Religion and Islamic Radicalization

Abstract

The chapter begins with a brief genealogy of psychoanalytic thinking in the broad area of religion. It first looks at Freud's early modernist dismissal of religion, comparing this with Lacan's valorisation of the ethical quests that both religion and psychoanalysis are said to share at the heart of their discourse. It then examines Lacan's later pessimism in opposing the 'triumph of religion' in our times to an increasingly uncertain future for psychoanalysis. Moving from a conceptual discussion of these themes to an applied analysis of contemporary challenges, the chapter highlights the contribution of psychoanalysis to an understanding of the aesthetics of violence informing the eschatology of Islamic terror within contemporary global jihadism. Since Freud's early writings, and to this day, religion and psychoanalysis have constantly sought clarification of the status of their relationship. Over time, most inflexible interpretations have rejected the possibility of establishing a common ground between the two. When their incompatibility was not declared, in a suggestion that they lead completely independent lives, religion and psychoanalysis were taken to form an odd couple. Although tenderly intertwined, they remain utterly different from each other and would not normally get along under other conditions. What then are the circumstances enabling religion and psychoanalysis to get along and escape the grammar of an oppositional relationship that many have implicitly endorsed over time? Freud and the Limits of ReligionDespite his strong interest in religion, it is well-known that Freud did not help ease the ill-effects of this adverse relation and incited the strongest reactions with his pronouncements that 'the roots of the

Aimless Agency: Religious Engagement in an Uncertain World

“…As with many scholars working on social life in times of uncertainty, Giroux (2016) suggests that economic precarity leads to the weakening of democratic institutions and the rise of authoritarianism (see also Standing 2016). In contexts from jihadism in Islam (Mura 2019) and Chinese Christianity (Bregnbæk 2018) to Nigerian Pentecostalism (Davie‐Kessler 2016), scholars argue that religious engagement offers a sense of certainty for youth in a precarious world.…”