Question

Based on the explanation of understanding terrorism and what motivates a terrorist, the author stated there are individual and moral explanations.

1. Which explanation did you agree with the most? explain why
2. Which explanation did you find the most surprising explain why

gus martin “understanding terrorism”

aill AT&T Wi-Fi令 49% 1:12 AM What Motivates a Te... a Individual Explanations as a three-stage process Stage one begins with unacceptable conditions: "It's not right. Stage two follows with resentment and a sense of injustice "It's not fair." In stage three, the cause of the injustice is personified:"It's your fault. Though such patterns are evident, it is also evident that only a few of those affected by oppressive social, economic, and historic contexts are become terrorists. actually motivated to What Is Terrorism 13 Crenshaw (2000) pointed out that a psychology of terrorists must take multiple levels of analysis into account. In addition, political terrorism is not simply a product of psycho logical forces its central strategy is psychological. Terrorism is at base a vicious species of psychological warfare. Post (1998) introduced the term psycho-logic to describe processes of reasoning that he believes are particular to terrorists. He asserted the following Political terrorists are driven to commit acts of violence as a consequence of psychological forces. In addition, their special psycho-logic is constructed to rationalize acts they are psychologically compelled to commit. Individuals are drawn to the path of terrorism in order to commit acts of violence. (Post, 1998, p. 25) Most studies have not found that members of terrorist groups demonstrate serious chopathology, although a few researchers continue to believe in a mental illness terrorists. For example, Post and others use the vocabulary of psychiatry in their explana tions for terrorist motivation. Freud's theoretical concepts about the importance of early childhood experiences on personality are borne out in their later observations of the behavior of terrorists. For example, Post finds an extremely high frequency among terror- ists of a process of externalization and spliting that is also characteristic of individuals with narcissistic and borderline personality disorders. He believes that externalization and splitting contribute significantly to the uniformity of terrorists' rhetorical style and special psycho-logic (Post, 1998, p. 26). Externalization refers to projecting onto others one's hatred and devalued weakness from within: in other words, looking outward for the source of difficulties and needing an enemy to blame. Dividing the world into "us" and "them" is the basic manifestation of this process. Seeing a large group of others impersonally as "not like us" enables a worldview that makes violence toward "them" more acceptable. Splitting is a process that is shaped by a particular type of psychological damage occur ring during childhood, which separates good and bad parts of the injured self into "me and "not me."Splitting shows up in a weakened sense of identity and a need for a cause or Dashboard Calendar Notifications Inbox To Do AT&T Wi-Fi 1:12 AM 49% K What Motivates a Te....a a low tolerance for ambiguity, distaste for and diaregard for multiple layers of reality that leads to a very highdof a mistaken sense of causality and a need for blame al constraints against harming innocents whether due to group force-probably influenced by #1.2. upacity to suppress all moral ntrinsic or acquired factors, individual or and aX (p. 35) Moral Explanations violence have been studied extensively by Albert Bandur for developing social learning theories of aggression According to Bandura (1998) in his later work, the motivation to slaughter innocen women and children in buses, department stores, and airports requires a powerful psy chological mechanism of moral disengagement (p. 163). Bandura believes that convert ing socialized people into dedicated combatants is not achieved by altering thei pensonality structures, aggressive drives, or moral standards. Rather it is accomplishe hy cognitively restructuring the moral value of killing-that is, by changing the way th person thinks about killing so that killing can be done free from self-censuring restraint Bandura, 1998, p. 164). Self-censure and self-sanctions are the internal mechanism that serve to prevent most individuals from acting violently. Bandura has explained tha self-sanctions can be disengaged in a number of ways. Terrorists may reconstruct thei horrific conduct as serving moral purposes. They may obscure their own role in th violence and deny that their acts are the cause of the carnage. They may distort the con sequences of the act by focusing on the good that is to come from it and minimizing the evil done. Terrorists may also avoid self-censure by dehumanizing their victims, consid ering those who are killed as expendable or collateral damage (Bandura, 1998, p. 161). debate among warriors scientists. Religious figures have also dominated the stud of the morality of violence. Thomas Aquinas is one example of history's well-known Motivations for "t (1973), who is hest The moral value of killing has been the ongoing subject of polticians, journalists and social reli writer whose works have been exploited by terrorists to restructure the moral value of terrorism. In 1894, Max Lossen explained that Thomas Aquinas's commentary on Magister Sententiarum in which he noted, "He who kills the tyrant in order to liberate hi country is praised and rewarded, has been taken out of context to justify violence against the state. According to Lossen (1894/2004) "Undue weight should not be placed on thi ingle ambiguous passage from a youthful work, of those others where he declares himself to be firmly opposed to tyrannicide" (p. 27). More recently, Baard's (2004 p. 165) analysis of Aquinas's writings, as applied to the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) as of terrorism, claims, "Anger against a sin is virtuous, whereas anger against the sinne is sinful." Baard interprets this moral observation as legitimizing vengeance against corpo rations and enterprises. She distinguishes, as did Aquinas, between antecedent anger, which precedes rational judgment and is not good, and consequent anger following judgment which may he good if it leads to action against injustice. Consequent anger provides energ for action, increasing resolve Revenge gives us hope and pleasure (Baard, 2004, p. 161) These examples from the writings of Aquinas show how those who are constructing a image of their terrorist conduct as serving moral purposes have used the writings of famil iar religious figures to support an image of their own violence as morally justified. distorted view of other Christian religious principles has been used to sustain terrorist motivation throughout the world. Meanwhile, Muslim religious figures have played critical role in Islamist terrorist motivation as well. Following the word of God, as a terron ist sees it, contributes to a sense of ethical superiority. Identifying with religious figures can aso provide terrorists with a code of self-sacrifice and support a belief in a higher calling Martin, 2006, p. 83) Dashboard Calendar Notifications Inbox

Answer 1

I definitely agree with the fact that most terrorists showcase serious psychopathology. They have really weird and pathetic explanations to make the others agree to their beliefs. They brainwash the people and try to take advantage of their weak point. They have always been misers to others and never cared what is morally correct for the world. They use their personal agenda to showcase the correctness of their actions and it all seems so right to them.

I was surprised to read that many terrorist groups seek moral explanation to defend terrorism in the name of God. For instance Muslims use many Islamic leaders they had in the past to justify that violence is morally correct in the name of god. They suggest that giving one's life in the name of terrorism showcases a person's dedication and devotion for the very purpose the lord had given them to live. They use grounds of ethnic superiority to fool people and make them fall in the trap of terrorism.