replacing them with new ones selected by the executive. He imprisoned 169 journalists, including three television commentators accused of sending subliminal messages on a current affairs programme. Their show trial was designed to cow opposition. He tied the Intelligence Agency to the Presidency, and used it to investigate disloyal elements in the military. He was emboldened to say “The fate of Turkey and the fate of the Justice and Development Party have become one”,3 hinting at his ambition for a one-party state. He consolidated his position in a referendum in 2017 by engineering structural changes in government institutions. The European Union criticised his conduct on the grounds of evidence of ballot rigging and harassment of the opposition. The referendum gave Erdogan the right to appoint public officials; abolished the office of prime minister; enabled rule by presidential decree; permitted presidential interference with judicial decisions; and gave the president the right to dissolve parliament whenever he or she wished.4 Erdogan exercised his new rights immediately by appointing his son-in-law as finance minister.5 However, the seemingly inexorable drive towards totalitarian rule was impeded in 2019. In a context of economic downturn, a state of recession was declared in March 2019. Inflation was at 20%, 25% of young people were unemployed, and the minimum wage had decreased by 10% in the course of a single year.6 Local elections for mayors resulted in an overall victory for the Justice and Development Party, but defeat in the urban

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centres of Istanbul and Ankara. On the grounds that some of the staff running the elections were not public servants as required by law, Erdogan annulled the results and ordered a re-run of the elections.7 He thus threw away his remaining democratic credentials, and was roundly criticised for doing so, even by some from his own party. A former prime minister mourned “a loss of moral superiority and social conscience”.8 When the election was re-run in June, Erdogan was beaten yet again. Perhaps, therefore, his position is not so secure as appeared a year before, an insecurity reflected in his eagerness to divert attention by engaging in a war with the Kurds on the Syrian border. Apart from Erdogan’s assault on the major elements of modern governance, there is also evidence of a notable desire to restore a golden age. Islam is associated with this typically populist obsession, suggesting, as with Israel’s Netanyahu (see pp. 100–103), close ties between religion and populism. In 2018, Erdogan returned to the school in which he himself was educated. It is now named “The Recep Tayyip Erdogan Anatolian Imam Hatip Upper School”. Imam Hatip translates as Imam and Preacher, and points to the school’s religious nature and purpose. In his speech, Erdogan affirmed “The joint goal of all education and our teaching system is to bring up good people with respect for their history, culture, and values”.9 In 2014, he had announced that he wanted to create “a pious generation that will work for the construction of a new civilisation”. Religious schools now receive double the financial support per pupil compared to secular schools, and their curriculum excludes evolution.

Theoretical Prescriptions Supposing that the above theoretical account and case study have some explanatory power, the next question concerns their implications for policy and practice. One response has been to use identity theory to generate prescriptions for interventions into conflicted group situations in general (as opposed to those involving populism and fundamentalism in particular).10,11 However, this well-meaning response makes certain assumptions. For example, it implies that conflict is a problem to be solved. It could, on the contrary, be argued that social conflict frequently performs beneficial functions over the longer term.12 Protest movements may be drawing attention to growing and harmful inequalities of wealth or power, for example. The appropriate response in this case might be to address these

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underlying structural issues as a first priority, rather than seeking to damp down the conflict. Political and economic rather than psychological interventions would be more appropriate. More generally, the understandable urge to apply a specific explanatory theory directly to a societal context is not helpful. The fundamental purpose of social scientific theory and research is to help us all to better understand our social world. Social policy interventions cannot properly be based on an understanding gained from one sub-disciplinary perspective only. They should utilise all relevant theory and evidence across disciplinary boundaries, whether it is aimed at answering ‘what’, ‘why’, or ‘how’ questions. A partial understanding derived from a single perspective can lead to limited solutions which can even make the situation worse. Indeed, as I will argue, an understanding based solely on academic theory and research should not constitute the grounds for social interventions. There are several good reasons why it would be mistaken to base any social policy regarding populism or fundamentalism primarily or solely on identity theory and research. One obvious practical one is the fact that these movements flourish if their narrative can convincingly dramatise their experience as persecution, disrespect, or betrayal. Hence, direct interventions run the risk of being counter-productive. They are always trying to control us and take our freedoms away, runs the story. The theme of victimhood13 permeates the narratives of populism and fundamentalism alike. It provides much of the motivational grievance, and hence legitimacy, upon which they thrive. For populists, victimhood confirms their unjust treatment as the ignored and exploited heart and muscle of the nation. For fundamentalists, it reaffirms their virtue, as their God says that persecution is always the lot of true believers. Any intervention, then, runs the risk of adding fuel to reactionary fires if it can be construed as yet another unjust threat imposed from above. Further, it is doubtful if interventions logically derived from a particular theory from within a single academic discipline are likely to be acceptable to the different stakeholders involved. Why should this specific set of eggheads have the answer, a politician or a local community might ask. Indeed, why should these theoretical ideas be applicable to an entire modern society?.14 Identity theorists’ intervention strategy aimed at reducing conflict in general has been to seek to influence the categories which inform the identities of Us and Them. One approach is to emphasise the individuality, the personal identity, of the conflicted parties at the expense of their social identity.15 This generally involves face-to-face interactions in which

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individuals can come to perceive each other as persons rather than as examples of a category. Another form of intervention is to involve the parties in a common task or purpose, so that a superordinate collaborative category held in common subsumes the two hostile categories.16 The latter can still each be seen to be making their unique contribution. These forms of intervention have had considerable success within limited social contexts. For example, they have been effective within an organisation where departmental identities and inter-departmental conflicts were damaging organisational effectiveness.17 They have also worked well in a school with students from a variety of cultures who have developed exclusive culture-based friendship groups.18 In such concrete situations, where existing groups and individuals are engaging with each other, and where managerial control is expected and perceived as legitimate, solutions based on social identity theory may work well. However, at the societal level of analysis the situation is very different. The categories which feature in the populist and fundamentalist narratives are constructs. They do not refer to existing groups of people, either physical or virtual, but rather constitute abstract prototypes and stereotypes. Indeed, attitudes towards migrants and those of other cultures and religions are generally most hostile in those areas where there are proportionately fewest such people. It is not concrete inter-group relations so much as prototypes and stereotypes which determine attitudes and behaviour towards others at societal level. Given that these prototypes and stereotypes are usually deeply embedded in societal culture,19 it is evident that interventions aiming to change them directly are unlikely to succeed. More generally, any analysis of, or policy regarding, reactionary movements or any of the other issues facing late modernity cannot possibly be based on one particular perspective. Given the depth and complexity of the current crisis of modernity and its contributing factors, new integrative narratives will have to be based on contributions from voices typically unheard. We cannot rely only on the various established social systems of modernity, such as academic research or government policy. It is likely that some of these additional voices are to be found among those who currently support reactionary movements such as populism and fundamentalism. Others will come from social systems which have a relatively low public profile: the voluntary sector, modern religion, the arts, education, and those involved in innovative technologies, for example. Such devices as citizens’ assemblies may be effective in integrating diverse contributions, and thus developing rounded and representative narratives of the past, the present, and the future.

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Real and Reactionary Threats It is, nevertheless, vital to mitigate the effects of populism and fundamentalism. These movements are indeed threats to the future of global society, but indirectly so. The direct and inter-related threats are now well known. First and most terrifying is climate crisis and species destruction, resulting in famine, disease, homelessness, and ultimately extinction. Next comes growing inequality, within and between nation states, bringing war and social unrest in its train; and third, the development and potential use of lethal weapons of nuclear warfare. It could justifiably be argued that these potential catastrophes have been partly brought upon humankind by certain processes of modernity, such as industrialisation, consumerism, and unregulated capitalism. But it is likely that only from within modernity itself can these existential issues be addressed before it is too late. It is modernity, especially in the form of science and the media, which has made us aware of the realities of our situation, and pointed to the changes required to halt the trend towards global destruction. And it is only if all the modern social systems add their vision and effort that a longer term future is possible. Government, for example, will have to regulate liberal free-market capitalism; religion will be stressing the awe and respect with which the world and all its species, not just humankind, should be regarded; media will ensure that the true situation and the radical remedial measures necessary are fully understood; art will explore narratives which do emotional justice to these realities; and voluntary organisations and movements of concerned citizens will exercise pressure on all the other social systems. Only modernity can address the existential issues for which it is partly responsible. It follows that reactionary movements such as populism and fundamentalism, which are actively hostile to modern social systems, are going to impede modernity in this crucial task. Reactionaries can ignore, seek to subvert, or indeed overturn modern institutions, thereby rendering them incapable of the radical action required. Or they can simply divert attention and effort from the real issues by progressing their own agendas. For they too claim to be in an existential crisis, about to lose their nation or their religion. Modern institutions currently have to spend a lot of time and effort dealing with them, time which could be spent addressing the real problems. In economic terminology, modern institutions suffer opportunity costs as a result of reactionary movements.

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Here are some of the ways in which populism and fundamentalism seek to subvert modern social systems and the institutions and organisations which constitute them. First, they continuously denigrate them by questioning their veracity and their motivation. News is fake, we are told; judges are enemies of the people; international organisations are part of a sinister new world order; scientific experts are unnecessary and self-serving; global warming is a myth; all modern institutions are hostile to God’s laws; art is immoral; mainstream religion is heretical; universal human rights deny God’s judgements; democracy is compromising absolute truth. And the motives underlying them all are simple—greed for wealth and power at the expense of the real people, or human arrogance in sinfully ignoring God’s will. Second, populists and fundamentalists seek to act in accordance with these narratives. When populists gain power, they gradually take control of the modern institutions of society, in particular the legal system and the press. While retaining at least for the time being the structural framework of modern social systems, they hollow them out by appointing their own supporters or even family members to key positions (witness Trump, Bolsonaro, Erdogan, and Orban). They set about reversing the decisions of previous non-populist leaders on ideological grounds. Healthcare reform, acceptance of refugees, and international agreements on disarmament and climate change have all been challenged by populists. And they actively attack supra-national agencies such as the United Nations and the European Union. Fundamentalists are far more varied in their responses than populists. World renouncers such as the Amesh and the Haredim gain whatever concessions they can from the secular state and studiously perform their minimal legal duties.20,21 World transformers such as the American Christian Right happily use the democratic institutions to try to bring about their ideological aims. For example, they campaign to restore the traditional American family and disempower minority rights activists such as feminists and LGTB groups.22 World conquerors, however, treat all such institutions with contempt. Some are satisfied with merely denouncing them as the work of Satan,23 but others set themselves up as totalitarian lieutenants of an angry and pitiless deity.24

Pressure Points Populists and fundamentalists, it appears, are a threat to the modern world, particularly at a time when its systems and institutions are having grave difficulty addressing the existential crises which face them. I have

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argued that the reading off of intervention strategies from the theory of social identity is not an appropriate or adequate response to this reactionary threat. What, then, could be the theory’s contribution to dealing with these two movements which have dominated the first nine chapters of this book? I have argued from the beginning that social identity theory is most useful in understanding how reactionary movements work psychologically, not why they exist nor what they argue. To understand how a social movement works is a necessary condition for identifying those particular points in the process where it is most at risk of not working. Identification of these weaknesses can help to inform oppositional strategies which might be more effective as a consequence. Such pressure points, I will argue in the remaining chapters, are most likely to occur where adherents’ daily experiences are inescapably incompatible with elements of the movements’ narratives. Of course it does not follow that any such incompatibility will detach adherents from the movement or discredit it in general. Reactionary narratives are designed so as to be able to explain away these awkward difficulties; examples of this Houdini-like quality have already been quoted in previous chapters. However there are grounds for identifying at least three different pressure points which spell danger for reactionary movements. These are, first, when the movement achieves a degree of power and starts trying to put its programme into action (Chap. 12); second, when it seeks to ensure that its social identity remains central to the self-concept of its adherents (Chap. 13); and finally, when the people who have been categorised as Them refuse to accept this identity (Chap. 14).

