Fundamentalism, Literature, and God

Abstract

Abstract This chapter returns to focus on a matter that has been addressed frequently in earlier chapters, but not discussed at length: the argument that literature is an antidote to all kinds of fundamentalism. Here, first, fundamentalism is defined as a textual matter: an insistence on singular or fixed readings of texts. The definition of fundamentalism as a textual matter—dependent on modes of reading—differs from extant definitions of fundamentalism related to rituals or thinking, and adds a new perspective to the matter. Then, the ongoing discussion of literature as denoting and demanding a distinctive relationship to language (and ‘reality’) is applied to this perception to show how the reading—agnostic—demanded by literature is the antidote to fundamentalism. This argument is illustrated with extensive references to ‘The Book of Job’, which is read as literature.