This may be entering into dangerous territory but to what extent does the psychology of a suicide bomber differ from that of say a first world war soldier.
In both cases their death is guaranteed, and in both cases they view the justification as being the protection of their community. Would the outcome of losing such a war be bad enough to justify most men risking their lives? Perhaps what is strange is having a society where killing yourself for a cause is rare?
Soldier:
The government told me to. They’ve been elected by us, so they must be right, yeah?
Everyone else is doing it—think how my friends would look down on me if I said no!
I’m going to be a hero! Heroes get all the girls.
Bomber:
My God told me to… can’t argue with God, right?
My friends are doing it—I don’t want to look like a coward!
Mmm, virgins. (Or other heavenly reward of choice).
Hmmm… that was originally going to be a list of differences in their viewpoints, but the more I think about it, the more similar they appear. Now I’m not sure what I think any more!
Well, one salient difference might have to do with comparing the available mechanisms for calibrating my confidence in the judgment of a government with those for calibrating my confidence in the judgment of a god.
Given that people who believe in god tend to really believe in god, and people who trust governments do so usually with a number of reservations, does that mean that the bomber has more justification than the soldier?
That’s a hard question to answer without defining the terms better.
I grew up among a lot of self-identified religious people. Using as my test for the left-side “believe in God” the willingness to arrange at least some superficial aspects of one’s life around those beliefs (e.g., where one lives, sends children to school, eats, etc.), and using as my test for the right-side “believe in God” the willingness to die rather than violate what they understood to be God’s law, I’d say I’m .95 confident that fewer than five percent of the folks with LH beliefs had RH beliefs, and .75 confident that fewer than 1one percent did.
Judaism has certain specific instances where it is accepted that it would be better for one to die than commit a sin.
Also, martyrdom would not be such a large aspect in Christianity (or, at least, in early Christianity) if dying for God wasn’t considered a good thing.
Justification for an act is not something that emerges full-blown out of nothing. My act cannot be justified by of my faith in X if that faith is itself unjustified.
And if I have faith in X within certain constraints and with certain reservations (as I do with governments, for example), that doesn’t somehow make that faith less justified than if I “_really believe in” X without constraints or reservations.
And all of that is true whether X is my government, my god, or my grandmother.
From the point of view of the bomber, faith in God is not itself unjustified. It is in fact a vital part of his psychology.
The original point was the difference in the psychologies of bombers and soldiers. They are both doing it because they were told to, but their confidence in the judgement of the one telling them to is different. So the one with the higher confidence feels more “justified”. That’s what I thought you meant, anyway. If it’s not, could you please clarify?
Perhaps I should have said “the bomber thinks he has more justification than the soldier”.
If “justification” refers to a feeling, then sure: the person who is really convinced that X is reliable and wants them to do something has more justification for doing that thing than the person who isn’t quite sure that X is reliable, or isn’t quite sure that X wants them to do it. (Again, whether X is a government, a god, or a grandmother.)
I was thrown off because “justification” in other contexts is often used to mean something different.
Which is fine; I don’t mean to turn this into a discussion about the meaning of a word.
There are other differences aside from whether or not the attacker will survive. The 9/11 attacks are often compared to the attack on Pearl Harbor. One difference stands out: the 9/11 attacks included attacks on two large buildings packed with thousands of innocent civilians, with no obvious connection to any military installation. This is in contrast with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which was an attack on a military installation. What the typical WWI soldier did was a lot more like what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor—i.e., they attacked the enemy’s military—and a lot less like what the 9/11 attackers did.
An additional point is that focusing on the suicide bombers may be too narrow a focus. The suicide bombers were, after all, not the only Islamist fighters who targeted innocent civilians for murder. The murder of Daniel Pearl was another deliberate murder of a civilian, not as an unavoidable casualty of an attack on a military base but as the sole target of the murder. As I recall from the murder video that was released, the murderers made a point of mentioning that Pearl was a Jew. The obvious moral comparison here is not to anyone in WWI, nor to the allies in WWII, nor to most of the Axis in WWII, but specifically to the Nazi military who were engaged in a program of the deliberate extermination of the Jewish people.