Summary Social identity theory is generally applicable to situations of group conflict, including those caused by reactionary movements. However, it is not possible to read off prescriptions for intervention at societal level directly from the theory, for example by seeking to influence the categories by which the parties identify themselves. Other political, cultural, and economic perspectives are needed if reactionary movements are to be understood and withstood. Populists and fundamentalists have to be withstood because they are hindering modern social systems and institutions from addressing the real existential issues of the age: climate crisis, inequality, and war. Populists and fundamentalists attack modernity directly and also cause opportunity costs by diverting resources away from the real issues.

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Questions for Discussion Think of an historical or recent attempt to change society which was based on a particular theory, ideology, or social system. How successful was it? Why? If aspects of modernity are themselves responsible for its present crisis, how can modern social systems engender trust that they are capable and motivated to solve it? How should modern social systems deal with populisms and fundamentalisms? Ignore them in order to concentrate on the real and urgent issues? Confront and defeat them as a necessary first step? Engage in dialogue with them so as to discover which issues most concern them? Engage in dialogue with each other in an effort to address the crisis? Engage in dialogue with citizens and civil society? None, one, some, or all of these, and in what sequential order and relative priority?

Notes 1. New York Times, 10/5/2019. 2. The Independent, 7/9/2017. 3. New York Times, 10/5/2019. 4. National Public Radio, 25/6/2018. 5. The Economist, 9/5/2019. 6. The Guardian, 7/4/2019. 7. New York Times, 10/5/2019. 8. Al Jazeera, 8/5/2019. 9. Butler, Daren. A Pious Generation. Reuters, 25/1/2018. 10. Brown, Rupert (2000) Group Processes (2nd edn.) ch.8. Oxford: Blackwell. 11. Hogg, Michael & Abrams, Dominic (2003) Intergroup behaviour and social identity. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 12. Haslam, S.  Alexander (2001) Psychology in Organisations: The Social Identity Approach, ch 7. London: Sage. 13. Wenzel, Michael (2009) Social identity and justice: Implications for intergroup relations. In Otten, Sabine, Sassenberg, Kai & Kessler, Thomas (eds.) Intergroup Relations: The Role of Motivation and Emotion. Hove: Psychology Press. 14. Haslam, op. cit. ch. 8. 15. Wright, Stephen (2009) Cross-group contact effects. In Otten, Sabine, Sassenberg, Kai, & Kessler, Thomas (eds.) Intergroup Relations: The Role of Motivation and Emotion. Hove: Psychology Press.

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16. Dovidio, John, Gaertner, Samuel, Hodson, Gordon, Riek, Blake, Johnson, Kelly, & Houlette, Missy. Recategorisation and crossed categorisation: The implications of group salience and representations for reducing bias. In Crisp, Richard & Hewstone, Miles (eds.) Multiple Social Categorisation: Processes, Models, and Applications. Hove: Psychology Press. 17. Tyler, Tom (1998) The psychology of authority relations: A relational perspective on influence and power in groups. In Kramer, Roderick & Neale, Margaret (eds.) Power and Influence in Organisations. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage. 18. See 15 (above). 19. Wright, Stephen & Taylor, Donald (2003) The social psychology of cultural diversity: Social stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 20. Hood, Ralph, Hill, Peter, & Williamson, W. Paul (2005) The Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism. New York: Guilford. 21. Janner- Klausner, Laura (2016) Jewish fundamentalism. In Dunn, James (ed.) Fundamentalisms: Threats and Ideologies in the Modern World. London: IBTauris. 22. Murray Brown, Ruth (2002) For a “Christian America”. New  York: Prometheus. 23. Almond, Gabriel, Appleby, R. Scott, & Sivan, Emmanuel (2003) Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms in the Modern World. New York: University of Chicago Press. 24. Juergensmeyer, Mark (2003) 3rd edn. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.

Further Reading Brown, Rupert. 2000. Group Processes. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Scholte, Jan. 2005. Globalisation: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Beyer, Peter. 2006. Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 12

When Reality Dawns

Case Study: ISIS and the Caliphate Iconic images of the ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria abound. Three remain indelibly in the mind, representing the course of the caliphate’s brief history. The first focuses on pick-up trucks full of ISIS fighters, triumphantly firing their Kalashnikovs into the air while the far larger Iraqi army disappears over the horizon. The second shows captives of ISIS kneeling as they await decapitation. And the third consists of a straggly line of ISIS women, carrying their children away from the wreckage of the caliphate’s final stronghold of Baghuz. These images, and many such others, reinforce the most popular definition of ISIS: that it is a terrorist organisation, the main aim of which is to terrify people so that they submit to its control. Another equally well-­ merited description stresses its organisational features: it has managerial structures, a sound financial base, and a global media presence. Yet another combines these two categories—it is a criminal organisation akin to the mafia.1 But many balk at any reference to its fundamentalist religious belief structure. How can such peace-loving fundamentalists as the Amesh, the Brethren, and the Haredim possibly be lumped together with these terrorists, they object. The answer lies in our understanding of fundamentalisms: all of them are reacting against the modern world, and all wish to return to a purer and simpler one, the nature of which they and only they know. They are all, in sum, reactionary, restorationist, and absolutist. But © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_12

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they differ utterly in the way that they relate to the world. ISIS are world conquerors whose method is violence and terror. Other fundamentalists are also world conquerors, but avoid violence. And world renouncers such as the Amesh abhor violence and avoid the world as far as possible. What the history and future prospects of ISIS provide, however, is a case study of what happens when fundamentalisms gain some power and then lose it: when, in other words, reality dawns. To understand the ISIS fascination with the caliphate, we need to return to the early years of the Muslim religion. After the Prophet Mohammed died, he was succeeded by a group of four rulers who were called caliphs. They ruled from Medina, and their period of rule, together of course with that of the Prophet himself, is regarded as the golden age of Islam. This picture is an idealised one, however, as there was discord among the caliphs which resulted in the major schism between the Sunni and the Shi’ite sects. Nevertheless there were caliphs throughout Muslim history, whose main function was to maintain sharia law according to the Qu’ran and the theocratic nature of the state. The office of caliph was abolished in 1924 by the new nation of Turkey, so the claiming of the title of caliph by the late Abu Bakr al-­ Baghdadi in 2014 was an immensely powerful symbolic act. He was making the standard restorationist promise: a return to the golden age. But he was also submitting this claim to concrete test by enforcing a caliphate, God’s kingdom on this earth. Al-Baghdadi soon demonstrated the ISIS version of God’s kingdom.2 His forces killed about 5000 Yazidi men and abducted around 7000 women, an action later defined as genocide by the United Nations. ISIS released videos of the execution of other foreign ‘infidel’ captives. Historic sites were violated, with the heads of sculptured figures being chopped off, an attempt to remove the temptation to falsely worship artefacts as idols. An essential part of God’s kingdom was territory, land to rule over and enforce God’s law within, and ISIS conquered everything and everyone in its path. The image of the rampaging fighters in their pick-up trucks signalled the astonishing victory of around 700 jihadis over five divisions of the Iraqi army as they captured the cities of Mosul and Palmyra. Many thousands of foreign recruits arrived, eager to join in the fight on God’s and the caliph’s winning side. In 2015 and 2016 however the caliphate’s expansionary project of conquest stalled. Despite the terrorist murders in Paris, London, and elsewhere, they began to lose territory to the various forces set on recapturing their cities. Mosul and Raqqa were retaken after lengthy sieges, and the

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caliphate finally came to an end in 2019 when its last stronghold of Baghuz fell. ISIS fighters and their families either perished in the fighting or surrendered and were housed in overwhelmed refugee camps. Trump and others immediately proclaimed the final defeat of ISIS, thereby misunderstanding the inspiration of the caliphate project. The motivation for the mayhem was not so much military conquest as religious apocalypse.3 ISIS and its supporters were looking for a restoration of the glorious past, when Muslim empires were strong in military and financial terms.4 Their re-establishment of the caliphate and its conquest of the world would signal the imminent end of time and God’s final judgement. The spiritual significance of land is as much a foundational theological belief for ISIS as it is for Netanyahu’s religious supporters (see pp. 100–103). Their restorationist desire to resurrect a pure and sinless past resulted in an extremely strict interpretation of religious law, and savage punishment for its violation. As usual with fundamentalists, the greatest hostility was reserved for fellow believers, and in particular for those from their own Sunni sect.5,6 Such apostates have to be purged from the caliphate in order to preserve its purity. The ISIS regulations to be obeyed are incredibly detailed. Press reports allege that they include the requirement to behead the ‘players’ in table football in order to remove any resemblance to idols.7 Even those mosques which did not conform to the particular absolutist beliefs of ISIS were bulldozed.8 And the ISIS women reportedly objected to the tight clothes and smoking habits of their female guards in the refugee camp.9 So what happened when the caliphate project collapsed? How did ISIS supporters reconcile the reality with the narrative? The classic case10 of the reduction of such cognitive dissonance is when the adherents of a Protestant sect gathered on an American hill top to be raptured up into heaven when Christ returned on the appointed day. Instead of losing their faith, they rationalised their unexpected continued presence in this wicked world in terms of their belief system. Clearly, they themselves had misunderstood the infallible Word of God; the fault was theirs. The leaders of ISIS engaged in the same sort of rationalisation.11 The narrative, al-­ Baghdadi stressed, is still one of continuous struggle towards the inevitable victory which Allah has promised. However, instead of the imminence of this victory as signalled by the growth of the caliphate, the emphasis is placed once again on the ‘long war’ of attrition. Annexation of territory is replaced for the time being by terrorist attacks against the stronger foe. ISIS, as the sole appointed vanguard of Islam, now has to demonstrate the

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traditional Islamic virtues of patience and perseverance. These virtues will pave the way to the ultimate victory. God is merely testing the mettle of his warriors, and the caliphate will rise again.12 And if the reported efforts of the ISIS women in al-Hawl refugee camp are anything to go by, a new cohort of eager young recruits is already being nurtured by their mothers, despite the painful death of al-Baghdadi.13 Clearly the survival of ISIS will be determined by a wide range of factors, political, economic, and social. However, a necessary but not sufficient condition for its continued existence, or for the development of subsequent similar organisations, is the persuasive power of its narrative. This worldview has to be attractive, and not just to young recruits in the process of radicalisation. It has to appeal also to those who support and fund the organisation. It should never be forgotten that their belief system is of absolutely central importance to fundamentalists. Their values and actions follow entirely logically from their cosmic worldview and the narrative derived from it, which both inform and inspire them to persevere in the battle for God.14 It is the struggle which motivates, not the victory. So we may conclude that this particular fundamentalist movement may have been defeated militarily when it became too ambitious, but its ideology lives on.

