The Five Myths of Terrorism (Scientific American)

[pinto]

Print and online headlines are different, I'm posting the print lead for the OP. Good read from Michael Shermer. ~ pinto

The Five Myths of Terrorism—Including That It Works

Why terror doesn't work

By Michael Shermer

Because terrorism educes such strong emotions, it has led to at least five myths. The first began in September 2001, when President George W. Bush announced that “we will rid the world of the evildoers” and that they hate us for our “our freedoms.” This sentiment embodies what Florida State University psychologist Roy F. Baumeister calls “the myth of pure evil,” which holds that perpetrators commit pointless violence for no rational reason.

This idea is busted through the scientific study of aggression, of which psychologists have identified four types that are employed toward a purposeful end (from the perpetrators' perspective): instrumental violence, such as plunder, conquest and the elimination of rivals; revenge, such as vendettas against adversaries or self-help justice; dominance and recognition, such as competition for status and women, particularly among young males; and ideology, such as religious beliefs or utopian creeds. Terrorists are motivated by a mixture of all four.

<snip>

Busting a second fallacy—that terrorists are part of a vast global network of top-down centrally controlled conspiracies against the West—Atran shows that it is “a decentralized, self-organizing and constantly evolving complex of social networks.” A third flawed notion is that terrorists are diabolical geniuses, as when the 9/11 Commission report described them as “sophisticated, patient, disciplined, and lethal.” But according to Johns Hopkins University political scientist Max Abrahms, after the decapitation of the leadership of the top extremist organizations, “terrorists targeting the American homeland have been neither sophisticated nor masterminds, but incompetent fools.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=five-myths-of-terrorism-including-that-it-works

[pscot]

1. But terrorism is the perfect excuse

to piss away a boatload of taxpayer dollars and catapult the Surveillance State into a Genuine public menace far more dangerous then OBL ever dreamed of becoming.

The money quote: " Compared with the annual average of 13,700 homicides, however, deaths from terrorism are statistically invisible, with a total of 33 in the U.S. since 9/11."

[pinto]

3. Caught that stat, too. It's a function of the media as well, imo.

In some ways I'm less concerned with a "surveillance state" than I am with a media that has lost objectivity and its historical independent voice.

[Igel]

2. The first is a nice elaboration of the "myth."

The difference is one of perspective, little more, and it's a simplification to say that it's a "myth of pure evil."

The perspective itself is simplified, and instead of giving a laundry list of grievances--with some all too willing to accede on some bullet points--it's easiest just to use some rabble-rousing phrase.

Whenever you hear the view that "they do it because they're evil" it just shows a lack of understanding and caring for accuracy. You hear that a lot, of course, and not just wrt Islamist terrorists, but the "they do it because they hate our freedoms" is realistic enough when you shift perspectives. One of the purposes is ideological; Qutb would agree, and one reason he hated the West was the loose morals of the fairly rustic, conservative women in the 1950s in the US.

[pinto]

4. I'm missing some of your points. Or the references.

Qutb?

[Mojorabbit]

5. Great terrorism article. nt

[blkmusclmachine]

6. .

.

[snagglepuss]

7. Great article. Thanks fr posting