One difference stands out: the 9/11 attacks included attacks on two large buildings packed with thousands of innocent civilians, with no obvious connection to any military installation
The 9/11 hijackers would no doubt not refer to the inhabitants of the World Trade Center as innocent civilians, but as economic oppressors. There is a reason they targeted both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, after all.
I’d think the hijackers would refer to them as infidels.
Do you really, truly think that the only motivations in choosing to do an attack against America (heck, picking America as the target in the first place) and picking the WTC and Pentagon as the targets of that attack, was because the attackers were Muslim while the ones being attacked were not? If so, why have they not done similarly to all non-Muslim nations? Why not attack symbols or places of power of religion, rather than economics and the military?
Piece of advice: just because you see the world in purely Marxist terms, doesn’t mean everyone else does.
That’s not so much a piece of advice as a snipe at what you perceive to be the dialectic I’m using to interpret this. It seems to me that you didn’t say that to enlighten me, but to reduce my status in the eyes of what you (and I) assume is a mostly capitalist readership.
Do you really, truly think that the only motivations in choosing to do an attack against America (heck, picking America as the target in the first place) and picking the WTC and Pentagon as the targets of that attack, was because the attackers were Muslim while the ones being attacked were not?
No, not the only one, but if one were to ask them why they picked the targets they did, they’d describe it religious terms (talking about infidels, jihad and the great Satan) not in Marxist terms (i.e., economic oppression). In fact judging by the fact that most of the hijackers were from wealthy families, I’d guess they didn’t really care about the economic dimension except as part of a general attitude that our decadence is sinful and is spreading to the middle east.
Piece of advice: just because you see the world in purely Marxist terms, doesn’t mean everyone else does.
That’s not so much a piece of advice as a snipe at what you perceive to be the dialectic I’m using to interpret this. It seems to me that you didn’t say that to enlighten me, but to reduce my status in the eyes of what you (and I) assume is a mostly capitalist readership.
I stand by my advice as good advice. If you want to successfully model others’ behavior, you shouldn’t assume they see the world the same way you do.
No, not the only one, but if one were to ask them why they picked the targets they did, they’d describe it religious terms (talking about infidels, jihad and the great Satan) not in Marxist terms (i.e., economic oppression).
Just as an aside, “economic oppression” isn’t a uniquely Marxist term, nor am I even aware of a specific Marxist definition of it. Are you thinking of “economic exploitation”, perhaps? The latter means the difference between the amount of wealth generated by labour and the amount that labourer is paid.
I am pretty darn thoroughly convinced (though of course I am open to changing my mind) that the idea “religion made them do it!” is overly simplistic. I used to hold the position you do, but over the course of several years of examining the issue, I have come to the conclusion that the use of religious terminology and phrasing and all the general trappings of Islam are, while perhaps truly believed, are for the most part merely a rhetorical device constructed to take maximum advantage of the society they are recruiting, living, and (typically) acting in. I’m hesitant to say this next sentence, politics being the mind killer and all that, but I shall anyways (I have noticed I am in a hole. Hypothesis: if I dig long enough I’ll get to China!). Osama bin Laden talks about “defeating the Great Satan for the glory of Allah and Mohammed (pbuh)” for the same reason George Walker Bush talked about “spreading Freedom and Democracy”: because it resonates with his intended audience, convinces them that he has similar thought-processes to them and is representative of their interests, or at the very least their team, not because he (edit: necessarily) believed that that was what he was doing.
In fact judging by the fact that most of the hijackers were from wealthy families, I’d guess they didn’t really care about the economic dimension except as part of a general attitude that our decadence is sinful and is spreading to the middle east.
Most people who have had impact in the world have come from wealthy (or at least not working-class-poor) families, including probably every Socialist Revolutionary you’ve heard of (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Che, et cetera), not to mention almost every politico in general. If anything, being middle class (inasmuch as that term makes sense) makes you more likely to simultaneously see the degradation of the poor and have the education to see what (at least seem to you) like plausible explanations for it. And then if you’re an engineer or what have you, you have access to abilities that can actually do something about this (build bombs, fly planes, whatever), or the funds to support yourself while you learn them, or whatever. The point is, being middle class is not likely to make you less politically aware and active than being poor, and it is likely to increase your free time and ability to do things politically, including but not limited to committing acts of terrorism.
