1 Answers
One of the most frequently questions about terrorism is also the most intractable. Why they do it? Why do they do it? Why do people join terrorist groups and participate in acts of terrorism? There are as many answers to this question as there are terrorist groups, and everyote from clerics to caustic cab drivers seems to have a confident opinion on the subject, as though the interior world of terrorists can be easily mined and mapped. But this confidence is often misplaces given how little scholars actually know abour terrorism and the people who are involved in it. It betrays an epic obliviousness about just how difficult it is to access the internal, subjective desire and emotions that shape the outer world. Instead of asking why people join terrorist groups and commit terrorist atrocities, a more starting point for explanation is to ask how. One culturally prevalent answer to the why question is that terrorists are "driven" or "pushed" to d it, and that the decisive driving or pushing agent is pathology. This answer has evolved in rece years in line with advances in knowledge and moral
sensibilities. In terrorism studies in the la 1960s, it was not uncommon for scholars to conceive of pathology as a psychological abnormality i affliction rooted inside the individual. Since the 1980s, this idea has fallen into disrepute, and the scholarly consensus now holds that the roots of terrorism lie not in the individual, but in the wider circumstances in which terrorists live and act.
This reflects a broader consensus in the social sciences about violence: namely, that it is "socially determined." a product of deeper historical, economic, or cultural forces over and above the individual. It is perhaps best summarized by the renowned social psychologist Albert Bandun Drawing on studies of violence from across the human sciences, Bandura concluded that "it requires conducive social conditions rather than monstrous people to produce atrocious deeds. Give appropriate social conditions, decent, ordinary people can be led to do extraordinarily cruel things Social scientists argue about the nature and impact of the "social conditions" in question, but feu would question the essential point that violence, however personalized or idiosyncratic in
expression, is primarily rooted in historical structures or social relationships, not individuals, still less their "pathological" mindsets. This consensus is also reflected in much liberal-left commentary about terrorism, especially of the Jihadist variant. For example, in some quarters of the "radical" left it is asserted that the roots of jihadist terrorism lie not in Islam but in the myriad historical crimes and injustices of Western, and specifically U.S.-driven, imperialism- most notably, in the post-9/11 era, the 2003 invasion of Iraq Jihadist violence, from this perspective, is an inevitable reaction fueled by Muslim anger and vengeance; and Westernized jihadists, far from rejecting the civilized norms and ideals proclaimed by the West, are in fact alienated from a West that excludes, demeans, and harasses Muslims.
The scholarly consensus on violence has a lot going for it. It humanizes the perpetrators of violen by insisting on their ordinariness and contextualizing their actions. It obliges people to reflect on their own possible shortcomings and vulnerabilities, and how, in different circumstances, they 100 could do monstrous deeds. And it compels people to recognize that they do not act in a social vacuum, and that what they think, feel, and do is powerfully shaped by the broader historical circumstances in which they are compelled to live and act. Moreover, Westernized jihadists, recent report cogently suggested, assuredly are alienated and feel that they do not belong in 1 secular world that often mocks and challenges their religion and identity as Muslims.