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News Gram™ August 2006

August 2006 ~ Volume 13, No. 1

By now, terrorism has gripped all of us, even those who are not particularly interested or involved in politics. It is the main subject of conversation in virtually every arena in which people gather together. Opinions are strongly held, voices are louder each day and little resolution appears possible. Most people agree that the recent terrorist threat to blow up 12 airliners between England and the United States was an unequivocally evil enterprise. Yet, few people understand the way this current generation of terrorists thinks. It behooves us to know something of this subject.

The first point to keep in mind about the thought patterns of those terrorists, who have declared themselves enemies of the West, is that their thinking tends to be extremely simple. The simplicity derives from a rather black-white reading of world events and the actions of one or another nation. For instance, Middle Eastern terrorists tend to regard the West as evil. The West, however, consists of about a billion people who have a hard time agreeing on all sorts of issues. To paint them with one broad brush is egregiously simple-minded. There is an advantage, though, of such simple-mindedness. It is readily communicated, clear and carries enormous emotional impact. Derisive slogans, grotesque caricatures of the enemy and indoctrinating myths are much easier to understand than learned treatises, research papers and bundles of statistics.

Secondly, the terrorist’s view of the world includes little tolerance for differences of opinion. Instead, they are united by a single religious view of reality that does not admit the possibility of diverse opinions, practices or personal values. Those who violate the creed that animates the actions of the group commonly suffer execution, in part because it is simple and definitive, and also because the fundamental intolerance of the group does not allow for nuanced reflections about basic issues. The simplicity of the terrorists’ picture of things is pernicious and their intolerance is, in part, an expression of the simple-mindedness that is part of the package.

Thirdly, the view of the world expressed by the terrorists is largely mythical. That is, such people often make no distinction between their mythical view of the world and the way the world actually is. They postulate divine forces, dark enemies and an apocalyptic doomsday for the adversaries with the same absolute confidence with which they embrace the view of heaven as filled with eager virgins. Nor are they disturbed that there is no visible evidence indicating the truth of their core beliefs, nor do they consider whether they are correct in applying this view of the world to current events.

Associated with this fictitious picture of reality is a set of powerful emotions that come from the earliest experiences of infancy. The latter is a stage of total dependence and extreme emotion with no subtlety attached to the expression of such states of mind. Things are either all good or all bad. We know, though, that emotions rest upon a shaky logic at best. The organization of emotional experience is radically different from that of cognition or rational thought. Thus, the motivating force in mythical thinking does not promote a realistic view of the world or a rational way of dealing with the problems encountered by group members that subscribe to the myth. The result is that most people will see such groups as incomprehensible, crazy or entirely alien.

Related to the mythical dimension of terrorist thinking is a paranoid view of human events. Paranoia is an early component of normal infancy. It emerges out of the helplessness of the infant to do very much for himself. As a result, he experiences sounds and sights as potentially threatening and destructive. Eventually, that view is transformed and the fear is mastered through a better assessment of reality. However, at a cultural level, if there is not adequate nurturance of children, if they are taught from their earliest days that the rest of the world is their enemy, then they will lack the psychological maturity to deal with human events realistically.

Finally, most of the actions of terrorists are destructive. Almost everything they do that comes into public light results in death of innocent people or the destruction of man-made structures – buildings, institutions, ships, planes, etc. Such destruction is cause for celebration while most of us believe such events are reason for sorrow and mourning. The sad fact is that these five characteristics are what separate the West from terrorist groups and their supporters. Furthermore, it places a damper on the aspirations of many people who want to work out some reasonable agreement on all sides. The lack of rationality, the predominance of mythical thinking with its associated emotionality, the paranoid and destructive inclinations of these groups, and the overall simple-mindedness that characterizes their thinking prevents them from assessing their problems realistically and reaching resolutions that avoid the necessity for massive human destruction.

The challenge to the West is to find a way to communicate to the masses of terrorists and their supporters that a war, such as we are engaged in now, is not in their best interest. The best that can be said of such an enterprise is that it is perhaps not impossible. The world is entertaining a dim hope. Recent events have not brightened it at all.

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