In
this posting I want to examine terrorism. As a philosopher rather than a
psychologist I won’t examine the means by which potential terrorists might
become radicalised, instead I will examine one of the conditions which might
make some people might susceptible to radicalisation. Terrorists are sometimes
seen as idealists, albeit with warped ideals. I will argue that ideals are
vital to us as persons and that if someone lacks ideals that this lack creates
a condition in which she becomes susceptible to radicalisation.
Usually
the ideals that are important to a terrorist are grand political ideals. I’m
interested in the time before she acquires such grand ideals, I’m more
interested in the mundane ideals that shape people’s everyday lives. I want to
link ideals mundane or otherwise to what someone loves. I will assume, as Harry Frankfurt does, that someone who loves nothing
at all has no ideals (1). An ideal is something someone finds hard to betray
and as a result limits her will. Love also limits the will. Love need not be
grand romantic love but can sometimes simply be seen as ‘caring about’
something in a way that limits the carer’s will. I would suggest if someone
loves something this something forms a sort of ideal for her as she must try to
ensure the thing she loves is benefited and not harmed. If this wasn’t so she
would remain indifferent to her supposed beloved rather than loving it. It is
impossible for someone to be indifferent to her ideals. However accepting the
above doesn’t mean that ideals have to be grand ideals, indeed someone’s ideals
can be quite modest.
I
now want to argue that ideals, as defined by what we love above, are essential
to us as persons. According to Frankfurt someone without ideals,
“can make whatever decision he
likes and shape his will as he pleases. This does not mean that his will is
free. It only means that his will is anarchic, moved by mere impulse and
inclination. For a person without ideals, there are no volitional laws he has
bound himself to respect and to which he unconditionally submits. He has no
inviolable boundaries. Thus he is amorphous with no fixed shape or identity.”
(2)
Let us accept that ideals are
essential to us as persons and I would suggest that someone without ideals has
a sense of simply being. I would further suggest that this sense of simply
being, simply existing, is one that most people would find unbearable.
According to Christine Korsgaard human beings by their very nature are
condemned to choosing (3). Someone without ideals has no basis on which to
choose and as Frankfurt points out is ruled by impulse and inclination. It
seems the combination of the need to choose even if that choice is an
unconscious one and the lack of a basis for that choice is what makes simply
being, simply existing, unbearable.
If one accepts the above then the
need to love something, have ideals, expresses a quite primitive urge for
psychic survival. I would suggest that in some cases this need to love
something creates the conditions which makes some people vulnerable to
radicalisation. Of course this need to love something might be met in other
ways, perhaps even perhaps in such mundane ways such as keeping a pet. However
the young, perhaps especially young men, want to feel important and perhaps
this feeling causes them to prefer grand rather than mundane means in order to
satisfy this need. In some cases the combination of the need to love and feel
important creates the conditions in which some people become especially vulnerable
to radicalisation.
I now want to argue that choosing
to be a terrorist in order to satisfy the primitive urge to love something is a
form of self-delusion. It is a self-delusion due to the nature of love. Love is
not simply a matter choosing to love. According to Frankfurt, “love is a
concern for the well-being or flourishing of a beloved object – a concern that
is more or less volitionally constrained so that it is not a matter of entirely
free choice or under full voluntary control, and that is more or less disinterested.”
(4) Now if we accept Frankfurt’s position then when someone chooses to become a
terrorist in order to satisfy her urge to love something she is deluding
herself for two reasons. Firstly, love is not a matter of choice and it
is impossible for someone to choose to love in order to satisfy this need. Secondly
she is not really choosing a cause because she cares passionately about it but
rather she is choosing in order to satisfy her need to love something. She is
choosing to relieve her unbearable feeling of just existing.
It might be objected that I am
exaggerating the importance of the need to love and underestimating the need to
feel important. I will now argue even if this is so, which I don’t accept, that
some of the same considerations apply. To terrorists the feeling of importance
is connected to violent action. Terrorists want to be considered as heroes by
some people. I have previously defined a hero as someone who chooses to recognisably benefit
someone else or society in ways most people could not, in addition her actions
must be beyond the call of duty and must involve some real sacrifice on her
part, see Hobbs
and Heroes . Now what motivates a true hero is a need to benefit
someone else
or society, it is not to satisfy some need to be seen as a hero. Some who
pushes someone into a river in order to rescue them certainly isn’t a hero. Someone
might choose to become a hero but if the motivation for her actions is a desire
to be a hero then she is deluding herself about her actions even if
this desire is an unconscious one because no real sacrifice is involved. Indeed
it is even possible to argue that someone who resists her desires to be seen as
heroic might be better seen as a hero even if a minor one.
Let us accept that it is
important to understand how people become radicalised and the conditions which
make this radicalisation possible. One of the conditions which makes some
people susceptible to radicalisation is a sense of simply being, simply
existing, due to a lack of ideals. Other conditions may play a part but what
might be done to alleviate this lack of ideals? Unfortunately there seem to no
easy or quick solutions because real ideals must be acquired rather than given.
In spite of these difficulties I will offer some rather tentative solutions.
Firstly good parenting; good parenting should always involve love. Some
deprived and inarticulate parents find it hard to give or to express their love
even if they are excellent parents in other ways. Some parenting skills can be
taught but loving can’t. It follows we should encourage social conditions
conducive to the emergence of love. Perhaps also we should actively encourage
policies that promote happiness, see action
for happiness . Secondly education must be more broadly
based. Education should not only be focussed on the skills valued by employers
but also on the skills that help all pupils to flourish. For instance the
skills needed in sport and music should not be considered to be on the
educational periphery. Education should be broad enough so that all have the
opportunity to acquire skills to enable them to be good at something rather
just acquire skills that are good for employment. Even if terrorism can be
defeated by other means or collapses due its inherently stupid doctrines the
solutions outlined above would remain useful in building a more cohesive
society.
- Harry Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love, Cambridge University Press, page 114.
- Frankfurt, page 114.
- Christine Korsgaard, 2009, Self-Constitution, Oxford University Press, page 1.
- Frankfurt, page 165.