An op-ed essay in today’s New York Times has the headline “ISIS is a Disgrace to True Fundamentalism.”   ISIS certainly is a disgrace — to humanity.  But as well-intended and carefully-worded as this essay by Slavoj Zizek (a Slovenian) may be, its aim is poor and it misses the mark.

ISIS is a ruthless and despotic group, comprised of people who would act out their psychopathology in service of any religion (but Islam will do).  Fundamentalism, on the other hand, is a stance a person chooses to hold, a stance that elevates one particular dogma above all and in exclusion of all.  Fundamentalism builds walls around its domain, so that it doesn’t have to admit reality, so that it can pretend not to see reality.

Fundamentalism promotes ignorance (of non-fundamentalists), fantasy (that one’s own dogma is the true dogma) and isolation (we all know, painfully, how interconnected we are as inhabitants of this planet).  Fundamentalism of any description is less a disgrace than an I-spit-on-you insult to rational thought and productive human interactions.

An essay asserting that ISIS is not truly “fundamentalist” should not turn into a back-door exoneration or endorsement of fundamentalism.  By now, we know hundreds of reasons (namely, hundreds of deaths) why we should condemn the actions of ISIS psychopaths.  But we should fault fundamentalism for different reasons, and Mr. Zizek was wrong to conflate them.   To mention ISIS and the Amish in the same paragraph, let alone in the same essay as he did, is a true disgrace.