Populism in Peril? If narrative power is a necessary condition for fundamentalisms to flourish, it follows that any diminution of that power or discrediting of the story is likely to be disastrous for them. However, even the failure of specific apocalyptic prophecies predicting, for example, the rapture or the caliphate, does not fatally damage the fundamentalist narrative’s credibility. God must always be right. If people have difficulty in accepting their own sect’s definition of God’s will, they can always create another sect or organisation. ISIS itself, for example, originated in a split from al-Qaeda.15 The change in the narrative may appear relatively minor to the outside observer, but it is sufficient to motivate a new organisation and differentiate it from its competitors. Given this ample opportunity to establish yet another absolutist ideology and organisation, there is little doubt that fundamentalisms will continue to exist as a religious reaction against modernity. However, by the same token, no single fundamentalism is likely to remain dominant for long. The current prominent profile of ISIS is due to its extremely violent approach to the world, not to its overwhelming power

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and influence. It is only one of several militant Islamic fundamentalist groups in existence. The same cannot be said for populisms, however. Given the dramatic sequence of their narrative (see pp. xxx), they cannot avoid taking action. They have to reduce adherents’ fear and anger and enable them to feel that they are making progress towards the promised land. In the populist case, there is less recourse to divine authority as revealed to fundamentalist leaders. Hence those populisms which are associated with fundamentalisms appear to be stronger than others (e.g., Israel and Hungary). Moreover, the populist promises tend to be more specific than religious apocalyptic scenarios, since they are often expressed as policy aims within a democratic political context. Walls to keep out migrants, or freedom from European legislation, or withdrawal from environmental agreements, or the return of educational curricula supporting traditional religious and family values, are all risky projects. They are risky because of the difficulty and complexity of their implementation. But they are also risky because their outcomes are frequently incompatible with the lived experiences and values of many citizens. And therein lies the nub. Populism is, to repeat, a reaction against modernity. It claims to reject the elite and the experts, in other words the specialised social systems of the modern world. Populist leaders speak directly to populists in their own language, and their ‘common sense’ solutions seek to demonstrate that the elite are mere parasites, living off ‘hard-working families’. The reality is that modern nations depend on modern social systems for their survival. Hence populist leaders have to acquire and maintain control over these systems if they are to retain whatever power they have gained. Press and media, legal and political systems, education and business must all be infiltrated by the populist leader’s allies or controlled in some other way so that they may enact the populist prospectus. Such is the indispensability of these modern systems, however, that they can bring populist projects to a halt if they are prevented from achieving their own fundamental aim. If judges find it impossible to administer justice, businesses to increase wealth, media to discover and communicate uncomfortable truths, and so on, then they will not support a populist leader. And, more important, they will bring the considerable power of their own institutions to bear down on the populist movement which challenges them.

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Hence, populists are far more suited to ‘fighting the good fight’ than to exercising power in office. When their ‘common sense’ solutions fail, they rationalise failure by blaming the hidden power of ‘the elites’ or the ‘deep state’. Their fundamental aim is to engender conflict, because, like fundamentalisms, they are battling against the entire apparatus of modernity. And, also like fundamentalisms, their moment of greatest weakness is when they appear to be winning. When they step out of the Us versus Them persecution loop and into power, they face new problems. Populist leaders and governments ultimately collapse when it becomes evident that ‘common sense’ solutions don’t work and that the promised restoration of a mythical golden age is a cruel deceit. The modern social systems are necessary in the modern world. Case Study: Brexit and Farage At time of writing, the Brexit project is at its moment of apparent triumph and, therefore, of imminent peril. The rhetoric of Nigel Farage, its prime original promoter, has already featured in Chap. 3, pp. 39–40. His speech to the European Parliament quoted there is an excellent example of a populist leader associating a specific political project with the identities and very selves of his actual and potential followers. But of course the Brexit crisis did not emerge from nothing. Both UK politics and the career of Farage illustrate the long-term problems of Britain’s relationship with the European Union. There has always been right-wing British hostility to Europe on the grounds of loss of sovereignty and lack of immigration controls. However, much of it was only expressed openly by extremist fringe parties such as the British National Party. The Conservative nationalist Enoch Powell’s incendiary language in the 1970s and 1980s had resulted in the banishment of these issues from mainstream political conversation, but they were bubbling away never far below the surface. They obsessed the young Farage, who left the Conservative Party for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) when it was founded in 1993. He was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 as a UKIP MEP, and again in every subsequent election up to and including 2014. He became the leader of UKIP in 2006, and during this period saw the number of UKIP MEPs increase markedly. Farage used the European Parliament primarily as a means of publicity. While his attendance and voting record were patchy, his interventions in debates were designed to achieve maximum exposure on mainstream and

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social media. He sought to come across as an outspoken and authentic champion of the common man, for example insulting an EU dignitary as having “the charisma of a damp rag”. “I don’t want to be rude”, he said to the new President of the European Council, “but who are you? I’d never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you”.16 However, ‘authenticity’ is a dangerous virtue to claim when you discuss your technique for how to achieve it with a journalist!17 As a result of UKIP’s increasing electoral threat to the Conservatives, and also in order to appease the noisy minority of anti-Europeans within his parliamentary party, Prime Minister Cameron agreed to conduct a referendum held in 2016 on the United Kingdom’s continuing membership of the EU. Farage seized the opportunity which was thus presented to him to conduct a red-blooded populist campaign. The coincidental European migrant crisis and the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels offered the chance to foment Us versus Them conflict. Farage’s ‘Leave.EU’ campaigning organisation was very clear who They were: the bloated and corrupt Brussels bureaucrats and politicians, and the flood of potentially dangerous migrants whom they were allowing to enter Europe. We, of course, are the longsuffering British People, who, lest we forget, had gloriously stood alone and repelled the European invader in The War. We need to ‘take back control again’. The morally lowest point of the campaign was a political advertisement showing a queue of migrants and bearing the legend “Breaking Point”. The migrants were in fact Muslim Syrian refugees queuing in Slovenia, not economic migrants to Britain lining up in Calais. Farage believed that this poster kept the electorate’s attention on the conflict narrative and helped swing the outcome toward ‘Leave’.18 With the narrow referendum victory of Leave, Farage had played the major role in creating the biggest crisis in British politics since the Second World War. He had done so by using the populist and fundamentalist technique of social identification of Us and stereotyping of the Other, together with a promise of a return to a golden era.19 He then resigned as president of UKIP, saying that his job was done, he had achieved his political ambition, and he wished to ‘get a life back again’. It turned out that his way of achieving this latter objective was to visit and talk to as many populist leaders in America and Europe as possible, making a special friend of Trump’s then current eminence grise, Steve Bannon. In particular, he learned how to use social media to create and run an instant virtual political party.20 This he achieved by harvesting

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opinions, then putting his own interpretation and structure onto them: ‘the voice of the people’ indeed.21 Thus when Theresa May’s Conservative government failed to keep to the two-year deadline for Brexit, he was ready to lead the new Brexit Party (UKIP had shifted far to the extreme right). He was, of course, unwilling to put himself forward, but the job needed doing and someone had to do it. The party will ultimately succeed and fail on the judgement and personality of the leader, he said.22 Once again, the rushed European elections of 2019 provided the ideal stage for the Us versus Them scenario to be played out. This time, however, ‘They’ were not ‘Europe’, ‘Brussels’, or immigrants. Rather, They were ‘the British political establishment’ itself, which had betrayed ‘the will of the people’ as expressed in the 2016 referendum.23 And how does betrayal feel? “Gut-wrenching”.24 The problem is this, Farage argued: Our political class do not believe in Britain. They simply don’t think we’re good enough to run our own affairs. And again: I genuinely believe right now that this nation, we are lions led by donkeys [note the World War I reference]. We are a great nation and a great people, but we are being held back by weak leadership in Westminster. The time to change this is now.25

Farage was, in so many words, accusing all political parties of being unpatriotic and of despising the people. It is the people who should be running the country, he implies, not the elected politicians in parliament. British democracy doesn’t work properly any more. We’re becoming ashamed to be British.26 Indeed, democracy won’t even exist, he reportedly threatened, if Brexit does not happen.27 All the other modern social institutions too are hostile to the will of the people.28 And it’s clear how he now defines ‘the people’: they (‘We’) are supporters of the Brexit Party led by himself (who is, of course, not a politician at all). This is by far the most ambitious thing I’ve ever done, Farage confides. We are attempting a peaceful, political, revolution in this country. It is needed! It is needed! It is needed!29 To sum up in the words of a television reporter: In this campaign, Farage has set the tone. He has equated himself and his cause with country. His vision is that to believe in Brexit is to believe in Britain, and so the purer the Brexit, the purer your love for Britain. That we are as powerful, if not more powerful, than the EU. And if that’s your view, then any compromise with them is, by definition, betrayal.30

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Once again the use of social identification and stereotyping to induce conflict worked well. The newly formed Brexit Party had no structure and no manifesto. Indeed, the very word ‘manifesto’ had a strong association for Farage with the word ‘lie’.31 Why should voters in the EU election want to know the intended policies of their elected representatives? After all, they knew what their own will was: Farage had told them.32 Despite the absence of any policies, the Brexit Party nevertheless won the largest number of votes of any party. However, comparison of the sums of all the assumed anti-Brexit and the pro-Brexit votes suggested that the election could not be interpreted as an unmitigated pro-Brexit triumph.33,34 Nevertheless, Farage’s new narrative of betrayal of the sovereign people by the political elite now perfectly typified the general populist trend in America and Europe. And therein lie the seeds of hubris which will ultimately bring populism’s nemesis. Farage, who had failed no less than seven times to be elected to the UK parliament, and whose UKIP party had only achieved one seat in the 2015 election, now announced in the full flush of victory that his new party would break the current two party system at the general election of December 2019: If we don’t leave on October 31, then the scores you have seen for the Brexit Party today will be repeated in a general election—and we are getting ready for it.35 He also demanded that a group of experienced business negotiators from his Brexit Party should help Mrs May’s successor, Boris Johnson, in his dealings with Brussels.36,37 Thus, instead of sticking to the role of the popular champion of the betrayed, Farage is venturing into the workings of the political establishment which he professes to hate (but which, in the person of Johnson, is stealing his populist clothes). As Trump, Orban, and Johnson himself are now discovering, the various institutions of representative democracy such as the law, parliament, the media, and civil society retain considerable expertise in preventing populist leaders from exercising totalitarian power. A warning to Farage of the perils of venturing away from local insurgency into international relations is the unprecedented intervention of Trump in British politics on the occasion of his state visit in June 2019.38 Trump advised the British government to act tough in its negotiations with the EU, and to refuse to pay the agreed £39 billion costs of leaving.39 He publicly supported Boris Johnson’s and Michael Gove’s aspirations to become the next prime minister, and advocated a negotiator role for Farage. He even suggested that the nation’s favourite public institution, the National Health Service, should be laid open to trade deals. Now

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those who feel that the United Kingdom has surrendered its sovereignty to Brussels are unlikely to be willing to surrender it instead to Trump, whose support could thus become a poisoned chalice for Johnson and Farage. As for others, it will simply confirm their opposition to populism and their determination to remain both patriotic national, and also progressive international, citizens.40,41 Despite Prime Minister Johnson’s success in leaving the EU, the underlying lesson is reinforced. Whenever reactionary movements stray outside their comfort zone and abandon their identity as underdog champions of the persecuted and betrayed, they are in danger. It is impossible to return to a mythical pre-modern golden age. For better or worse, we are modern people living in a modern world, and we must deal with modern realities.

Summary There are three particular points of weakness in the process of setting up the Us versus Them conflict. Ironically, the most dangerous time for reactionary movements is when they acquire sufficient power to seek to apply their own pre-modern solutions to current issues. While they are expert at operating within the closed loop of conflict between Us and Them, their inability to relate to modern social systems ensures their failure within the modern world. Case studies of ISIS and Brexit support this prognosis. Questions for Discussion Reactionaries usually find convincing explanations from within their own narrative for their failure to gain or retain power. What sort of failure has the potential to cast doubt on the reactionary narrative for existing and potential adherents? Which of the psychological benefits of having a strong social identity are threatened by failures of populist or fundamentalist action? Why is the need for victimhood so central to reactionary movements that persecution can compensate for (conventional) failure?

