Conceptual Totemization from the Middle East to the West: Epistemological Rigidity and the Shared Architecture of Theological and Secular Extremism

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Independent Researcher

Abstract

This paper investigates the paradoxical coexistence of late modernity's high complexity and geopolitical instability with widespread epistemological rigidity rather than adaptive flexibility. It argues that religious fundamentalism and secular extremism are not opposing phenomena along a linear spectrum of modernization but manifestations of an identical cognitive-structural mechanism termed totemization—the extraction of historically contingent signifiers from dynamic contexts and their calcification into absolute, unquestionable totems. The central hypothesis is that theological and secular dogmatism share a common cybernetic pathology: the severance of epistemic feedback loops that enable adaptive learning and self-correction. Employing a transdisciplinary methodology integrating cybernetics, psychoanalysis, political theology, and systems theory, the paper applies a symmetrical topology across three domains: Middle Eastern political theology, Western secular dogmatism, and modern biopolitical governance. To prevent neo-colonial methodological asymmetry, it incorporates Mulla Sadra's Harakat al-Jawhariyyah (Substantial Motion) to demonstrate adaptive flexibility within Islamic thought. The analysis reveals that the terror of the Lacanian Real drives the mechanical closure of the Luhmannian system, requiring an ontological scapegoat—the infidel, the subprime borrower, or the terrorist—to absorb internal contradictions and justify systemic rigidity. The paper concludes that theological rigidity, secular financialization, and biopolitical securitization share an identical cybernetic failure, and that systematic desacralization and structural friction are necessary to restore genuine civic discourse and adaptive capacity.

Graphical Abstract

Conceptual Totemization from the Middle East to the West: Epistemological Rigidity and the Shared Architecture of Theological and Secular Extremism

Keywords

Main Subjects


Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life (D. Heller-Roazen, Trans.). Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1995)
Andrus, J. (2025). Islamic political anti-theology: A discursive practice of contingency beyond sovereign politics [Doctoral dissertation]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Asad, T. (2003). Formations of the secular: Christianity, Islam, modernity. Stanford University Press.
Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. Chapman & Hall.
Aslan, A. (2025). Historical entropy and the zeitgeist of the age: A comparative analysis of 20th century fascism and 21st century far-right [Master's thesis, Middle East Technical University]. METU Open Archive.
Bateson, G. (2000). Steps to an ecology of mind. University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1972)
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Polity Press.
Beardslee, M. (2023). The end of dogma? Orthodoxy and the eschatological shape of doctrine in the era of World Christianity [Doctoral dissertation]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity (M. Ritter, Trans.). SAGE Publications. (Original work published 1986)
Beer, S. (1972). Brain of the firm: A development in management cybernetics. Herder and Herder.
Choudhury, M. A. (2013). Socio-cybernetic study of God and the world-system. Springer.
Danilyan, O., Dzeban, O., & Kalynovskyi, Y. (2022). Social instability as a global trend of the modern world. Cogito, 14(1), 127–142.
Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1967)
Durkheim, É. (1915). The elementary forms of the religious life (J. W. Swain, Trans.). George Allen & Unwin. (Original work published 1912)
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality: Vol. 1. An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Pantheon Books. (Original work published 1976)
Freud, S. (1950). Totem and taboo: Some points of agreement between the mental lives of savages and neurotics (J. Strachey, Trans.). W. W. Norton & Company. (Original work published 1913)
Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology, and other essays (W. Lovitt, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1954)
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (2002). Dialectic of enlightenment: Philosophical fragments (E. Jephcott, Trans.). Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1947)
Khomeini, R. (1981). Islam and revolution: Writings and declarations of Imam Khomeini (H. Algar, Trans.). Mizan Press.
Lacan, J. (1991). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The ego in Freud's theory and in the technique of psychoanalysis, 1954–1955 (S. Tomaselli, Trans.). W. W. Norton & Company. (Original work published 1978)
Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. Verso.
Latzer, M. (2022). The digital trinity, controllable human evolution, implicit everyday religion: Characteristics of the socio-technical transformation of digitalization. KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 74(Suppl 1), 173–197.
Luhmann, N. (1995). Social systems (J. Bednarz Jr. & D. Baecker, Trans.). Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1984)
Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1979)
Mbembe, A. (2020). Necropolitics. Duke University Press.
Mouffe, C. (2000). The democratic paradox. Verso.
Murray, A. (2010). Giorgio Agamben. Routledge.
Nietzsche, F. (1974). The gay science: With a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1882)
Qutb, S. (2006). Milestones. Maktabah Booksellers and Publishers. (Original work published 1964)
Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton University Press.
Schmitt, C. (1985). Political theology: Four chapters on the concept of sovereignty (G. Schwab, Trans.). MIT Press. (Original work published 1922)
Schmitt, C. (1996). The concept of the political (G. Schwab, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1932)
Tuathail, G. (2002). Postmodern geopolitics? The modern geopolitical imagination and beyond. In G. Ó Tuathail & S. Dalby (Eds.), Rethinking geopolitics (pp. 16–38). Routledge.
Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics: Or control and communication in the animal and the machine. MIT Press.
Žižek, S. (1989). The sublime object of ideology. Verso.
CAPTCHA Image