Conflitti di interpretazioni: assialità, modernità multiple e trascendenza nella teoria del fondamentalismo di S. N. Eisenstadt.

The meanings of modernity have important consequences for the interpretation of fundamentalist movements. S.N. Eisenstadt’s theory of multiple modernities offers an important theoretical tool for studying the development of fundamentalist movements. In this perspective, Western modernity is not conceived of as a reference paradigm, whereas modernity is seen as a differentiated plurality of development models. Eisenstadt’s studies of the axial age place fundamentalist movements at the intersection of axiality and modernity. This essay proposes an interpretation of the relationship between multiple axiality and modernity, and of the tension between the worldly order and the transcendent order, as conditions for the development of social criticism and fundamentalist movements. Thus the logic of the interconnection of political and religious arenas in Islamic societies is reconstructed, with a specific focus on the relationship between religion and violence. Finally, a definition is given of the specific characteristics of fundamentalist movements from the perspective of Eisenstadt’s theory.