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| Terror Networks |
| The Psychological Sources of Islamic Terrorism |
| 2004-06-09 |
| From Policy Review, an article by Michael J. Mazarr is professor of national security strategy at the U.S. National War College. .... there is an inherently psychological character to the war on terrorism that remains poorly appreciated: The security threats the United States faces today have everything to do with the pressures of modernity and globalization, the diaphanous character of identity, the burden of choice, and the vulnerability of the alienated. .... Everyone these days seems to be talking about the human effects of modernization and globalization, and the ways in which frustration, rage, and ultimately terrorism spring up from the collision of the new and the traditional. .... The best diagnosis of the extremist upheavals of the previous century and today can be found in the philosophical tradition of existentialism. Amid much variety, a consistent motif emerges: All existentialists worry that modern, mass technological life tranquilizes people, drains us of our authenticity, of our will and strength to live a fully realized life. The result of this process is alienation, frustration, and anger. .... Existentialists plead with all of us to be our own people, to think rigorously and independently about what we believe, feel, and want. The self-help movement as a whole â its emphasis on self-esteem and on controlling oneâs own destiny â emerges directly .... The problem is that ... a few end up trying in ruinous ways ... and find, instead of Tony Robbins, Osama and his like. .... The passionate yet calculating, vicious yet idealistic, brilliant yet astonishingly misguided members of al Qaeda can be seen as, at least partly, engaged in a search to reclaim these lost elements of their humanity, their being. .... Existentialism implies, and indeed often preaches, a rejection of whatever moral system happens to hold sway. .... The ultimate manifestation of an authentic life, according to at least some of the existentialists, is to regain control over the manner and purpose of oneâs death. ... Passionate risk-taking and identity-seeking gone wrong on a mass as well as a micro scale have haunted â and, from time to time, devastated â the modern world. .... Eric Hofferâs study of such people, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Harper & Row, 1951), remains the best. All mass movements, he wrote, âdraw their early adherents from the same types of humanity; they all appeal to the same types of mind.â That type is the frustrated individual â people âwho, for one reason or another, feel that their lives are spoiled or wasted.â Hoffer distinguishes between the satisfied on the one hand and the frustrated and dissatisfied on the other: People with a âsense of fulfillment,â he writes, think that the world is basically good and âwould like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change.â Thus it is that radical movements must depict the present as despoiled and ruined and point both to an idealized past and the hope of a purified and restored future, quite literally creating a fantasy in the minds of their followers. .... Hoffer has more to say. Fanatical mass movements strive after a âprimitiveâ ideal. They find the modern world to be weak and worthless and uphold rough, rigorous, self-sacrificial modes of life as an alternative. Theatrical to the core, they strive for grand acts. They âreligiofyâ their ideology. They tell a story of a glorious, purified future to be achieved through their own strategies â along with a wondrous past that proves such a future is possible. Through all of this, they inspire suicidal devotion: âTo lose oneâs life is but to lose the present,â explains Hoffer, âand, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much.â .... Socioeconomic development furnishes people with the material resources they need to make choices â money to educate themselves and to travel, capital to open a business, and so forth. Cultural changes accompanying modernization invariably produce, in every society yet studied, a greater emphasis on values of self-expression and individualism. Then democratization slowly emerges, adding political choices to the menu and, by creating a system of effectively protected individual rights, creating a secure umbrella for choice of all kinds. Inglehart and his co-authors refer to the resulting combination of factors as âHuman Development,â and, as they say, choice is the central theme. This should hardly come as a surprise because âthe concept that the core principle of modernization is the broadening of âhuman choice,â is implicit in modernization theory.â Choice flies directly in the face of tradition. .... For someone following a traditional practice, questions donât have to be asked about alternatives. .... As Hannah Arendt pointed out long ago, it is when tradition becomes beleaguered that its defenders become most impassioned; it is when âthe tradition loses its living force and as the memory of its beginning recedesâ that the power of tradition âbecomes more tyrannical.â .... If we are indeed engaged in a war on terrorism, it is a war not against tank divisions or infrastructure, but against a mindset. Our enemyâs center of gravity lies in the thirst of millions of young people, especially those in particular regions of the world, for self-actualization, identity, and self-worth in a world filled with daunting (and Western-tainted) free choice and options. .... But if so, then what do we do about it? And especially, what do we do that is different from what we are currently doing? What a social-psychological approach to the problem of extremist terrorism does not do is undermine the importance of toughness or deny the simple truth that the conflict ... pits the modern world against some truly evil people. Those fully in the grip of a fantasy ideology are in many ways lost to the ideology. âThe fanatic,â Eric Hoffer warned, âcannot be weaned away from his cause by an appeal to his reason or moral sense. He fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause.â .... To address the threat of extremist Islam, Graham Fuller writes, âone of two things must happen: either the conditions that helped impel Islamism into political life will have to weaken or disappear, or some other force or ideology will arise to meet the need more effectively.