Notes 1. www.mepc.org/commentary/what-make-isis-caliphate 2. The Guardian, 24/3/2019. 3. Maher, Shiraz (2018) How the Islamic State caliphate was lost. New Statesman, August.

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4. Collard, Rebecca (2015) What we have learned since ISIS declared a caliphate one year ago. Time, June 25th. 5. The Guardian, 26/3/2019. 6. www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13750/post-caliphate-isis 7. See 4 above. 8. See 3 above. 9. www.npr.org/2019/04/19/714652629/we-pray-for-the-caliphateto-return 10. Festinger, Leon, Riecken, H.W. & Schachter, Stanley (1956) When Prophecy Fails. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 11. Munoz, Michael (2018) Selling the long war: Islamic State propaganda after the caliphate. CTC Sentinel, 11, 10 (November). 12. See 2 above. 13. The Guardian, 31/8/2019. 14. Armstrong, Karen (2000) The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. London: HarperCollins. 15. BBC News, 23/3/2019. 16. www.trtworld.com/europe/nigel-farage-the-man-that-shook-britishpolitics 17. Cowley, Jason (2017) Nigel Farage: The arsonist in exile. New Statesman, December. 18. See 16 above. 19. The Observer, 2/6/2019. 20. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/farage-is-winning 21. The Guardian, 21/5/2019. 22. Chakelian, Anoosh (2019) “Let them eat spuds”: We should fear the Brexit Party – but not for the reasons you think. New Statesman, February. 23. Sorkin, Amy (2019) Nigel Farage makes Trumpian trouble with his new Brexit Party. New Yorker, May 14th. 24. www.nigelfaragemep.co.uk/special-report-farage-a-new-populism 25. Frost, Natasha (2019) What does Nigel Farage, the original Brexiteer, want now? Quartz, May 28th. 26. See 23 above. 27. Financial Times, 21/5/2019. 28. The Observer, 26/5/2019. 29. See 23 above. 30. See 23 above. 31. See 22 above. 32. The Observer, 2/6/2019. 33. The Guardian, 27/5/2019. 34. The Guardian, 28/5/2019. 35. See 24 above.

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36. www.nigelfaragemep.co.uk/farage-addresses-brexit-party-rally-in-london 37. Metro, 27/5/2019. 38. The Guardian, 4/6/2019. 39. The Guardian, 28/5/2019. 40. The Observer, 26/5/2019. 41. See 38 above.

Further Reading Stern, Jessica, and John  Berger. 2015. ISIS: The State of Terror. New  York: HarperCollins. Ford, Robert, and Matthew Goodwin. 2014. Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain. London: Routledge. Shipman, Tim. 2017. All Out War: The Full Story of Brexit. London: HarperCollins.

CHAPTER 13

When ‘Us’ Cracks Up

Keeping a Balance Their failure to satisfy nostalgic expectations in the cold light of experience is only one of the threats to populist and fundamentalist movements, however. The very lynchpins of their narrative, the Us and the Them of their story of persecution and conflict, are also at risk. So how can the apparently rock solid social identities of ‘real patriot’ or ‘true believer’ lose their psychological power to unite and motivate? How can the little microbes of doubt infect the certainties of ideology? The first threat to Us is an abstract and insidious one. It relates to the need of all social systems to strike an appropriate equilibrium between differentiation and integration.1 If they become too differentiated, they are so strange and different that they have difficulty in attracting enough followers. If, on the contrary, they have extensive communication with other social systems, then they are not different enough to present an attractive alternative. The two reactionary movements can fail to achieve this equilibrium, but for the opposite reasons. Fundamentalisms tend to be too differentiated. They are so sectarian in nature that they concentrate on establishing their differences from other similar sects or from parent religious institutions.2 As sects multiply, these differences become ever less significant and interesting to potential recruits. Who really cares whether the saints are raptured before or after the millennial rule of Christ, or, indeed, how many angels can stand on the head of a pin? © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_13

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Populisms, on the other hand, are typically not differentiated enough. The boundaries around the identity in question are drawn widely and indistinctly. Being really English or American or Hungarian is hard to define, so the prototypical identity is difficult to specify and exemplify. It is mostly defined in the negative terms of what a real national is not: not elite, or politician, or expert, or immigrant, or minority. Very different people can all identify with such relatively inclusive categories. As a result, it may be challenging to forge relationships between diverse adherents and mobilise them into action.3

Dominant Identities A second threat to reactionary movements is more psychological in nature. It concerns the relationship of identities within the self-concept. If such movements are to succeed, they need adherents who place the movement’s identity centrally within their notion of who they are. The movement’s beliefs, values, and norms of behaviour dominate their self-concepts to such a degree that adherents are essentially defined as people by their populist or fundamentalist identity. That identity becomes salient, and directs behaviour in all sorts of social situations, including those where it is inappropriate.4 Fundamentalists, for example, make every social encounter into a conversion opportunity, or offer supernatural explanations when practical solutions are required. Populists turn every conversation into a persecution or conspiracy narrative. They undermine expertise on occasions where its exercise is necessary for justice or health or truth to be obtained (e.g., through the anti-vaxxer movement, see pp. 25–27). Yet such a dominant role for a single social identity is very hard to establish and maintain in the modern world. Modern individuals identify with several different social systems, and communicate with many more, in the course of their daily lives. As their social situation changes and as each social encounter occurs, different social identities become salient for them so that they can act appropriately and effectively. Being a modern person makes it very difficult if not impossible to maintain a single identity as dominant in every situation. It is no accident that world-renouncing fundamentalisms try to avoid all communications outside their movement, while world-conquering ones seek to dominate all other social movements. Renouncers try to build metaphorical walls round themselves, while conquerors knock down and trample over the social boundaries of

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others, and sometimes the literal ones too.5 Populists, likewise, diminish and destabilise other social systems and in the process enable their national identity to dominate their selves.6 The psychological outcomes of making the movement identity central to the self are certainty, simplicity, and clarity of the self-concept, together with self-esteem and a sense of agency and control. For many, these are highly attractive rewards. However, the daily involvement with different social systems which modern life requires makes it very difficult to maintain the dominance and centrality of a single identity, be it populist or fundamentalist. The acceptance of medical treatment for example, makes both fundamentalist attributions to the supernatural and populist denigration of experts hard to sustain.

Leaders Fail to Be Prototypical A third difficulty facing reactionary movements occurs when their leaders fail to exemplify the prototypical identity.7 Adherents discover such shocking failures when their leader(s) turn out to be one of Them more than one of Us. Populist leaders may be outed as practising politicians when they claim not to be; move in the social circles of the elite while pretending to despise them; urge patriotism, but have a history of avoiding the draft; denigrate foreigners, but secretly collude with them; and accuse ‘the fake media’ while making up ‘the people’s truth’.8 Fundamentalist leaders may likewise fail to stay prototypical.9 They may be privately promiscuous while publicly castigating the immorality of this sinful world. They can compromise God’s revealed truth by debating it with apostates or by arrogantly re-interpreting it themselves. And they can seek recognition and prominence rather than humbly serving the Lord their God. Another pressure point for movement leaders is the rejection by their adherents of their proposed changes which are necessary if the movement is to adapt and survive. Rejection is particularly likely to happen if they propose any change to the ultimate aim, the return to the mythical golden age.10 This would require a change to the worldview, the basic assumptions which underpin the restoration narrative. What if the new vision compromises the simplicity and purity of the golden age? What if it questions the exploits of the mythical heroes? What if it requires more contact with sinners? But why is the possible weakness of leaders so critical? It is not as though they cannot be replaced. When the social, economic, and political

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contexts favour reactionary movements, there seems to be no shortage of populist and fundamentalist successors. The answer is, once again, that it is not the leaders themselves and their skills which are important for movements, but rather the prototype which they represent. If they damage this, they are threatening the social identity of their followers, the Us which is the foundation of the Us versus Them conflict process. Damage the social identity, and you damage the movement. Case Study: USA Fundamentalist Crisis The current crisis in American Protestant fundamentalism demonstrates the three inherent weaknesses described above: the difficulty of striking a balance between differentiation and integration; the psychological conflicts of identity and values which result; and the failure of leaders to maintain the fundamentalist prototype. To understand the fundamentalist dilemma, we have to go back in history at least as far as the earlier case study of Protestant fundamentalism and one of its leaders, Jerry Falwell (see pp. 79–81).11 Back in the 1980s, Falwell had realised that fundamentalism was becoming so different from the cultural trends in American society that it ran the risks of losing many of its remaining adherents and attracting few new ones. He, together with certain other fundamentalist leaders, decided to join non-fundamentalist evangelicals in a movement to counter the cultural revolution of the 1960s. They wanted to restore America’s exceptional position as God’s light upon a hill, reasserting traditional values of family and faith. However, this fundamentalist initiative did not only involve a degree of integration with evangelicals. It also entailed engaging with conservative politicians in the Republican Party, the New Right. The die was cast. The basic definition of the fundamentalist Us was the faithful few against the heretics and the world. Yet here were both the evangelical heretics and the political world being welcomed as allies. Here was a new, inclusive, and thoroughly impure Us polluting fundamentalism’s purity of life and doctrine. The shock to the fundamentalist identity must have been profound, and many die-hards refused to have anything to do with Falwell’s adventure.12 The expansive aim of restoring ‘Christian America’ was before long reduced to a concentration on a few specific issues: abortion, gay and women’s rights, prayer in schools, and ‘religious liberties’ (e.g. the right of religious institutions to exclude LGBT people from appointments on grounds of religious belief). Republican Presidents such as George

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W. Bush continued to retain the support of the evangelical/fundamentalist constituency by making gestures towards these positions. There was no reason in 2016 to doubt that, as a GOP president, Trump would continue this tradition.13 He rapidly realised that the evangelical constituency was a bedrock support.14,15,16 While the proportion of the electorate that identified as white evangelical was falling somewhat, the vast majority of them voted, and, of those who did, around 80% favoured Trump in the presidential election of 2016. What’s more, they tended to dominate in small town and rural communities, as the younger and more liberal voters left home to live and work in the cities. Trump repaid their loyalty by honouring his election pledges to them.17 He appointed two conservative Supreme Court judges, allowed states to limit abortions, and enhanced ‘religious freedoms’.18,19 On the world stage, Trump supported Israel. He recognised Jerusalem as its capital by relocating the American embassy there. This helps Israel’s recovery of all the land traditionally promised by God to Abraham, an event which, according to evangelical eschatological doctrine, brings closer the return of Christ and his apocalyptic millennial rule. What’s more, Trump appointed conservative evangelicals Pence and Pompeo as Vice President and Secretary of State. He also invited frequent advice from a range of fundamentalist and evangelical luminaries. These included the sons of the original grandees Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell—Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr, who had inherited their fathers’ ‘ministries’. There was just one problem with this cosy arrangement: Trump’s lifestyle and utterances were the antithesis of the holiness and purity expected of the faithful fundamentalist adherent. Leading fundamentalists easily finessed this difficulty, however, using biblical precedent. Like God’s people of old, they argued, modern believers are oppressed by their secular enemies. They must therefore welcome the help that rulers, such as the Persian emperor Cyrus in the book of Ezra, offered to the Israelites.20 Trump is the modern Cyrus, since he too plays by the world’s rules to do God’s work. Cyrus helped free the Israelites from Babylon, and Trump can rescue America from its spiritual and moral decline. According to Jerry Falwell Jr, Trump is “authentic, successful, and down to earth”.21 Anyway, runs Franklin Graham’s justification, Trump is a sinner just like the rest of us, and he too can repent and return to God.22,23 The human experience of sin, repentance, forgiveness, and salvation is the foundational evangelical narrative. All evangelicals are expected to embrace it as their own story. It is applied to the actions and life-style of Trump,

