Tel Hits One Out of the Park
Update – I decided to move this one too, since the discussion is still going on. Chris M supplied this link and this one.
Oh, jeezis. I saw a reference to Terry Eagleton’s piece in the Guardian at Normblog earlier today, but didn’t read it. I saw another reference just now at Harry’s place, and this time I did read it. It was – very horrible. Way more horrible than I expected. I’m not sure why. There’s just something about the preening, lit-critty, self-admiring tone of it all, of the aesthetic approach to mass murder, that just made my gorge rise. It’s as if he’s, I don’t know, admiring his reflection in a pool of blood, or combing his hair with someone’s blown-off hand. He’s not really making a political argument, that’s what’s weird – he’s doing some sort of languid, semi-ironic literary criticism. Literary criticism of suicide bombing – just what the world needs. What can he think he’s playing at?
Like hunger strikers, suicide bombers are not necessarily in love with death. They kill themselves because they can see no other way of attaining justice; and the fact that they have to do so is part of the injustice…People like Rosa Luxemburg or Steve Biko give up what they see as precious (their lives) for an even more valuable cause. They die not because they see death as desirable in itself, but in the name of a more abundant life all round. Suicide bombers also die in the name of a better life for others; it is just that, unlike martyrs, they take others with them in the process. The martyr bets his life on a future of justice and freedom; the suicide bomber bets your life on it. But both believe that a life is only worth living if it contains something worth dying for. On this theory, what makes existence meaningful is what you are prepared to relinquish it for. This used to be known as God; in modern times it is mostly known as the nation. For Islamic radicals it is both inseparably.
How about that ‘just’ in ‘it is just that, unlike martyrs, they take others with them’? That’s quite a ‘just’! Oh is that all – well silly me then not to think of the suicide bombers as just like Steve Biko and Rosa Luxemburg. And then notice how quickly he forgets the thing about taking others – ‘But both believe that a life is only worth living if it contains something worth dying for.’ Not just dying for, Bub: killing for. Making other people die for. Imagine a fiery-eyed student popping into your office and locking the door and telling you he was about to give you the glory of dying along with him for something that makes life worth living. Would you take quite such an aesthetic view of the matter then? And he does it again – ‘what you are prepared to relinquish it for’. No! Pay attention, dammit. What you are prepared to make others relinquish it for. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Can’t you get that? Are you so caught up in this stupid dandyish word-spinning that you can’t hang on to such an obvious thought for two sentences?
See, this is what I’m saying about the ethical commitments thing, the identity thing. It’s not just about the damn ego, it’s about what you do to people.
And there are three more paragraphs of really disgusting verbal pirouetting, just as if he were droning about Henry James or Dostoevsky (oh yes, so he is), about the meaning of suicide bombing – ending up at this rich mess:
Blowing himself to pieces in a packed marketplace is likely to prove by far the most historic event of the bomber’s life. Nothing in his life, to quote Macbeth, becomes him like the leaving of it. This is both his triumph and his defeat. However miserable or impoverished, most men and women have one formidable power at their disposal: the power to die as devastatingly as possible. And not only devastatingly, but surreally. There is a smack of avant garde theatre about this horrific act. In a social order that seems progressively more depthless, transparent, rationalised and instantly communicable, the brutal slaughter of the innocent, like some Dadaist happening, warps the mind as well as the body. It is an assault on meaning as well as on the flesh – an ultimate act of defamiliarisation, which transforms the everyday into the monstrously unrecognisable.
Honest to fucking Christ. Is that cute or what? Can cultural theorists spin a metaphor or can they not. If that doesn’t make you sick, you have a stronger stomach than I do.
And neither Rosa Luxembourg nor Steve Biko “gave up” their lives, for pity’s sake. The first was judicially murdered and the second was, I think, thrown through a window by policemen. I seriously doubt whether either of them wanted those things to happen.
Quite one of the most repulsive things I’ve read in a long time – ironically the stuff it reminds me of most are those revolting fatwas and other self-justifying rubbish that some Islamic clerics put out.
