Posted on 07/08/2005 1:35:55 PM PDT by Pokey78
APOLOGISTS for terrorism (and they are not in short supply) argue that it is a weapon used by people who despair of achieving their goals in any other way. It is a cry from the depths by those deprived of a voice in the political process. The terrorist is not an aggressor but a victim, and we must disarm him not by violence but by addressing the grievance that motivates his deeds. This argument has been used to excuse Palestinian suicide bombers, IRA kneecappers, Red Brigade kidnappers, and even the mass murderers of September 11. Its main effect is to blame the victim and excuse the crime. If you look at the actual condition of terrorists down the ages, however, you will soon discover that the excuse does not match the reality. Some terrorists have been poor and some have been victims of injustice. But those are the exceptions. The Jacobins, who unleashed the original Terror, were for the most part privileged members of the rising elite. The Russian anarchists of the 19th century were no worse off from the point of view of material and social privileges than you or me, and with grievances that were more the work of the imagination than the result of either observing or sympathising with the ordinary people of Russia. There is no evidence that Osama bin Laden’s entourage is any different, and even the IRA, which purports to represent the “oppressed” Catholics of Ulster, is very far from recruiting from those whose oppressed condition it loudly advertises. As for the Islamist terrorists who have targeted our cities, they tend to be well educated, specialists in medicine, engineering or computer science, people who might have helped to provide the Middle East with the stable middle class that it so badly needs, but instead have chosen another and faster route to glory. It seems to me that we will be nearer to understanding terrorism if, instead of looking at what terrorists have in common, we look at what is common to their victims. The targets of terrorism are groups, nations or races. And they are distinguished by their worldly success — either material or social. The original Terror was directed against the French aristocracy — soon supplemented by all kinds of real and imaginary groups supposed to be aiding them. The Russian anarchists targeted people with wealth, office or power. The Great Terror of Stalin, initiated by Lenin, was directed against groups alleged to be profiting from the system that impoverished the rest. The Nazi terror picked on the Jews, because of their undoubted material success, and the ease with which they could be assembled as a group. Even the nationalist terrorists of the IRA and Eta variety are targeting nations thought to enjoy wealth, power and privilege, at the expense of others equally entitled. Islamic terrorists bomb the cities of Europe and America because those cities are a symbol of the material and political success of the Western nations, and a rebuke to the political chaos and deep-rooted corruption of the Muslim world. Success breeds resentment, and resentment breeds hate. This simple observation was made into the root of his political psychology by Nietzsche, who identified ressentiment, as he called it, as the distinguishing social emotion of modern societies: an emotion once ordered and managed by Christianity, now let loose across the world. I don’t say that Nietzsche’s analysis is correct. But surely he was right to identify this peculiar motive in human beings, right to emphasise its overwhelming importance, and right to point out that it lies deeper than the springs of rational discussion. In dealing with terrorism you are confronting a resentment that is not concerned to improve the lot of anyone, but only to destroy the thing it hates. That is what appeals in terrorism, since hatred is a much easier and less demanding emotion to live by than love, and is much more effective in recruiting a following. And when the object of hatred is a group, a race, a class or a nation, we can furnish from our hatred a comprehensive stance towards the world. That way hatred brings order out of chaos, and decision out of uncertainty — the perfect solution to the alienated Muslim, lost in a world that denies his religion, and which his religion in turn denies. Of course hatred has other causes besides resentment. Someone who has suffered an injustice may very well hate the person who committed it. However, such hatred is precisely targeted, and cannot be satisfied by attacking some innocent substitute. Hatred born of resentment is not like that. It is a passion bound up with the very identity of the one who feels it, and rejoices in damaging others purely by virtue of their membership of the targeted group. Resentment will always prefer indiscriminate mass murder to a carefully targeted punishment. Indeed, the more innocent the victim, the more satisfying the act. For this is the proof of holiness, that you are able to condemn people to death purely for being bourgeois, rich, Jewish, or whatever, and without examining their moral record. The tendency to resent lies in all of us, and can be overcome only by a discipline that tells us to blame faults in ourselves and to forgive faults in others. This discipline lies at the heart of Christianity and many argue that it lies at the heart of Islam too. If that is so, it is time for Muslims to organise against those who preach resentment in the name of their religion, and who regard the crimes of last Thursday as virtuous deeds, performed with God’s blessing, in a holy cause.
Roger Scruton is author of The West and the Rest: Globalisation and the Terrorist Threat
Murdoch paper is kicking-in.
As Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, neatly put it, "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."
"In dealing with terrorism you are confronting a resentment that is not concerned to improve the lot of anyone, but only to destroy the thing it hates. That is what appeals in terrorism, since hatred is a much easier and less demanding emotion to live by than love, . . ."
Am I the only one that believes this sentence describes the dummycrats and their hate for President Bush?
Ain't gonna happen...