I stand by my advice as good advice. If you want to successfully model others’ behavior, you shouldn’t assume they see the world the same way you do.
When phrased this way it seems much more like actual advice and much less like an insult. I’m not sure how much of this is my inference and how much is your implications, but it’s kind of moot. No hard feelings are taken, hopefully none were intended. Friends? I certainly agree that I should not model their minds as being identical to mine, but given that I don’t want to kill people, I’m already doing that at least to some degree.
That said, I think that you are being overly simplistic in your model of these people. Again I link to this page. Could you please explain, or link me to someone else who has, what makes you think that your model of their minds and motivations is more accurate than mine?
Osama bin Laden talks about “defeating the Great Satan for the glory of Allah and Mohammed (pbuh)” for the same reason George Walker Bush talked about “spreading Freedom and Democracy”: because it resonates with his intended audience, convinces them that he has similar thought-processes to them and is representative of their interests, or at the very least their team, not because he actually believed that that was what he was doing.
There is a problem with arguments of the form, “The leader of that group clearly doesn’t ‘really’ believe his own rhetoric he’s just saying that because it resonates with his followers.” This implies that their followers actually believe that stuff, otherwise there would be no point in the leaders’ saying it. But you’ve just admitted that there exist people who really believe that stuff, why is it so absurd for the leader to be one of those people?
I certainly agree that I should not model their minds as being identical to mine, but given that I don’t want to kill people, I’m already doing that at least to some degree.
You’re still self-anchoring. You observe that they want to kill people, so you try to imagine under what conditions you would be willing to kill people.
That said, I think that you are being overly simplistic in your model of these people.
Well, near as I can tell, your model boils down to “they secretly have to same world-view as I do, and the difference in their rhetoric is because it resonates with their audience”.
For the record I should probably mention my model:
They observe that the Islamic world isn’t as powerful as it was in its glory days. Furthermore, the West and the United States in particular is influencing their culture in ways they don’t like. Solving this problem requires a model of how the world works. Well, the model they turn to is one based on Islam.
There is certainly more that could be added to this model, e.g., a discussion of how feuds work in clan-based societies for starters.
Osama bin Laden talks about “defeating the Great Satan for the glory of Allah and Mohammed (pbuh)” for the same reason George Walker Bush talked about “spreading Freedom and Democracy”: because it resonates with his intended audience, convinces them that he has similar thought-processes to them and is representative of their interests, or at the very least their team, not because he actually believed that that was what he was doing.
There is a problem with arguments of the form, “The leader of that group clearly doesn’t ‘really’ believe his own rhetoric he’s just saying that because it resonates with his followers.” This implies that their followers actually believe that stuff, otherwise there would be no point in the leaders’ saying it. But you’ve just admitted that there exist people who really believe that stuff, why is it so absurd for the leader to be one of those people?
The only part I would leave out of bgaesop’s paragraph is the “not because he actually believed that that was what he was doing”. All of the previous stuff fits fine when both the leader and the intended audience are sincere homo-hypocrites. That is why he is doing it (or equivalently the fact that they do it so well is what made them the leaders). What they believe about the matter can be orthogonal.
The warning does not appear relevant. The observation I made is that the description can apply regardless of the specific beliefs of the humans in question. It speaks to the general outcome of the political incentives.
There is a problem with arguments of the form, “The leader of that group clearly doesn’t ‘really’ believe his own rhetoric he’s just saying that because it resonates with his followers.” This implies that their followers actually believe that stuff, otherwise there would be no point in the leaders’ saying it. But you’ve just admitted that there exist people who really believe that stuff, why is it so absurd for the leader to be one of those people?
My mistake, wedrifid is correct, I turned my thought into a sentence poorly.
You’re still self-anchoring. You observe that they want to kill people, so you try to imagine under what conditions you would be willing to kill people.
I admit to not having considered this bias on this subject. That said, I don’t think that this bias is affecting me very significantly here, and I think that because of the direction I approached my current position from: I arrived at it after moving from somewhere near where you are currently. I will consider the possibility that my position is affected by this bias, however. The manner in which I am doing so right now is to reread the wikipedia page that I just linked and follow several of the citations. It seems that the consensus is that perceived western aggression against Muslims and Islam is one of the prime motivators—which would then include what I said, and also perceived aggression against Islam specifically. So a mixture of what we’ve both been saying.