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and also to the sexual abuse scandals implicating certain fundamentalist leaders which are coming to light in the era of the #MeToo movement. Fundamentalist leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention,24 independent Baptist churches,25 and fundamentalist para-church organisations26 have been exposed. The fundamentalist doctrine of the submission of women, and the power of autonomous congregational leaders, have both probably contributed to the considerable scale of this abuse. But whatever its causes, the upshot is that fundamentalist leaders can hardly moralise about Trump when some perpetrate the same abuses themselves. Finally, fundamentalism is showing some cracks.27 Famous fundamentalist institutions such as Liberty and Bob Jones Universities are reported to be in difficulties.28 The Southern Baptist Convention, which had been taken over by fundamentalists in 1979,29 has now abandoned its ageing leadership. It has signalled its return to mainstream evangelicalism by electing a new young president, and by distancing the denomination from its political links. But where has all this left the social identity of fundamentalists? How can they define an Us when connexions with heretics and sinners have polluted their purity? How can they draw clear boundaries separating Us from Them, so that they can be clear who they are? And how can they possibly trust their leaders when they fail to offer them a prototypical example to follow? The story of the Protestant fundamentalists of America thus illustrates a key pressure point of all reactionary movements: the manifold threats to the security and distinctiveness of the social identity of their adherents.

Summary The second potential weakness in the reactionary process of setting Us against Them centres on the social identity of Us. This identity can become too different to attract followers, in the case of fundamentalisms, or too similar to other identities in the case of populism. A further problem relates to the requirement placed on followers to make this identity central to their self-concept. This is very difficult in modern society, where different identities are appropriate to different social situations. Finally, followers’ identity is threatened whenever movement leaders fail to maintain their prototypicality in all its requisite features.

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Questions for Discussion What is it about the social identity of populist that successfully differentiates populists from others? Why is this attractive to adherents? What about fundamentalism? What are the likely consequences for individuals of maintaining a single central social identity? How do reactionary movements attempt to keep their social identity central in the minds of their adherents? How do adherents free themselves from it? Why do leaders so often fail to maintain the prototype? What are the likely consequences for individual adherents? For the movement as a whole?

Notes 1. Brewer, Marilynn & Roccas, Sonia (2001) Individual values, social identity, and optimal distinctiveness. In Sedikides, Constantine & Brewer, Marilynn (eds.) Individual Self, Relational Self, Collective Self. Philadelphia: Psychology Press. 2. Bruce, Steve (2000) Fundamentalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. 3. McCrone, David & Bechover, Frank (2015) Understanding National Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 4. Crisp, Richard & Hewstone, Miles (eds.) (2006) Multiple Social Categorisation: Processes, Models, and Applications. Hove: Psychology Press. 5. Lawrence, Bruce (1989) Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age. Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press. 6. Eatwell, Roger & Goodwin, Matthew (2018) National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. London: Penguin. 7. Haslam, S. Alexander, Reicher, Stephen, & Platow, Michael (2011) The New Psychology of Leadership. Hove: Psychology Press. 8. Albertazzi, Daniele & McDonnell, Duncan (2016) Populists in Power. London: Routledge. 9. Harding, Susan (2000) The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. 10. Ramadan, Tariq (2004) Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 11. Gerson, Michael (2018) The Last Temptation. The Atlantic, April. 12. See 9 above. 13. Fea, John (2018) Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump. Grand Rapids MICH: Eerdmans. 14. The Guardian, 11/1/2019. 15. The Guardian, 7/6/2019.

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16. www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-government-religion-churchstate-evangelical-voters 17. The Guardian, 7/7/2019. 18. www.me di um.com /@l apr o gr essiv e1/ tr ump-c our t-will-bri ngfundamentalist-version 19. See 16 above. 20. See 14 above. 21. See 11 above. 22. See 15 above. 23. See 17 above. 24. www.theconversation.com/sexism-has-long-been-part-of-the-cultureof-southern-baptists 25. Shellnutt, Kate (2018) Hundreds accuse independent Baptist pastors of abuse. Christianity Today, November/December. 26. Pease, Joshua (2018) The fundamentalist trap. The New Republic, October 22nd. 27. Jones, Robert (2016) The End of White Christian America. New  York: Simon & Schuster. 28. As 26 above. 29. Merritt, Jonathan (2018) Southern Baptists call off the culture war. The Atlantic, June 16th.

Further Reading Luhrmann, Tanya. 2012. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Random House. Fea, John. 2018. Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump. Grand Rapids MICH: Eerdman. Haslam, S.  Alexander, Stephen Reicher, and Michael Platow. 2011. The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence, and Power. Hove: Psychology Press.

CHAPTER 14

When ‘They’ Answer Back

Denying the Legitimacy of the Stereotype Both fundamentalists and populists give clear signals about how they want other people to identify. The basic social process in the establishment of the Us versus Them dynamic is the attempt by Us to characterise others as the opposite of ourselves. Since We are ‘real’ or ‘holy’, They are phoney or sinful. The desired conflict inevitably follows, provided that They accept the identity that We are putting onto them. There are several reasons why They might refuse to do so. The first is obvious: to accept a pejorative identity is damaging to one’s self-esteem, social standing, and reputation. Of course, in many cases people will simply shrug their shoulders and ignore the characterisation of themselves as “this sinful world” or “the elite global conspiracy”. These are simply the ravings of extremists, they will argue, and nobody pays any attention to them anyway. But for people to ignore the hostile and pejorative identity which is being put upon them by reactionary movements is to allow the latter the freedom of the narrative playing field.1 Mainstream institutions woke up too late to the current reality of thriving populist movements and governments, and threatening fundamentalist assaults. By then, they already faced an established and popular reactionary narrative which they now find difficult to undermine. However, there are several counter-strategies which are available. The first2 is to challenge the identity of the Us which then determines the definition © The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8_14

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of Them. Populists characterise themselves as Us, the true democrats, the real people, and therefore Them as enemies of the people. For fundamentalists, We uphold the one true faith, and They are by definition heretics or heathen. But democracy, which populists claim to own as their identity, is not typically exclusive, but, rather, representative in nature. And modern religion is not sectarian but inclusive. These definitional truths can be re-­ affirmed, and reactionary denials of them can be called out. However, political and religious institutions also have to construct more inspiring and convincing accounts of their vision, aims, and values.3 These narratives can then replace the stereotypic labels which reactionaries seek to impose on them. Modern institutions are not conspiratorial elites or worldly backsliders but rather, elected and accountable representatives, or modern and inclusive faith communities. They can then allow the clear implication to be drawn that populists are not the ‘real people’ but rather, totalitarian nationalists. And fundamentalists are not the ‘truly faithful’, but sectarian separatists. How has the Church of England, an institution that is both ancient and modern, succeeded in this enterprise? Case Study: Church of England Calvinists Within the Church of England there exists a Calvinist movement, which demonstrates all of the features of a fundamentalism.4 It has a highly differentiated social identity, believing itself to be the only part of the established church in England which is faithful to the beliefs, values, and practices of the Reformation. This requires it to maintain as its central belief the Calvinist principle of sola scriptura, which states that the Bible (as interpreted by the Reformers and themselves) is authoritative in all matters of doctrine and practice. The ‘Us’ of these Calvinists is exclusive, in the sense that they treat as heretical all Christians who do not share their absolutist beliefs. Their usual ‘Them’ is the Church of England itself, which, they argue, is compromised by ‘the world’. They allege their own persecution by the Church, which they accuse of polluting the purity of their Reformed faith. So precious is this purity that they feel they cannot “enter into communion” with any bishop or priest whom they deem heretical. Thus it is We who are faithful to true doctrine, and They who are faithless heretics. As a prominent Calvinist cleric pronounces about the Church of England (of which he is himself an ordained and paid minister):

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At its heart, and in many of its central institutions, and with much of its leadership and style, it is a worldly church – a church that is of the world, that is infected by the world, that is unbelieving like the world, that is as immoral as the world, that is not very present in the world, and is running away from the world.5

The Calvinists have until recently exercised a degree of power within the Church of England which is disproportionate to their numbers. They are tightly structured, with an established development system which forms and trains Calvinist clergy, and a group of wealthy city and suburban congregations which support them. They also sponsor several organisations which act as pressure groups on issues which they have made prominent in church politics, but which are also newsworthy in the media. Their particular objections have been to the ordination of LGTB and female priests and bishops. Their organisations are named so as to give the impression that the Calvinist movement actually represents the Church of England itself, for example, “Reform” and “Anglican Mainstream”. This exemplifies their political and media skills, through which they have been able to exploit the (relatively) democratic nature of Anglican governance. As a result, they managed to delay the acceptance of female and LGTB clergy and bishops by the Church of England so that by the time that it finally arrived, the Church was perceived to lag far behind the social attitudes of the general public. It acquired as a consequence a reputation for misogyny and homophobia, especially among the young. What is more, it spent a lot of its time and energy conducting internal disputes rather than engaging with society. How has the Church of England dealt successfully with the Calvinists, the small tail until recently wagging the entire Anglican dog? By contradicting their fundamental belief i.e. that the Calvinists were the true Church of England and that all the rest of it was heretical. This contradiction, however, was not so much verbal as enacted. The Church showed by its process and by its policies that the true ‘Us’ of the Church of England is inclusive, and that there is no need to repay the Calvinists’ hostility by casting them as a ‘heretical’ Them in their turn. The ‘parliament’ of the Church of England is the Synod, a body which represents three different groups within the church (bishops, clergy, and laity), and also different theological perspectives. It therefore treated the Calvinists as one of these perspectives among others. However, as a result

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of their ceaseless and skilful politicking and publicity, the Calvinists enjoyed disproportionate influence in Synod decisions. When, however, they succeeded in delaying the recognition of women bishops against the wishes of the majority of Synod members, Synod reformed its voting procedures so as to ensure that the wishes of the majority could no longer be denied. The Church had thus re-affirmed its essentially democratic and representative identity without engaging in a reverse ‘Us versus Them’ conflict. Instead, it had practised its values of collegiality and communion. It had revealed the evident falsity of the Calvinists’ definitions of themselves as the true church and the Church of England as an unjust persecutor. However, major reputational and opportunity costs had been incurred in dealing with the Calvinists. The Church hierarchy, and especially Archbishop Justin Welby, realised that the appropriate strategy was to face outwards and address the real and evident injustice suffered by the victims of the British government’s austerity and immigration policies. He attacked the excessive profits of so-called ‘pay-day lenders’, childhood poverty, and the plight of the disabled and asylum seekers.6 The Church could now justifiably be perceived as supporting the victims of injustice rather than as going along with discrimination against minority groups.