I believe it's akin to asking Germany or Japan to surrender in WWII. We had to firebomb one and use the Atomic bomb on the other. IMHO, they will not surrender until they are thoroughly beaten and humiliated.
Well written article. Nietzsche is a great thinker, despite his many eccentricities, and later insanity. He has many very poignant insights into human nature, and this was a particularly interesting one. But your point about how many of these terrorists, especially Al Qu'eda, are the middle class pioneers who should have been who instead chose a faster path glory is a critically important point to be understood. By their actions, AND by their inactions, these men who blame the problems of the Arab world on the West are themselves causes for the problems of the Arab world. Not all Muslims and Muslim countries are doing badly these days, and hundreds of millions do not support terrorism. In fact, many Muslim countries are slowlw climbing out of their economic death spiral. But very few of the Arab Muslim countries are. Why is that? Perhaps it's because they are looking for an easy, faster way out. And the individuals who should be leading them to success are leading them instead to destruction.
That is why the development of a moderate, Muslim middle class is critical. Because then, they could offer an alternative, with tangible benefits. "Ok, young Achmed, you COULD go join up with Al-Zarqawi and become a martyr, and kill infidel Christians or Jews or your own people: you see those chunky kibbles on al-Jazeera? That's what you'll look like. And that will bring retribution down on EVERYONE's heads and we all lose, and you will be responsible for your community becoming a charred pile of ash. Or...You could go to medical school, help your fellow Muslims (as the Koran says), heal them, make a wad while doing so and contribute to both your community and your own success. In doing so, you could live well, help your family live well, help your people live better AND be a shining example to others, as well as proof that the Islamic faith does not demand you blow yourself and innocent people up to be righteous."
To most of us, it would not be a hard choice. To many in the ME, because of the lack of an established moderate middle class, it is. Martyrdom offers instant glory. A chance to strike at those who are successful, to become a hero (martyr collectible baseball cards in the West Bank are just sickening), and venting your own rage.
You see, he didn't resent my position at all; he resented the fact that it was me, and not him, who was in my position. And he found a way to take my position from me without doing the hard work associated with climbing up on his own. The calculus is simple: if you can steal something with impunity, why build it yourself or work for it? Mohammed figured that out many centuries ago, and his koranic jottings lay out his plans for stealing the world away from its rightful owners.
Time for rest: read 'it was I, and not he,' for 'it was me, and not him,' in my previous posting.
The only way to stop a terrorist is to eliminate the terrorist from the face of the earth. People who think that you can placate terrorist, who believe as these devils do, are idiots.
Great Cartoon video
http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.mikeoverbeck.com/osama/diplomacy.html
It's not even as complicated as the article tries to make it. They don't resent us. They just want to convert us or kill us. Following a religion started by a demon-possessed pedophile will do that to you.
I have always thought the reason so many hate America is because they envy us.
Excellent article. I agree with you on Nietzsche - sometimes a nutcase, sometimes a very perceptive thinker.
However, I think there is a significant difference between the AQ terrorists and the others named in the article. Most of the latter are Marxist-inspired (the IRA is NOT Catholic, but Marxist, and the same is true of ETA, regardless of their origins), and Marxism is the quintessential philosophy of resentment.
However, AQ is inspired by Islam, which is conquest-based. It has morphed so that it now includes resentment-based political philosophies (hence the attractiveness of Islam to left-wingers). But if you look at the history of Islam, you will see that its pattern since its inception has been violence and conquest - Mohammed was, after all, a bandit, and lived a violent life in a violent, disintegrating period.
Islam becomes strong when its targets become weak, which is essentially what has happened with the collapse of Western civilization (and particularly with the collapse of the Church in the West after Vatican II). Islam has fortuitously joined up with Western-originated resentment movements, partly because people from Muslim hell-holes must wonder why their countries don't prosper and instead of blaming their crazed religion and corrupt rulers, are inspired by the leftists and find it easier to blame the West. But mostly Islam is violent and full of anger and resentment simply because that is its nature. And when it senses weakness in its prey, it acts in accordance with its nature.
Inside the mind of a terrorist, like these ones, also lurks the mind of a vandal. Someone incapable of creating something great or good and who KNOWS IT!! Therefore what better way to get back at the successful societies than by killing and wrecking what the successful societies have achieved. So-called experts can rant on about Israel, Iraq, and our backing dictators, but for me I truly believe that much of the terror and destruction the Islamo-fascists create is due to simple resentment. We are successes, and they are failures. They know it, and they can't stand it. Misery loves company.
No you are not. That was my first thought when I read the title I thought of the RATS first.
Wow. This is both brilliant and disturbing in pinning down the enormous task we have before us: confronting never-changing human nature. Good luck.
It's worse than that: Germany and Japan had, at least militarily, entirely rational reasons for behaving as they did. Both countries had a legitimate shot at grabbing and holding huge and powerful empires over a fair chunk of the globe. Unlike al Qaeda, they weren't entirely incapable of listening to reason.
bttt
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