Well, near as I can tell, your model boils down to “they secretly have to same world-view as I do, and the difference in their rhetoric is because it resonates with their audience”.
I don’t think that they are attempting to inspire a proletarian revolt across nations. I don’t think that they are attempting to engage in a class struggle pitting the poor against the rich. I do think that they perceive themselves and their fellow Muslims as being the victims of exploitation by Westerners, and I think that they perceive a number of dimensions to that exploitation: military, economic, and cultural; perhaps more. Military is fairly obvious. Economic is what I was talking about, I mentioned it specifically because we were discussing the attacks on the World Trade Center. Cultural is what you are talking about. I believe that while it is an important portion of their motivation, it is not the primary piece. Unfortunately their rhetoric focuses on that issue largely (though by no means entirely) which gives an inflated view of its importance.
They observe that the Islamic world isn’t as powerful as it was in its glory days. Furthermore, the West and the United States in particular is influencing their culture in ways they don’t like. Solving this problem requires a model of how the world works. Well, the model they turn to is one based on Islam.
It might be that we are saying similar things with rather different vocabularies. When you say that the Islamic world isn’t as powerful as it was in its glory days, does that include what I talk about when I say they’re being economically exploited? For instance, instead of a wealthy semi-equitable (or perhaps merely remembered as such) Caliphate, they are frequently poor or highly segmented populations dependent on natural resource exportation? Where does reaction to the West’s military operations fit into your model? That certainly seems to be one of the motivating forces most commonly cited by terrorists themselves.
Out of curiosity, have you been downvoting me? I’ve been upvoting you. I ask because I notice that every time I post in this thread my karma goes down, and though I do realize it’s a silly thing to care about, for some reason I do. Something about human brains enjoying watching numbers go up, I suppose. It’s particularly frustrating because I am enjoying the discussion, but seeing that number going down makes me feel like my participation is unwanted (which I am assuming is not the case, but who knows, maybe it is).
The manner in which I am doing so right now is to reread the wikipedia page that I just linked and follow several of the citations.
The wikipedia page doesn’t mention anything about “economic oppression”.
It seems that the consensus is that perceived western aggression against Muslims and Islam is one of the prime motivators—which would then include what I said, and also perceived aggression against Islam specifically. So a mixture of what we’ve both been saying.
A large part of this “western aggressions” is a reaction to said attacks.
I don’t think that they are attempting to inspire a proletarian revolt across nations. I don’t think that they are attempting to engage in a class struggle pitting the poor against the rich. I do think that they perceive themselves and their fellow Muslims as being the victims of exploitation by Westerners, and I think that they perceive a number of dimensions to that exploitation: military, economic, and cultural; perhaps more.
Most people who aren’t Marxists don’t think of everything in terms of exploitation. (Note that I was able to correctly identify you as a Marxist simply from your use of the term “economic oppression”).
Military is fairly obvious. Economic is what I was talking about, I mentioned it specifically because we were discussing the attacks on the World Trade Center. Cultural is what you are talking about. I believe that while it is an important portion of their motivation, it is not the primary piece. Unfortunately their rhetoric focuses on that issue largely (though by no means entirely) which gives an inflated view of its importance.
In that case could you explain what you mean by an issue being “important” to them as it seems to have nothing to do with what they themselves think about the issue.
It might be that we are saying similar things with rather different vocabularies. When you say that the Islamic world isn’t as powerful as it was in its glory days, does that include what I talk about when I say they’re being economically exploited? For instance, instead of a wealthy semi-equitable (or perhaps merely remembered as such) Caliphate, they are frequently poor or highly segmented populations dependent on natural resource exportation?
Given that the gulf states are among the wealthiest per-capita, it’s not us who are exploiting their people. In any case they’re thinking in terms of military and cultural/religious power. To the extend they think about economics at all, its probably because they don’t like how materialist our culture is.
BTW, I don’t think it’s particularly meaningful to apply the term “exploitation” to voluntary, i.e., capitalist, as opposed to forced, i.e., feudal or socialist, economic relations, but that’s another debate.
