ABSTRACT
Fundamentalism, as conventionally understood in the country where the term was introduced, is a general imperative to assert an absolute, singular ground of authority; to ground your own identity and allegiances in this unquestionable source; to define political issues in a vocabulary of God, morality, or nature that invokes such a certain, authoritative source; and to condemn tolerance, abortion, pluralism, radicalism, homosexuality, secular humanism, welfarism, and internationalism (among other things) by imputing moral weakness, relativism, selfishness, or corruption to them. A fundamentalist is an American dogmatist who is proud of it. This combination is what renders fundamentalism so tenacious politically, so capable of converting each objection against it into new energies for its expansion.
