Sectarian violence and the fanatical discourses of intolerance and hatred propagated by
fundamentalists of various religions represent serious dilemmas for modern democracies
around the world. By insisting on the obstinate defense of their truths against secular
principles and institutions, fundamentalisms spare no efforts in order to impose their
particular practices and values to the rest of the world. Moreover, the refusal of such groups to
open themselves to dialogue and peaceful negotiation with non-fundamentalists leaves few
options for addressing this problem, and the use of violence has historically proved to be a
catastrophic alternative because, instead of eliminating or mitigating the destructive fury of
fundamentalists, aggression ends up strengthening the willingness for martyrdom among
these fanatics, which further intensifies the problem. However, insofar as they recognize that
the end of modernity brought the abandonment of the traditional values and religious truths of
old, fundamentalist discourses seem to talk directly with the philosophical reflections of
Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly in relation to the diagnosis formulated by the philosopher
about a global phenomenon of devaluation of the traditional canons of truth and value, both of
which were inherited from the Socratic-platonic-Christian thought. Gathered around the term
nihilism, such reflections are a topic of fundamental importance in the work of this German
philosopher, being present in his writings from about 1880 to his last works. In addition to
simply establish the existence of a phenomenon that was already visible since the middle of
the second half of the nineteenth century, Nietzsche also reflects upon the
physiopsychological consequences of the collapse of this set of ethical, political, metaphysical
and epistemological principles that hitherto represented the main source of support, of
certainty and security to the Western civilization. Insecurity, fear and disorientation towards
nihilism would be, according to the philosopher, the result of a deep psychic and instinctual
disturbance towards the disintegration of the foundations that once guaranteed the truth and
security for the world, which in turn, would result directly from the fact that most of humanity
has come to be deliberately educated to link the meaning of existence to something outside of
life itself. In light of these considerations, this research aims to develop an interpretive
hypothesis that starts from the perspective opened up by the reflections of Friedrich Nietzsche
about nihilism in order to clarify how and if it would be possible to understand the emergence
of different modalities of religious fundamentalisms throughout the twentieth century as
forms of reaction against the deepening of the crisis of values through which passes the West.
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