My other point is that Islam isn’t mere window dressing, but seriously affects the way they think, and hence what they do.
I just remembered the obvious point that I had been forgettig this whole time. Your position seems to me to be basically the position the article we’re both commenting on is directly arguing is a silly, untenable one to take.
Yes, obviously the hijackers did indeed see the people in the WTC as sufficiently similar to enemy soldiers to constitute a legitimate target for attack. It is just as you say. But this very fact I think reveals a psychological gulf that lies between them and the WWI soldier on either side—which was what was asked about.
How we classify and identify things can itself be a significant fact about our psychology. A stereotypical example of someone who is mentally abnormal is someone who non-jokingly identifies himself as Napoleon or Jesus.
Sorry for responding so late, but do you really think that this thought:
“My people are being oppressed, primarily economically. I can see that it is mostly Americans doing this. Peaceful protest tends to get me shot at. Clearly these Americans consider their profits more important than my and my people’s lives; their actions are causing our suffering and deaths, they are aware of this, yet they continue to do so. Therefore, they are deliberately killing and ravaging my people, and so it is justified for me to kill them. Also, doing so may cause them to strike out in more obvious, militaristic ways, which will weaken their economy (punishing them) and make it more obvious to my fellows that, indeed, America is an extremely evil nation that must be opposed. Better to force them out in the open than let them continue oppressing us by subterfuge. Doing this will be very difficult, and will likely cost me my life, but the organization I just joined has offered to pay a good deal of money to my surviving family when/if I do die, and given that right now they’re struggling to buy food because of those fucking Americans and their economic jackassery. Therefore, it is justified and indeed Justice for me to blow up their center of commerce, even at great personal sacrifice.”
Is of equivalent sanity to this thought:
“I’m the reincarnation of Napoleon! Hibberty flibberty jibbit!”
This may be entering into dangerous territory but to what extent does the psychology of a suicide bomber differ from that of say a first world war soldier.
In both cases their death is guaranteed, and in both cases they view the justification as being the protection of their community. Would the outcome of losing such a war be bad enough to justify most men risking their lives? Perhaps what is strange is having a society where killing yourself for a cause is rare?
Soldier: The government told me to. They’ve been elected by us, so they must be right, yeah? Everyone else is doing it—think how my friends would look down on me if I said no! I’m going to be a hero! Heroes get all the girls.
Bomber: My God told me to… can’t argue with God, right? My friends are doing it—I don’t want to look like a coward! Mmm, virgins. (Or other heavenly reward of choice).
Hmmm… that was originally going to be a list of differences in their viewpoints, but the more I think about it, the more similar they appear. Now I’m not sure what I think any more!
Well, one salient difference might have to do with comparing the available mechanisms for calibrating my confidence in the judgment of a government with those for calibrating my confidence in the judgment of a god.
Given that people who believe in god tend to really believe in god, and people who trust governments do so usually with a number of reservations, does that mean that the bomber has more justification than the soldier?
Do people who believe in God tend to really believe in God?
That’s a hard question to answer without defining the terms better.
I grew up among a lot of self-identified religious people. Using as my test for the left-side “believe in God” the willingness to arrange at least some superficial aspects of one’s life around those beliefs (e.g., where one lives, sends children to school, eats, etc.), and using as my test for the right-side “believe in God” the willingness to die rather than violate what they understood to be God’s law, I’d say I’m .95 confident that fewer than five percent of the folks with LH beliefs had RH beliefs, and .75 confident that fewer than 1one percent did.
Yes, but dying is against God’s law… so they’ve cleverly got around that problem.
Not true for every religion.
Judaism has certain specific instances where it is accepted that it would be better for one to die than commit a sin.
Also, martyrdom would not be such a large aspect in Christianity (or, at least, in early Christianity) if dying for God wasn’t considered a good thing.
Yes, precisely this.
No. Why would it?
Justification for an act is not something that emerges full-blown out of nothing. My act cannot be justified by of my faith in X if that faith is itself unjustified.
And if I have faith in X within certain constraints and with certain reservations (as I do with governments, for example), that doesn’t somehow make that faith less justified than if I “_really believe in” X without constraints or reservations.
And all of that is true whether X is my government, my god, or my grandmother.