The Devil Is in the Detail There are, we should note, different levels of specificity in reactionary definitions of Them. Some of these are extremely broad and vague: ‘the global conspiracy’ for example, or ‘the evil world’. Their value for populists and fundamentalists is their catch-all nature. They can conveniently tar almost any target category of people with these very broad brushes, but at the same time avoid providing specific evidence in support of their claims. However, both of the reactionary movements face difficulties when they specify more explicitly the categories which constitute Them. For populists, these categories tend to refer to minority groups,7 such as refugees, or migrants, or LGTB people, or women. They also single out established institutions such as the press or the judiciary.8 However, minority groups tend in modern times to have developed powerful positive identities and effective advocacy organisations of their own – Gay Pride, for example. They have also acquired support from a sizeable constituency of the general public. This is particularly true of people who possess ‘given’ identities such as those based on gender, sexuality, or ethnicity. Minority groups such as LGTB people typically contradict the negative stereotypes which both populists and fundamentalists seek to put upon

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them. They do so by affirming their own positive self-concept and acting it out proudly and publicly. The negative Them of the stereotype becomes a positive Us in solidarity. However, it does not necessarily follow that they have to create a new Us versus Them conflict dynamic in their turn. Clearly, they usually feel they have to call out populist leaders or discriminatory institutions or organisations. However, few LGTB people or feminists now treat ‘the straight world’ or ‘men’ as an undifferentiated hostile Them. To reject a negative stereotype of oneself and replace it with a positive self-regard does not necessarily involve accepting the invitation to a conflict implied by typical reactionary fighting talk. The above case study of the Church of England also showed how returning hostility with more of the same is not the only possible response. Populists’ and fundamentalists’ challenge to institutions such as the press or the judiciary or established religion is yet more risky to their cause than picking on a specific minority scapegoat. These institutions are powerful social systems of modernity which are embedded in global and national cultures. Populist leaders attempt to take control of them within their own nation state, and often have some success (Orban and Erdogan are key exemplars). However, they fail to appreciate the global reach and power of these institutions, having difficulty, for example, in controlling access to both traditional and social media. Most dangerous of all is the law, the wheels of which may grind exceeding slow, but which surely currently threaten the positions of Trump, Johnson, Netanyahu, and Bolsonaro in particular. Fundamentalists’ more specific targets are to be found within their own religion. These are ‘apostates who have abandoned themselves to the embrace of secularism’, otherwise known as modern religion.9 Or even more specifically, fundamentalists attack those sects or denominations from which they themselves have split. Mainstream religion is only recently beginning to understand the huge reputational and opportunity costs which result from the presence of sectarian fundamentalisms within it. However, it no longer dances to the fundamentalist tune. It is learning to refuse the role of persecutor which fundamentalists seek to put upon it, and to critique their narrative and tactics. So, in conclusion, reactionaries have problems as soon as they start getting specific about who their enemies are. As Chap. 11 indicated, specific promised actions are hard to carry through when the opportunity to do so presents itself. When they become more specific about their own identity, they are too different to attract and retain many adherents (Chap. 12).

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And, as this chapter shows, when they define their opponents clearly and identifiably, they run into organised and established opposition. Case Study: Jair Bolsonaro If there is one populist politician above all others who has attacked LGTB people as a despicable Them, it is President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil. Here are a few of his homophobic utterances, most of which occurred before he took office in January 2019, but was already an elected member of Brazil’s Congress: I’m a victim of prejudice against heterosexuals. I would be incapable of loving a gay son. I wouldn’t be a hypocrite. I prefer that he die in an accident than show up with some guy with a moustache. If one’s son begins acting kind of gay, then when he is spanked he’ll change his behaviour. They [LGTB people] want to reach our children in order to turn the children into gay adults to satisfy their sexuality in the future. So these are the fundamentalist homosexual groups that are trying to take over society.

Bolsonaro also celebrated the flight from Brazil of gay Congressman Jean Wyllys, who had been threatened with violence by supporters of the President. He has criticised the teaching of inclusivity in schools, describing the learning materials as “gay kit”. And he has urged against Brazil becoming a “gay tourism paradise”, remarking “We have families”.10 And so on. Bolsonaro, then, is following the populist copy book tactic of playing the strong man protector by picking on a minority group and portraying it as a threat to the ‘real people’ of Brazil and their families. He also follows other populist leaders in other respects. He emulates Trump’s disdain for climate science by reducing controls on deforestation of the Amazon. He also rivals Trump in his nepotism, appointing one son as his press relations officer,11 and another as ambassador to the United States.12 The LGTB scapegoat did not accept its sacrificial role, however. The biggest Gay Pride march Sao Paulo had ever seen was held in June 2019.13 Furthermore, the Supreme Court determined that it was unconstitutional to exclude sexual orientation and gender from Brazil’s anti-discrimination law.14 This ruling was in line with the previous government’s legitimisation of civil unions and, in 2013, same-sex marriage. Thus two scapegoated Others, LGBT people and the judiciary, united in their opposition to a populist leader.

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Bolsonaro next followed the Trump playbook yet again, and sought to change the composition of the Supreme Court.15 “Is anyone among the 11 ministers of the STF [Supreme Court] an evangelical Christian?” he enquired, and again “The state is secular, but I am a Christian. Is it not time for the Supreme Court to have an evangelical minister?” The concept of the independence of the judiciary is clearly not uppermost in the President’s understanding of the constitution. His statements are, however, entirely consonant with the political reality of the growth of evangelical Christianity in Brazil,16 and with the personal reality that his wife is an evangelical Christian. There are many reasons for President Bolsonaro’s current extremely low popularity ratings. Unemployment and inflation, for example, continue to rise, and he has been unable to carry through on most of his campaign promises.17,18 He has tarnished Brazil’s global reputation by permitting the destruction of the Amazon rain forests. But without doubt, the refusal of LGBT people to be stereotyped as the evil Them has contributed to his likely eviction from office.

The Effects of Contact with Them Another essential aspect of modern life which casts doubt on all the stereotyped categories of Them as well as encouraging the development of more social identities has already been mentioned (see p. 130). It is the unavoidable degree of social contact involved in daily living.19 Modern life requires frequent meetings with people who are categorised by reactionaries as elite or sinful. Consider, for example, the attempt of populists to cast experts as part of the elite. The authority of expert knowledge is attacked as part of general anti-authoritarian populist discourse. Expert knowledge is continuously belittled as ‘fake’, and experts’ motives are questioned.20 They are part of the conspiracy to hide ‘the real truth’ from Us the people, runs the populist narrative, a concealment which serves Their own interests and desire for power. They cream off the nation’s wealth which We work hard to create, yet We have no say in its unjust distribution.21 Their supposed expertise is no substitute for common sense. They are, in sum, a threat to Our identity, and We distrust Them completely. Fundamentalists similarly are liable to denigrate experts, in their case categorising them as part of the sinful world. The usual reason is that any form of knowledge that is incompatible with fundamentalist beliefs is to be condemned as a rejection of God’s truth and therefore of God himself.

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Yet lives depend upon experts. People meet some of them regularly as a matter of course, and others at times of crisis or difficulty. While all institutions and professions have their intensely annoying faults, experience of dealing with their individual members seldom provides much support for conspiracy theories. On the contrary, most professionals from all over the world express their professional ethic in their working relationships with clients, regardless of those clients’ identity. Such direct personal disconfirming experiences surely challenge reactionary stereotypes. However, it is likely that contact with experts does not exercise its effect on clients’ beliefs and attitudes primarily through a rational process of weighing the evidence of their experience. Rather, the positive emotions resulting from personal contact with individual experts are likely to have a greater impact. Trust and gratitude may replace suspicion and envy, and a common identity of joint problem solvers can undermine the Us versus Them dynamic. There is, finally, yet another psychological outcome of contact with experts which makes it harder to stereotype them as part of the elite conspiracy. It is due to people’s desire to create and maintain some sort of consistent narrative about their selves. “I have repeatedly used the services of experts”, runs this internal logic, “so I suppose I must believe that they are beneficial”. The inference is from behaviour to belief, rather than the reverse. To summarise the last three chapters, then, there are weaknesses in the reactionary method of engineering conflict through social identification. Expectations may be disappointed when reactionary movements gain some power but fail to recover the golden age; reactionary social identities may be threatened by a variety of experiences; and the intended villains may refuse to accept their role. Of course, there are many other arguments to support a more hopeful view of the future. The last three chapters have simply suggested potential pressure points in the method of promoting conflict favoured by reactionary movements. This book will have achieved its aim if it adds in any way to the understanding of how these movements work psychologically.

Summary The final vulnerable point in the divisive process of setting Us against Them relates to the identity of Them. Movement leaders create this identity and seek to put it upon one or another category of non-adherents.

14  WHEN ‘THEY’ ANSWER BACK 

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However, these may challenge it, arguing that they are real and representative democrats, not some conspiring elite, or that they are inclusive believers rather than worldly apostates. Reactionary leaders face particular difficulty when they select specific categories for the role of Them. Their favourite choices are minority groups and modern institutions, but both of these are often well equipped to resist. Furthermore, followers are unlikely to be willing to treat as a hostile Them experts to whom they feel grateful for the services they provide. Questions for Discussion Choose two or three minority categories, and explore how they have reclaimed the identity which reactionary movements appropriated for themselves. Which are the most dangerous social systems for populists and fundamentalists to challenge? Give some examples of the law, science, and the media refusing to accept the identity which reactionary movements have sought to assign them. How, specifically, did they win out? Can you think of an experience which led you to reject a social identity which was being put on you? How did you succeed in freeing yourself from it?

Notes 1. Mounk, Yascha (2018) The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save It. Cambridge MASS: Harvard University Press. 2. Mudde, Cas, & Katwasser, Cristobal (2017) Populism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. 3. Monbiot, George (2017) Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis. London: Verso. 4. Herriot, Peter (2017) Warfare and Waves: Calvinists and Charismatics in the Church of England. Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock. 5. www.anglicanink.com/article/battle-soul-of-britain-gafcon-addresspaul-perkin 6. Welby, Justin (2018) Reimagining Britain: Foundations for Hope. London: Bloomsbury. 7. Muller, Jan-Werner (2016) What is Populism? Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 8. Levitsky, Steven & Ziblatt, Daniel (2018) How Democracies Die: What History Tells Us. New York: Crown.

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9. Herriot, Peter (2018) The Open Brethren: A Christian Sect in the Modern World. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. 10. The Guardian, 26/4/2019. 11. The Guardian, 4/7/2019. 12. The Guardian, 13/7/2019. 13. www.huf fingtonpost.co.uk/entr y/bolsonaro-pride-lgbtq-brazil 28/06/2019 14. The Independent, 24/5/2019. 15. w w w. f o l h a . u o l . c o m . b r / i n t e r n a c i o n a l / e n / b r a z i l / 2 0 1 9 / 0 6 / bolsonaro-pushes 16. Jenkins, Philip (2007) The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. 17. Boston Review 27/5/2019. 18. Irish Times 22/5/2019. 19. Hogg, Michael & Abrams, Dominic (2003) Intergroup behaviour and social identity. In Hogg, Michael & Cooper, Joel (eds.) Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage. 20. Haslam, S.  Alexander (2001) Psychology in Organisations: The Social Identity Approach (pp220ff). London: Sage. 21. Wenzel, Michael (2009) Social identity and justice: Implications for intergroup relations. In Otten, Sabine, Sassenberg, Kai & Kessler, Thomas (eds.) Intergroup Relations: The Role of Motivation and Emotion. Hove: Psychology Press.

Further Reading Eatwell, Roger, and Matthew Goodwin. 2018. National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. London: Penguin. Herriot, Peter. 2017. Warfare and Waves: Calvinists and Charismatics in the Church of England. Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock. Armstrong, Karen. 2000. The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. London: HarperCollins.

