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2008-08-16 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by tipper 2008-08-16 04:39|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 This is a fairly long piece by Martin Amis.
Highlights:
It may well emerge that the use of religion is, or is becoming, merely a means of mobilization. Religion is for the footsoldiers, not the masterminds. At some later date we may see that religion provided the dialectical staircase to indiscriminate death and destruction. The idea, for instance, that democracy (fundamentally unclean) inculpates every citizen in its nation's policies; the idea (or ancient heresy) of takfir, whereby the jihadi pre-absolves himself of killing fellow Muslims. Interestingly and encouragingly, Ayman al Zawahiri is currently squirming about in a theological debate with the venerable cleric, Sayyid Imam al Sharif, as Al Qaeda itself is having to defend its religious legitimacy.

We can further expect international terrorism to become much more diffuse in its motivations, reflecting changes in the contemporary self ("a person's essential being"). Mr. Gray has identified a vein of what he expressively calls "anomic terrorism." This would be the carnage inspired by alienation, the self-extending despair evident in the random and serial stabbings in the cities of Japan, or the campus massacres in the U.S. -- or indeed in the threats voiced by Dr. Ivins during the weeks before his death. The historian Eric Hobsbawm believes that the pandemic collapse of moral inhibition has to do with a general coarsening, the desensitization of violence brought about by the mass media (and of course the Internet).

Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent" (1907), with its dank crew of self-righteous sociopaths, is horribly prescient. Here we find (for example) the observation that merely to erect a building is to create a new vulnerability; here we find a revolutionist observing that the power of life is far, far weaker than the power of death. In his reading of the terrorist psyche, Conrad persistently stresses the qualities of vanity and sloth -- i.e., the desire for maximum distinction with minimum endeavor. In other words, the need to make an impression is overwhelming, and a negative impression is much more easily achieved than a positive. In our era, this translates into a thirst for fame. Probably no one under 30 can fully grasp it, but fame has become a kind of religion -- the opium, and now the angel dust, of the mass individual.

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2008-08-16 07:27|| 2008-08-16 07:27|| Front Page Top

#2 If true, then only absurdly draconian measures can achieve any anti-terror results at all and then only unsatisfactorily incomplete results...

Posted by M. Murcek">M. Murcek 2008-08-16 12:34|| 2008-08-16 12:34|| Front Page Top

#3 This would be the carnage inspired by alienation, the self-extending despair evident in the random and serial stabbings in the cities of Japan, or the campus massacres in the U.S. -- or indeed in the threats voiced by Dr. Ivins during the weeks before his death.

There is a world of difference between the acts of campus shooters and subway stabbers and the acts of politically and religiously motivated groups who act with the support of the intelligence services of nation states.

Posted by john frum 2008-08-16 14:12|| 2008-08-16 14:12|| Front Page Top

#4 What causes Sudden Jihad Syndrome (I think Robert Spencer coined it)? The Koran. That book should be seen in summary of ersatz godly orders that bind followers. Inclusivist sheep won't read it that way.

Posted by McZoid 2008-08-16 15:57|| 2008-08-16 15:57|| Front Page Top

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