From the point of view of the bomber, faith in God is not itself unjustified. It is in fact a vital part of his psychology.
The original point was the difference in the psychologies of bombers and soldiers. They are both doing it because they were told to, but their confidence in the judgement of the one telling them to is different. So the one with the higher confidence feels more “justified”. That’s what I thought you meant, anyway. If it’s not, could you please clarify?
Perhaps I should have said “the bomber thinks he has more justification than the soldier”.
Ah, I see.
If “justification” refers to a feeling, then sure: the person who is really convinced that X is reliable and wants them to do something has more justification for doing that thing than the person who isn’t quite sure that X is reliable, or isn’t quite sure that X wants them to do it. (Again, whether X is a government, a god, or a grandmother.)
I was thrown off because “justification” in other contexts is often used to mean something different.
Which is fine; I don’t mean to turn this into a discussion about the meaning of a word.
Sorry to cause confusion; thanks for clarifying.
Not so. The soldier can say, there’s still a chance (and indeed, many soldiers survived), but the suicide bomber likely doesn’t have that option.
There are other differences aside from whether or not the attacker will survive. The 9/11 attacks are often compared to the attack on Pearl Harbor. One difference stands out: the 9/11 attacks included attacks on two large buildings packed with thousands of innocent civilians, with no obvious connection to any military installation. This is in contrast with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which was an attack on a military installation. What the typical WWI soldier did was a lot more like what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor—i.e., they attacked the enemy’s military—and a lot less like what the 9/11 attackers did.
An additional point is that focusing on the suicide bombers may be too narrow a focus. The suicide bombers were, after all, not the only Islamist fighters who targeted innocent civilians for murder. The murder of Daniel Pearl was another deliberate murder of a civilian, not as an unavoidable casualty of an attack on a military base but as the sole target of the murder. As I recall from the murder video that was released, the murderers made a point of mentioning that Pearl was a Jew. The obvious moral comparison here is not to anyone in WWI, nor to the allies in WWII, nor to most of the Axis in WWII, but specifically to the Nazi military who were engaged in a program of the deliberate extermination of the Jewish people.
The 9/11 hijackers would no doubt not refer to the inhabitants of the World Trade Center as innocent civilians, but as economic oppressors. There is a reason they targeted both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, after all.
I’d think the hijackers would refer to them as infidels.
Piece of advice: just because you see the world in purely Marxist terms, doesn’t mean everyone else does.
Do you really, truly think that the only motivations in choosing to do an attack against America (heck, picking America as the target in the first place) and picking the WTC and Pentagon as the targets of that attack, was because the attackers were Muslim while the ones being attacked were not? If so, why have they not done similarly to all non-Muslim nations? Why not attack symbols or places of power of religion, rather than economics and the military?
Certainly religion is used as a framing device and recruitment tool; it’s a powerful ingroup identifier. Especially when you have people doing the same on the opposite side of your fight.
That’s not so much a piece of advice as a snipe at what you perceive to be the dialectic I’m using to interpret this. It seems to me that you didn’t say that to enlighten me, but to reduce my status in the eyes of what you (and I) assume is a mostly capitalist readership.
Muslim attacks are a worldwide phenomenon, concentrated in and around the Muslim world. See for example this or this.
No, not the only one, but if one were to ask them why they picked the targets they did, they’d describe it religious terms (talking about infidels, jihad and the great Satan) not in Marxist terms (i.e., economic oppression). In fact judging by the fact that most of the hijackers were from wealthy families, I’d guess they didn’t really care about the economic dimension except as part of a general attitude that our decadence is sinful and is spreading to the middle east.
I stand by my advice as good advice. If you want to successfully model others’ behavior, you shouldn’t assume they see the world the same way you do.
Just as an aside, “economic oppression” isn’t a uniquely Marxist term, nor am I even aware of a specific Marxist definition of it. Are you thinking of “economic exploitation”, perhaps? The latter means the difference between the amount of wealth generated by labour and the amount that labourer is paid.