Index1

A Abrams, Dominic, 6n9, 13n10, 29n16, 41n7, 53n22, 114n11, 146n19 Abuse sexual, 134 Action common sense, 5, 98 and golden age, 74 and narrative, 5, 67, 121 Agency and self-esteem, 38–40 sense of, 2, 35, 37–40, 48, 131 Amazon, 142, 143 American exceptionalism, 44, 94, 132 protestantism, 22, 35, 38, 80, 81, 94, 119, 132, 134 Amesh, 62, 94, 112, 117, 118 Anger, 36, 37, 43, 46, 67–71, 73, 74, 89, 93, 95, 97, 121, 126 and conflict, 37, 95 Anglican Mainstream, 139

Artificial intelligence (AI), 3, 87, 93 Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal, 107 Attitudes, 9, 10, 17, 22, 48, 61, 77, 94, 99, 110, 139, 144 changes in, 17 Attribution and conspiracy theory, 58 dispositional, 57–58, 78 of leadership, 77–79 to the person, 34–35, 57–58 and stereotypes, 57, 69 to the supernatural, 131 Authenticity, 123 Authority of the Bible, 50, 80, 81 in the Brethren, 50 Autism, 26 B Al-Baghdadi, Abu, 118–120 Baghuz, 117, 119 Bahnsen, Greg, 38

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 P. Herriot, Populism, Fundamentalism, and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42509-8

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148 

INDEX

Bannon, Steve, 49, 123 Barth, Fredrik, 53n24 Bauman, Zygmunt, 35, 41n11 Behaviour, 1, 2, 6n9, 10, 13n10, 17, 29n16, 31–34, 41n7, 41n9, 47, 48, 50, 52n7, 52n15, 57, 64, 78, 110, 114n11, 130, 142, 144, 146n19 and the self, 32, 34 Beyer, Peter, 13n2, 29n20, 65n11, 96n6 Bible authority of, 50, 80, 81 inerrancy of, 24, 49–51 Binary words, 44 and stereotypes, 55, 64, 69 Boko Haram, 27 Bolsonaro, Jair, 112, 141–143 Boundaries, 48, 50, 51, 102, 109, 130, 134 Brazil evangelicals in, 143 Supreme Court, 142 Brewer, Marilynn, 29n21, 65n1, 75n11, 135n1 Brexit, 22, 33, 90, 122–126 Britain, 37, 39, 122–124 British National Party (BNP), 122 British Social Attitudes Survey, 17, 39 Bush, George W., 132–133 C Caliphate history of, 117 ISIS and, 117–120 Calvinists, 50, 138–140 Cameron, David, 123 Categories of person, 8, 32, 40, 43, 48, 55, 106, 140 and stereotypes, 57, 60, 143

Causes of fundamentalism, 1–4, 17–21, 24 of populism, 134 Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 26 Certainty, 44, 48, 50, 131 Change in attitudes, 99 climate, 6, 22, 112 cultural, 1, 6 financial, 2 leadership, 84 political, 22 privatization, 3 in the self, 31 technological, 2, 87 and uncertainty, 4 in work, 6 Chavez, Hugo, 82 Church of England Calvinists in, 138–140 Synod, 139 Climate crisis, 8, 111, 113 science, 142 Comey, James, 91 Common fate, 3 sense, 5, 8, 48, 68, 98, 121, 122, 143 Communication by fundamentalists, 130 by populists, 71–74, 87–90 Community, 1, 17, 27, 35, 36, 43, 83, 109 and self, 35, 36 Conflict and anger, 37, 67, 71 of interests, 92 narrative of, 59, 67–68 as problem, 108 and stereotypes, 9, 64, 98, 137–145 as worldview, 16, 37, 48, 51, 70, 74

 INDEX 

Congregations, 11, 49, 58, 139 Connectivity, 87, 88 Consistency of narrative, 36, 144 of self, 40 Conspiracy theory and attribution, 22 and Judaism, 55–56, 84 popularity of, 25, 56, 58, 62, 68, 98 and vaccination, 22 Cooper, Kenneth, 62 Corporations, 1, 2, 20 Cosmopolitans, 17, 55, 56, 63 vs. locals, 1, 17 Crisis of modernity, 1–7, 12, 19, 27, 35, 36, 40, 43, 78, 87, 99, 110 of Protestant fundamentalism, 132 Cultural change, 1 and globalisation, 1 Culture, 8, 17, 18, 32, 38, 60, 63, 64, 78, 83, 97, 102, 108, 110, 141 and stereotypes, 64, 110 Cyrus, 133 D Davis, Malcolm, 61 De Niro, Robert, 26 Deep state, 91, 98, 122 Democracy liberal, 38 representative, 2, 125 Democrats, 38, 72, 73, 82, 91, 92, 138, 145 Demographic of anti-vaxxers, 26 of populists, 17, 45 Denver, John, 71 Depersonalisation, 46

149

Differentiation of fundamentalisms, 20, 58, 132 vs. integration, 20, 34, 132 Dispositional attribution, 57–58, 78 Dominant identities, 72, 130–131 Dovidio, John, 115n16 Drama, 8, 36, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74 E Education and fundamentalism, 21, 23 in Turkey, 107 of ultra-Orthodox, 101 Elites, 4, 16, 21, 22, 25, 27, 46, 58, 59, 62, 63, 70, 73, 74, 77, 82, 83, 88, 90, 92, 93, 95, 98, 99, 101, 106, 107, 121, 122, 125, 130, 131, 137, 138, 143–145 Emotions and conflict, 70 and narrative, 68–70, 74, 102, 106, 111 social identities, 52n14 and worldview, 70–74 Enemies of fundamentalism, 16, 21, 22, 24, 55, 58–62, 64 of populism, 24, 58, 60, 62–64 stereotypes of, 55, 60, 70 within and without, 4, 16, 21, 46, 61, 83, 84 Enlightenment, the, 31, 101 Erdogan, Recep, 82, 106–108, 112, 141 Eschatology and ISIS, 119 European Council, 123 Parliament, 90, 122 Union, 22, 39, 82, 100, 107, 112, 122

150 

INDEX

Evangelicals in Brazil, 143 and Falwell, 133 narrative of, 133 Evolution, 80, 108 Exceptionalism, 44, 94, 100, 132 Exclusivity, 44, 49, 58, 59, 88, 110, 138 Experts contact with, 144 as elite, 95, 106, 121, 130, 143 trust in, 89 F Facebook, 36 Failure of leadership, 131, 132 Fake news, 22, 73, 88, 91, 95, 106 Farage, Nigel, 18, 33, 39–40, 77, 122–126 and Brexit, 122–126 speech of, 39–40 Fate, common, 3, 7–8, 11 Fear and anger, 24, 36, 37, 46, 68, 69, 93, 121 and separation, 67, 69 Fidesz party, 82 Financial change, 2 Function systems and conspiracy theory, 58 Fundamentalism American Protestant, 79, 132 causes of, 6, 113 communication of, 130 crisis of, 21, 25, 27, 93 differentiation of, 20, 59, 132 enemies of, 55, 58–62, 64 identity of, 69, 81, 109, 130, 132, 134 ideology of, 16, 18

and information technology, 87 leadership of, 78, 79, 84 vs. modernity, 16, 22, 27, 51, 60, 62, 93, 120 narrative of, 5, 81, 97, 109, 110, 120 opposition to, 27 and the self, 99 and separation, 79 universities, 81 and violence, 118 G General Medical Council (UK), 26 Global, 1, 7–9, 11, 12, 32, 33, 38, 48, 49, 62, 63, 70, 73, 87, 91, 92, 103, 105, 106, 111, 112, 117, 141, 143 identity, 7, 11 Globalisation and common fate, 11 and cultural change, 1 Gove, Michael, 125 Government, 3, 19–23, 27, 58, 64, 82, 90, 91, 98, 103, 107, 110, 111, 122, 124, 125, 137, 140, 142 Graham, Billy, 133 Graham, Franklin, 21, 133 Gush Emunim, 101, 102 H Haredim, 101, 102, 112, 117 Hogg, Michael, 48 Home schooling, 23 Humanism, 81 Humankind, 7, 8, 11, 16, 20, 111 Human rights, 112 Hungary history of, 82, 83 and Orban, 82

 INDEX 

I Identification, 5, 19, 29n21, 43–45, 47, 50, 51, 53n22, 64, 65n1, 69, 72, 73, 88, 97, 102, 113, 123, 125, 144 Identity central, 4, 5, 72, 73, 99, 113, 131, 134 and connectivity, 88 cross-hatched, 34 and emotion, 69 exclusive, 138 fundamentalist, 5, 43, 46, 48, 130, 132, 134 global, 7–8, 11 and information technology, 87–88 internalised, 48, 51 labels, 44, 51 local, 71, 72, 87 and meaning, 37–38 national, 38, 72, 83, 102, 131 nested, 34 personal, 109 as prototype, 44, 84 and religion, 34 salient, 5, 45, 130 social, 4, 5, 9, 10, 32–34, 40, 43–51, 64, 67, 69, 78, 79, 84, 87–89, 94, 98, 99, 103, 106, 109, 110, 113, 129, 130, 132, 134, 138, 143, 144 superordinate, 72 threats to, 3, 68 Ideology, 3, 5, 15–17, 21, 94, 95, 105, 120, 129 Idiosyncrasy credit, 79, 84 Immigration, 17, 39, 63, 82, 90, 122, 140 Individualism, 46, 62 Inequality, 2, 6, 108, 111, 113

151

Influence, 2, 4, 11, 19, 20, 35, 45, 52n14, 59, 79, 82, 109, 113, 115n17, 121, 140 Information technology (IT) and fundamentalism, 87, 93–95 and identity, 93–95 immediacy of, 87, 95 and populism, 87, 95 and surveillance, 2 and trust, 90 Institutions narratives of, 138 of modernity, 16, 107 Integration vs. differentiation, 20, 34, 129, 132 of the self, 34 Integrity, 68 Interests, 2, 8, 16, 20, 22, 32, 36, 84, 89, 100, 143 Internalisation, 45–47 Iraq, 117 ISIS and apocalypse, 119 and the caliphate, 117–120 as fundamentalists, 117–118 narrative of, 119 organisation of, 117 and the Yazidis, 118 Israel fundamentalisms in, 24, 37, 103, 121 nationalism in, 100 and the Palestinians, 100–102 Istanbul, 107, 108 J Jahiliyyah, 60 Jeffress, Robert, 35 Jerusalem, 48, 73, 100, 101, 133 Johnson, Boris, 125, 126 Judis, John, 28n12, 66n16 Justice and Development Party (AKP), 106, 107

152 

INDEX

K Kahane, Meir, 45 Kennedy, Joseph Jr., 26 Khomeini, Ruhollah, 79 Kook, Yehuda, 102 L Lancet, The, 26 Law and populism, 22 principles of, 7 Sharia, 22, 97, 118 Le Pen, Marine, 38 Leaders fundamentalist, 44, 57, 58, 77, 80, 121, 131, 132, 134 populist, 58, 64, 77, 78, 82, 101, 102, 121–123, 125, 131, 141, 142 Leadership attribution of, 77–79 change, 79 failure of, 132 as prototype, 132 as relationship, 79 Lefebvre, Archbishop, 23, 77 LGTB attitudes towards, 17 in Brazil, 142 and Gay Pride, 140, 142 Liberal democracy, 2, 16, 38 economics, 18 Local vs. cosmopolitan, 1 identity, 71, 87 M Maduro, Nicolas, 82 Markus, Hazel, 41n5 May, Theresa, 124, 125

