Posted on 12/02/2006 6:23:18 AM PST by Valin
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
Good post. I like his historical perspective and heartily agree with the linking of jihadists, jacobins, nazis, nihilists, anarchists and the IRA. However, "resentment" is too benign a characterization for the visceral and murderous hatred and plain inhumanity that links these groups. The reality is that most of the individuals who pull the triggers, plant the bombs and teach hatred are plain psychopaths - as evidenced by their collective proclivity to murder each other, viz., Stalin, Sunnis & Shiia, Crusaders, especially once they gain control. George Orwell's Animal Farm still has a lot to teach us.
Bump
bttt
Utterly destroy them.
I use to study and, read the Old Testament years ago.
One of the themes that seems to have lingered in my mind was when God told a leader to destroy the enemy, he meant just that. Leave nothing alive, Goats, baby's, anything that breathed air. There were good reasons for this as Bible Scholars will attests to.
If you will read the life of Sampson you will find the reasoning.
God had warned Sampson about the Philistines but Sampson desired in his heart the life style of these people. And, as Paul Harvey would say, Now you know the rest of the story.
Until our government leaders takes to task the destroying of the "Muslim Religion of Peace" there will never be any peace.
If we had presently, leadership as we did during World War II we would not be facing the WOT as we now find ourselves in.
Sadom Husein was and, still is a bastard, but he has shown the world how you must control the different sects of Muslim religion.
Our President, Bush, had good intentions, but wars can't be won with good intentions.
Why aren't the disgruntled Muslims setting themselves on fire, like the Buddhist monks did when they protested the War in Vietnam?
[It's easier to hate than work.]
If you're a member of a religious militia it often pays better too.
I meant my last reply to be on another thread. Good Grief! I must be half asleep.
Bump. Envy and resentment. As long as we identify these emotions for what they truly are, we're on the right track.
Two words: Robin Hood
It's OK to steal from the rich because they mean, greedy oppressors.
The article identifies the above as Neitzsche's observation. Google the "Einstein Freud letters (or correspondence)" and you'll find that Freud made the same observation (although phrased differently) when Einstein questioned him about the possibility of permanent peace.
Actually, I was reminded of the Bible, which pointed out this phenomenon thousands of years earlier:
And Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate:
and it was so, that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him, and said, Of what city art thou?
And he said, Thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel.
And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right;
but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee.
Absalom said moreover, Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice!
And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took him, and kissed him.
And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment: so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.
2Sa 15:2-6
I could care less what supposed "grievances" these people have. That's an intellectual game for left-wingers.
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.
All the lofty rhetoric aside, muslim terrorism is not about promoting the word of allah or avenging past wrongs or cleansing the world of its secular stains. It is about the widening gulf between a culture still mired in the Dark Ages, and one that is advancing at a geometric rate.
Technology alone does not beget civility, but a lack of material advancement tends to promote barbarism. islam is a perfect example.
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.
Finally - someone who understands it's the bored and the jealous. It's the folks who "feel" they should have more - even if having more means destroying what others have... Didn't God warn about those who "covet"...
Nutter alert!
....Nutter alert!
Huh?
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