I am pretty darn thoroughly convinced (though of course I am open to changing my mind) that the idea “religion made them do it!” is overly simplistic. I used to hold the position you do, but over the course of several years of examining the issue, I have come to the conclusion that the use of religious terminology and phrasing and all the general trappings of Islam are, while perhaps truly believed, are for the most part merely a rhetorical device constructed to take maximum advantage of the society they are recruiting, living, and (typically) acting in. I’m hesitant to say this next sentence, politics being the mind killer and all that, but I shall anyways (I have noticed I am in a hole. Hypothesis: if I dig long enough I’ll get to China!). Osama bin Laden talks about “defeating the Great Satan for the glory of Allah and Mohammed (pbuh)” for the same reason George Walker Bush talked about “spreading Freedom and Democracy”: because it resonates with his intended audience, convinces them that he has similar thought-processes to them and is representative of their interests, or at the very least their team, not because he (edit: necessarily) believed that that was what he was doing.
Most people who have had impact in the world have come from wealthy (or at least not working-class-poor) families, including probably every Socialist Revolutionary you’ve heard of (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Che, et cetera), not to mention almost every politico in general. If anything, being middle class (inasmuch as that term makes sense) makes you more likely to simultaneously see the degradation of the poor and have the education to see what (at least seem to you) like plausible explanations for it. And then if you’re an engineer or what have you, you have access to abilities that can actually do something about this (build bombs, fly planes, whatever), or the funds to support yourself while you learn them, or whatever. The point is, being middle class is not likely to make you less politically aware and active than being poor, and it is likely to increase your free time and ability to do things politically, including but not limited to committing acts of terrorism.
When phrased this way it seems much more like actual advice and much less like an insult. I’m not sure how much of this is my inference and how much is your implications, but it’s kind of moot. No hard feelings are taken, hopefully none were intended. Friends? I certainly agree that I should not model their minds as being identical to mine, but given that I don’t want to kill people, I’m already doing that at least to some degree.
That said, I think that you are being overly simplistic in your model of these people. Again I link to this page. Could you please explain, or link me to someone else who has, what makes you think that your model of their minds and motivations is more accurate than mine?
There is a problem with arguments of the form, “The leader of that group clearly doesn’t ‘really’ believe his own rhetoric he’s just saying that because it resonates with his followers.” This implies that their followers actually believe that stuff, otherwise there would be no point in the leaders’ saying it. But you’ve just admitted that there exist people who really believe that stuff, why is it so absurd for the leader to be one of those people?
You’re still self-anchoring. You observe that they want to kill people, so you try to imagine under what conditions you would be willing to kill people.
Well, near as I can tell, your model boils down to “they secretly have to same world-view as I do, and the difference in their rhetoric is because it resonates with their audience”.
For the record I should probably mention my model:
They observe that the Islamic world isn’t as powerful as it was in its glory days. Furthermore, the West and the United States in particular is influencing their culture in ways they don’t like. Solving this problem requires a model of how the world works. Well, the model they turn to is one based on Islam.
There is certainly more that could be added to this model, e.g., a discussion of how feuds work in clan-based societies for starters.
The only part I would leave out of bgaesop’s paragraph is the “not because he actually believed that that was what he was doing”. All of the previous stuff fits fine when both the leader and the intended audience are sincere homo-hypocrites. That is why he is doing it (or equivalently the fact that they do it so well is what made them the leaders). What they believe about the matter can be orthogonal.
Yes, definitely. I meant it that way, but what I actually wrote down is different, I’ll correct it. Thanks for saying this.
Careful about the fundamental attribution error:
I’m sincere in my beliefs; they’re sincere homo-hypocrites.
The warning does not appear relevant. The observation I made is that the description can apply regardless of the specific beliefs of the humans in question. It speaks to the general outcome of the political incentives.
My mistake, wedrifid is correct, I turned my thought into a sentence poorly.
I admit to not having considered this bias on this subject. That said, I don’t think that this bias is affecting me very significantly here, and I think that because of the direction I approached my current position from: I arrived at it after moving from somewhere near where you are currently. I will consider the possibility that my position is affected by this bias, however. The manner in which I am doing so right now is to reread the wikipedia page that I just linked and follow several of the citations. It seems that the consensus is that perceived western aggression against Muslims and Islam is one of the prime motivators—which would then include what I said, and also perceived aggression against Islam specifically. So a mixture of what we’ve both been saying.