McBride, Samuel, 51 McCabe, Andrew, 91 Meaning, 37, 38, 40, 50, 58, 67, 80, 81 and social identity, 37–38 Media power of, 89 press, 22, 121 social, 1, 2, 6, 22, 25, 27, 36, 44, 67, 87, 89, 92, 93, 95, 123, 141 Meta-contrast effect, 47 Millennialism, 99, 102, 103, 118, 122, 129, 133 Minorities rights of, 112 as scapegoats, 59, 141 and stereotypes, 140 Modernity, 24, 26 crisis of, 1–7, 12, 19, 35, 40, 78, 87, 99, 110 definition of, 51, 88 fundamentalism vs., 20, 25, 51, 60, 93 institutions of, 141 narrative of, 35 populism vs., 20, 25, 60 reactions against, 7 and reflexivity, 31 and the self, 35, 36 social systems of, 1, 7, 8, 20, 23, 110, 141 and solutions, 121 and trust, 88, 114 values of, 20, 24, 58 Moral Majority, 81 Mosul, 118 Mueller investigation, 92 Mullin, Barbara-Ann, 48, 53n22 Muslim and the caliphate, 118 history of, 118 Sunni vs. Shi’ite, 118

 INDEX 

N Narrative action as, 5, 70, 74, 121 of action, 67, 97, 120 of conflict, 64 consistency in, 144 dramatic, 71, 106, 121 and emotions, 68–70 evangelical, 133 fundamentalist, 37, 74, 110, 120 of institutions, 58, 106, 112, 137, 138 of ISIS, 119, 120 of modernity, 58, 106, 120 new, 110, 125 of persecution, 25, 37, 40, 58, 59, 64, 98, 109, 129, 130 populist, 5, 24, 37, 64, 68, 71, 74, 83, 90, 98, 106, 110, 112, 130, 137, 143 structure, 68, 74 of victimhood, 25, 37, 109 and worldview, 37, 120, 131 National Health Service (NHS) (UK), 39, 125 National identity, 72, 83, 131 Nationalism, 100 Nation states, 7, 21, 36, 99, 111 Naughton, John, 91 Nepotism, 142 Nested identities, 34 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 100–103, 108, 119, 141 O Obama, Barak, 91 Opportunity costs, 111, 113, 140, 141 Opposition to fundamentalists, 27, 105 to populists, 79, 142 Orban, Viktor, 17, 21, 32, 38, 56, 63, 77, 79, 82–84, 112, 125, 141

153

Organisation of ISIS, 117, 120 of the self, 33–35 Otten, Sabine, 29n21, 52n4, 65n1, 65n5, 65n6, 114n13, 114n15, 146n21 Ottoman empire, 107 P Packer, Jim, 24 Page, Lisa, 91 Palestinians, 36, 100–102 Palin, Sarah, 47 Pence, Mike, 133 Pentecostals, 80, 94 Perkin, Paul, 61 Persecution, 4, 25, 37, 40, 58, 59, 64, 98, 109, 122, 126, 130, 138 narrative of, 25, 59 Person attribution to, 52n5, 65n9, 85, 85n2 categories of, 40, 43, 48, 60, 68 Personal identity, 109 Personality, 10, 34, 92, 124 Plymouth Brethren as world renouncers, 94 Political correctness, 63 Pompeo, Mike, 101, 103, 133 Politics change in, 2 trust in, 2, 20, 23 Popularity, 17, 101, 143 of conspiracy theory, 92 Populism causes of, 6, 113, 141 communication bym, 67–68, 87–88 demographic of, 17, 44 enemies of, 55, 58, 60, 62–64 ideology of, 15–17, 21, 27 and information technology, 87

154 

INDEX

Populism (cont.) vs. Islam, 108 and law, 27 leaders of, 4, 23, 57, 58, 64, 77, 78, 82, 84, 101, 102, 121–123, 125, 131, 141, 142 vs. modernity, 16, 19–25, 46, 60, 113, 121 narrative of, 90 and nationalism, 100 opposition to, 105, 126 in power, 79, 112 and the self, 37, 99 theory of, 108 Powell, Enoch, 122 Power of media, 87–89 populists in, 16, 121, 122 Prescription, 105–114 Press, 22, 57, 58, 67, 73, 82, 89, 91, 103, 107, 112, 119, 121, 140–142 Pressure points, 5, 105–114, 131, 134, 144 Privatisation, 3 Progressive movements, 28 Prototypicality, 118 of identity, 51, 79, 106, 130, 131 and leadership, 80, 84, 131–132, 134 and self-esteem, 67 Psychology individual vs. social, 9 and the self, 9, 10, 99, 131 Purity, 17, 26, 50, 68, 71, 79, 119, 131–134, 138 Q al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, 18, 36 Qu’ran, 118 Qutb, Sayyid, 17, 33, 60, 61, 77

R Raqqa, 118 Reactionary movements against modernity, 19, 25, 26, 46, 60, 105 and agency, 37, 38 causes of, 113 ideologies of, 105 processes of, 60, 106 and restorationism, 99, 103, 117 and self-esteem, 38, 46 and threat, 98, 130, 134 Reagan, Ronald, 91 Reconstructionists, 22 Reflexivity and modernity, 31 and the self, 47 Reform, 10–12, 112, 139 Reformation, the, 138 Reicher, Stephen, 29n24, 85n4, 135n7 Relationship, 3, 9, 10, 34, 36, 37, 47, 56, 69, 79, 80, 87, 94, 99, 102, 122, 130, 144 leadership as, 79 Religion and identity, 102 modern, 8, 61, 110, 112, 138, 141 trust in, 20 values of, 16, 138 Rensmann, Lars, 28n8, 53n23, 75n7 Representative democracy, 125 Republicans, 71 Restorationism and anti-vaxxers, 26 of the golden age, 5, 99, 103, 118, 122 Rights human, 112 of minorities, 112 Roberts, Oral, 23 Roccas, Sonia, 135n1

 INDEX 

Roman Catholic Church, 50 social doctrine of, 50 Romantic Movement, 26 S Salience, 33, 40, 115n16 of social identities, 33 Salvini, Matteo, 18 Science climate, 142 evolution, 80, 108 Scopes, John, 80 Secular humanism, 80, 81 Sedikides, Constantine, 75n13, 135n1 Self and agency, 35 change in, 31, 34 and community, 35–36 complexity of, 34, 40 esteem, 33, 34, 36, 38–40, 41n8, 44, 46, 67, 72, 99, 131, 137 and fundamentalism, 31, 69 and modernity, 35, 36, 40 organisation of, 33–35 and populism, 31, 69 Separation and fear, 67, 69 in the Plymouth Brethren, 49, 94 and purity, 79 from the world, 15, 38, 80, 94 Sexual abuse, 134 Shame, 63, 67, 68, 74 Sharia law, 22, 97, 118 Sivan, Emmanuel, 28n4, 52n8, 96n17, 115n23 Slack, James, 29n25 Social Darwinism, 32 identity, 4, 6n9, 13n10, 29n16, 32–34, 40, 41n7, 41n9, 43–51, 64, 67, 69, 78, 79, 84, 87–89,

155

94, 98, 99, 103, 106, 109, 110, 113, 114n11, 126, 129, 130, 132, 134, 135n1, 143, 144, 146n20 influence, 19, 45 media, 1, 2, 6, 22, 25, 27, 36, 44, 67, 87, 89, 92, 93, 95, 123, 141 psychology, 9–11, 19, 52n13 systems, 1, 7–12, 15, 19–21, 23, 27, 31, 50, 60–62, 88, 89, 94, 105, 106, 110–113, 121, 122, 126, 129–131 Solidarity, 8, 46, 141 Soros, George, 55, 56, 63, 84, 99 Southern Baptist Convention, 134 Speech of Farage, 39–40 of Trump, 71 Stereotypes and attribution, 57, 69 and binary words, 55, 64, 69 and categories, 55–57, 60, 64, 99, 143 confirmation of, 56–57 and conflict, 98, 125, 141 cultural, 55, 99, 106 of enemies, 55, 60 function of, 57 negative, 55, 57, 99, 106, 140, 141 Structure, 23, 31, 49, 61, 68, 71, 74, 117, 124, 125 narrative, 97 Submission, 38, 62 of women, 134 Sunni vs. Shi’ite, 118 Supernatural, 21, 130 attribution to, 131 Superordinate, 81, 110 identity, 72 Supreme Court Brazil, 142 USA, 133, 143

156 

INDEX

Surveillance capitalism, 2 Synod, 139, 140 Systems function, 19, 58 social, 7–12, 15, 19–21, 23, 27, 31, 50, 60–62, 88, 89, 94, 105, 106, 110–113, 121, 122, 126, 129–131, 141 T Taylor, Charles, 31 Taylor, Donald, 52n13, 115n19 Technological change, 2–3 Theory of populism, 5, 109 and prescription, 108–110, 113 social identity, 5, 9, 10, 67, 110, 113 Threat to identity, 3, 68, 83, 113, 132, 134, 143, 144 in narratives, 40, 68, 69, 97 and reactionary movements, 98, 130, 134 Trope, Yaacov, 52n5, 65n9, 75n14, 85n2 Trump, Donald as Cyrus, 133 and Israel, 102, 133 nepotism of, 142 speech of, 71 tweets of, 18, 78, 91–93 Trust in experts, 89 and information technology, 90 and modernity, 88 in politics, 2, 20, 23 in the press, 88 in religion, 20 Truth, 22, 23, 33, 38, 44, 50, 58, 62–64, 70, 88–91, 105, 112, 121, 130, 131, 138, 143

Turkey, 82, 106, 107, 118 Turner, John, 41n9, 52n7, 52n15, 53n21, 85n3 Tweets, 18, 78, 87, 91–93 U Uncertainty, 3, 4, 21, 24, 43, 48, 51, 53n22 and change, 4 United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), 39, 40, 122–125 United Nations(UN), 27, 63, 112, 118 Universities, 11, 50, 63, 81, 134 fundamentalist, 81, 134 V Vaccination anti-vaxxers, 25–27 and autism, 26 and conspiracy theory, 25–26 and vaccine hesitancy, 25 Values of modernity, 24, 58 of religion, 16 Verbal abuse, 18, 39–40, 123 Victimhood, 25, 37, 109, 126 narrative of, 25, 37 Violence, 59, 118, 142 and fundamentalisms, 118 Vision, 24, 99, 111, 124, 131, 138 W Wakefield, Andrew, 26 Walton, Rus, 49 Welby, Justin, 140 Wellcome Global Monitor, 27 West Virginia, 71–73, 77, 87, 97 Whistleblowers, 23, 90

 INDEX 

Wilders, Geert, 36, 38, 63, 64 Women, 21, 38, 40, 50, 51, 61, 63, 72, 94, 117–120, 132, 134, 140 submission of, 134 Work, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 20, 21, 24, 25, 31, 35, 36, 47, 48, 56, 67, 70, 98, 100, 102, 105–108, 110, 112, 113, 122, 124, 133, 143, 144 changes in, 6 World conquerors, 94, 95, 112, 118 creators, 94, 95 renouncers, 94, 95, 101, 112, 118 transformers, 94, 95, 112 World Health Organisation, 25

Worldview conflict as, 16, 37, 51, 70 and emotion, 70–74 and narrative, 37, 70, 120, 131 simplicity of, 131 Wright, Stephen, 52n13, 65n5, 114n15, 115n19 Wyllys, Jean, 142 Y Yazidi, 118 Z Zuboff, Shoshana, 2

157