â .... A [positive] strategy to achieve this goal could have several elements. One ... ought to be a full-blown war of ideas to counter the specific ideology of Islamic extremism â the sort of contest that the West waged against Soviet communism from the 1940s onward .... The goal of such a campaign would be to furnish the people of the Islamic world broad and deep new sources of information about the United States, the West, and their values and to explain, with far more detail and persuasive force, the basis for U.S. policies. Another requirement is to address the sources of resentment to be found within American policies. Multilateralism is not just a catch phrase .... vast millions of others in the Islamic world, watching the global hegemon for signs of humility and restraint, might cast a more suspicious eye on the extremistsâ claims if Washington acts, again and again, in the name of the world community. .... To combat the identity entrepreneurs of extremist Islam, we need others like them â but others who offer not an identity based on violence, terror, and the hoped-for utopia of seventh-century primitiveness, but instead a future of greater freedom, higher standards of living, and continued expression of national and cultural values. The major focus of our strategy, then, could become the support for groups and individuals making the case for a happy marriage of modernism and Islam. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #6 Huh? |
| Posted by: Hank 2004-06-09 3:03:45 PM |
| #5 Good article, but the problem won't be solved as it is as old as time. Not to go religious on anyone or anything, but give the poor bastards Christianity. It's just their misfortune they bequeathed the seething-rage, lop-off-their-head version rather than the faith-hope-charity-forgiveness version which makes Western culture and democracy work so well and provides personal peace. Christianity can offer both - a better life here AND in the hereafter. Nothing will ever keep the frustrated from trying to erase their mistakes by asking for a do-over of the system that they feel left behind in. Can't make it within the system? It's not your fault, it's the system's fault. No problem, we'll just create a new one and you will be on top - We GUARANTEE it! The number of the frustrated could be reduced if they were provided a viable alternative to deal with their sense of hopelessness and failure. Islam has failed its followers in this regard by telling them they need do nothing except blame the Jews. Christianity (as taught by Christ) is like AA in that it allows one to overcome bottoming out by acknowledging(confessing) their (failure)sins, receiving forgiveness and then striving to be better one day at a time. |
| Posted by: B 2004-06-09 12:13:45 PM |
| #4 Lot of stuff here, may take me some time to wade through it all. My initial reaction upon scanning it, though, is "tough." These people have a belief that their twisted, sick "religion" is going to rule the world. Hiding under rocks and in caves, they plan and plot the destruction of the Western world using the very things that exist only because of the philosophies of said Western world. They brutally murder without batting an eye, they have vast networks of money and people, and they couch their rhetoric and threats in 7th century language. They want to turn back the clock so that their version of things is the way the world is. They feel that they've been beaten, humiliated, and now they want revenge. They've been beaten and humiliated because they haven't adapted. They haven't learned. America stands in its way, and as long as good, strong leaders like George W. Bush, and the late Ronald Reagan, and as long as ordinary Americans like Fred exist, as long as decency and a love for freedom and individual human dignity exist, they won't win. Humiliation can ultimately be overcome. That's how the West was won: people believing in something and trying again and again, even after they'd been "humiliated." Not giving up and reaching for their guns at the first chance they got. These cave-dwelling idiots don't understand that, and because of that, they'll never win. |
| Posted by: The Doctor 2004-06-09 11:51:12 AM |
| #3 The psychological sources? Vengeance as a construct of self worth. Barbarity as a measurement of masculinity. Religious idealism as the big stick of societal order and cohesion. Shame of women as the essence of the superego. Double talk and the duplicity in the spoken word as the mascots of survival of the fittest. Faceless terrorists as icons of racial and religious omnipotence. |
| Posted by: jules 187 2004-06-09 10:14:40 AM |
| #2 Put another way the electric prayer carpet is the very latest in allens gifts to arabs. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-06-09 10:05:56 AM |
| #1 This is one of those articles that I really should digest for a few days in order to properly analyze, but the medium does not allow that, so I will shoot from the hip. There is a neo-marxist context to the whole thing. He mis-represents Existentialists who are essentially concerned with the primacy of the individual irrespective of the pragmatics of social interactions/institutions. He constructs a false dichotomy between those who don't want change (conservatives) and those who do (radicals). As I explained earlier this is not the distinction that matters - it is between those who are pragmatists (utilitarians) who want incremental consensual improvements (with occasional radical changes where the process of incremental change is clearly blocked - think Iraq) and those who are seeking to achieve some idealized state that they somehow understand how to get there. One final point is the whole hearts and minds argument I think is fundamentally false. Convincing your opponents that your ideas are superior and they should join you is good but is not the only way to win and outside some modern contexts has never been tried, never mind shown to work. I am more and more drawn to the 19th century British model. Impose the rule of law, build schools, roads and hospitals, buy off the people who oppose you and that doesn't work use the Gatling gun. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-06-09 9:06:33 AM |