I don’t think that they are attempting to inspire a proletarian revolt across nations. I don’t think that they are attempting to engage in a class struggle pitting the poor against the rich. I do think that they perceive themselves and their fellow Muslims as being the victims of exploitation by Westerners, and I think that they perceive a number of dimensions to that exploitation: military, economic, and cultural; perhaps more. Military is fairly obvious. Economic is what I was talking about, I mentioned it specifically because we were discussing the attacks on the World Trade Center. Cultural is what you are talking about. I believe that while it is an important portion of their motivation, it is not the primary piece. Unfortunately their rhetoric focuses on that issue largely (though by no means entirely) which gives an inflated view of its importance.
It might be that we are saying similar things with rather different vocabularies. When you say that the Islamic world isn’t as powerful as it was in its glory days, does that include what I talk about when I say they’re being economically exploited? For instance, instead of a wealthy semi-equitable (or perhaps merely remembered as such) Caliphate, they are frequently poor or highly segmented populations dependent on natural resource exportation? Where does reaction to the West’s military operations fit into your model? That certainly seems to be one of the motivating forces most commonly cited by terrorists themselves.
Out of curiosity, have you been downvoting me? I’ve been upvoting you. I ask because I notice that every time I post in this thread my karma goes down, and though I do realize it’s a silly thing to care about, for some reason I do. Something about human brains enjoying watching numbers go up, I suppose. It’s particularly frustrating because I am enjoying the discussion, but seeing that number going down makes me feel like my participation is unwanted (which I am assuming is not the case, but who knows, maybe it is).
The wikipedia page doesn’t mention anything about “economic oppression”.
A large part of this “western aggressions” is a reaction to said attacks.
Most people who aren’t Marxists don’t think of everything in terms of exploitation. (Note that I was able to correctly identify you as a Marxist simply from your use of the term “economic oppression”).
In that case could you explain what you mean by an issue being “important” to them as it seems to have nothing to do with what they themselves think about the issue.
Given that the gulf states are among the wealthiest per-capita, it’s not us who are exploiting their people. In any case they’re thinking in terms of military and cultural/religious power. To the extend they think about economics at all, its probably because they don’t like how materialist our culture is.
BTW, I don’t think it’s particularly meaningful to apply the term “exploitation” to voluntary, i.e., capitalist, as opposed to forced, i.e., feudal or socialist, economic relations, but that’s another debate.
My other point is that Islam isn’t mere window dressing, but seriously affects the way they think, and hence what they do.
Not recently.
I just remembered the obvious point that I had been forgettig this whole time. Your position seems to me to be basically the position the article we’re both commenting on is directly arguing is a silly, untenable one to take.
Yes, obviously the hijackers did indeed see the people in the WTC as sufficiently similar to enemy soldiers to constitute a legitimate target for attack. It is just as you say. But this very fact I think reveals a psychological gulf that lies between them and the WWI soldier on either side—which was what was asked about.
How we classify and identify things can itself be a significant fact about our psychology. A stereotypical example of someone who is mentally abnormal is someone who non-jokingly identifies himself as Napoleon or Jesus.
Sorry for responding so late, but do you really think that this thought:
“My people are being oppressed, primarily economically. I can see that it is mostly Americans doing this. Peaceful protest tends to get me shot at. Clearly these Americans consider their profits more important than my and my people’s lives; their actions are causing our suffering and deaths, they are aware of this, yet they continue to do so. Therefore, they are deliberately killing and ravaging my people, and so it is justified for me to kill them. Also, doing so may cause them to strike out in more obvious, militaristic ways, which will weaken their economy (punishing them) and make it more obvious to my fellows that, indeed, America is an extremely evil nation that must be opposed. Better to force them out in the open than let them continue oppressing us by subterfuge. Doing this will be very difficult, and will likely cost me my life, but the organization I just joined has offered to pay a good deal of money to my surviving family when/if I do die, and given that right now they’re struggling to buy food because of those fucking Americans and their economic jackassery. Therefore, it is justified and indeed Justice for me to blow up their center of commerce, even at great personal sacrifice.”
Is of equivalent sanity to this thought:
“I’m the reincarnation of Napoleon! Hibberty flibberty jibbit!”
No, it’s the equivalent of trying Sherlock Holmes style reasoning in real life. That’s still insane, especially when used to kill people.