Fundamentalism: A Short Introduction By Malise Ruthven

Finding a Nation
Benevolent, wholesome, and brave men who stood for everything this nation fought so hard for-- this is often the cherished image of the Founding Fathers shown in many textbooks across the United States. However, many of the concepts portrayed in Fundamentalism A Very Short Introduction (Fundamentalism) by Malise Ruthven have allowed for a different interpretation of the Founding Fathers and their creation of a national identity. Fundamentalists as defined by Ruthven are “Nothing but selective about the texts they use and their mode of interpretation (Ruthven 18).” The Founding Fathers fit the definition of fundamentalists in that they used the chaos and fear of the people felt in the post-revolutionary war era to create an
During the 18th century, women, children and slaves were all considered property; to protect this property, the Articles of Confederation established the three-fifths compromise for slaves and the right to vote to any land-owning Protestant male. The Founding Fathers implemented this idea of women, children, and slaves as property using the Articles of Confederation. Ruthven claims that “several recent studies suggest that...the control of female sexuality looms large in the language employed by fundamentalists(Ruthven 64).” The language of our constitution grants its privileges and freedoms to white men explicitly. Socially, the American attitude considered women who were educated or not housewives dangerous, contributing to the control over women through Patriarchal Principles. A woman's place, according to this attitude, was at home. This offered women financial security and a place in the social order as a motherly figure, provided that they accept that men are in charge and that voting was only for people who were educated-- like men. Ruthven claims that since Fundamentalism was defined in the early 1920’s, Fundamentalists have had a tendency to control or limit the social roles of a woman and to suppress all sexual identities that did not fit in the heterosexual category. For Fundamentalists, it would be dangerous to give a women the power to vote because her
By granting the power to coin money to Congress, they are not only creating a national identity in which the colonies are one, but also developing the illusion of security and safety in a unified economy. In Fundamentalism, Ruthven argues that “In the developing world economic realism can be reinforced by cultural nationalism and anticolonial settlement (Ruthven 76)”. Creating a currency that circulates through all colonies was a drastic change from the separated, broken economies of the colonies that reinforced the idea of an American identity found in American money. Colonies were now each expected to contribute money to the new Nation in exchange for protection and unity against any potential enemies, like Great