OB – You hit a pretty good average there too… to explore nihilism intelligently, the least one can do is ask what the net trade off is for all affected. This prat hasn’t chucked in any ‘context’, which I thought was their trip, so he’s being a Lazy-Ass Theorist. New category.
Chris W – the piece also for some reason – perhaps the pointless narcissistic preening of it, combined with this being Holocaust Memorial Day – reminded me of a coke-addled David Bowie trying in 1977 to rationalise the Nazi Nuremberg rallies purely aesthetically; he later regretted this behaviour dreadfully of course. Cultural Theory – That’ll be the New Rock ‘N’ Roll then…
Moreover I really get pissed off here that suicide bombers’ motives are assigned to sheer desperation and a spiritual desire to make the world better, in the most ‘historic’ event of their lives. Not true. Many, it is true, have absolutely nothing but poverty and hatred, but the also believe – dearly – they are getting a fast track to heaven out of martyrdom. How nice: juvenile boys are told of all the girls they can sleep with when they get to heaven through martyrdom, in those toxic rallies held by bus-bomber recruiters – e.g. Abu Hamza. (That last item courtesy of BBC News reportage, not speculation). And what does ‘historic’ mean here ? Really ?? Here it is then… ‘Newsworthy’. Oh they’re such bastards..
Read it. Yes. Quite sickening. And what Nick S. just wrote needs amplifying; to omit the “let’s get laid in Paradise” bit is to miss the entire point of the exercise. In Dawkins’ immediate post-9/11 piece about the faith-guided missile, he hit the nail on the head. Eagleton may be going on about death and its theatrics and aesthetics, but he’s completely ignoring the fact that the poor morons conned into doing these things are only prepared to do them because they’ve been brainwashed into believing that it isn’t about death at all. As usual, it all has much less to do with the miserable circumstances of the human bombs’ lives than it does with religion’s habit of ignoring reality and manipulating the fools who can’t see through it.
Suicide bombers? I hope I’m not lowering the tone too much when I say it’s a pity they don’t all drive VWs:
http://www.boreme.com/bm/JAN05/a/vw-suicide-bomber/fr.htm
Steve Biko!?? How does pointing out that there are other ways for poverty stricken, frustrated people to fight against their oppression justify the suicide bombing?
The duped moron also sincerely believes that he is sending people to a well deserved eternal roasting. Seems pretty noble.
Its depressing to think that if Dawkins’ article appeared now, it would probably cause more outrage than a typical suicide bombing.
Exactly. Dawkins’ article was right on the money, as Stewart said – but it caused plenty of outrage then and yes, would doubtless cause more now. In fact it’s the kind of thing that people like Salman Rushdie worry won’t be sayable any more because of the religious hatred law.
This also comes on the day that a man drove onto the railroad tracks near LA seeking to kill himself, and though he managed to change his mind and escape, killed 11 and injured 180 (at last count).
Does Eagleton think that the fact that political oppression (rather than poverty or loss or clinical depression or whatever happened to the guy in LA) causes suicide bombers to elect to die elevates their decision to kill others? Pish and likewise tosh.
He has also conveniently forgotten that fundamentalist-Islamicist suicide bombers act under such heavy coaching, it amounts to brainwashing — what of the coaches/brainwashers? Are they just another Arabesque in the aesthetic pattern? And what of those governments that pay compensation to the families of suicide bombers? Where are they in all of this?
This isn’t about aesthetics; it’s about a method, that happens to be novel to we westerners, of convincing poor people to be cannon fodder (or is that canon fodder?). Without the affluence that allows us to put Humvies between our children and the people they kill, these people strap the explosives onto their children. It’s a pretty sad world in which educated people like Eagleton turn that into something admirable.
I’m rather surprised at the nerve Terry Eagleton had to tackle the subject the way he did, but I think he was trying to make some rather valid points. He was, in fact, giving people the benefit of the doubt about the power of their own death, where it seems here people seem to want to think of suicide bombers as brainwashed robots dying for the belief of a heaven.
Perhaps it’s just because I don’t buy that whole ‘brainwashed into believing killing themselves gets them into heaven’ line as being such a great motivator. It seems like the easy excuse for that action for people who don’t believe anyone could rationally choose to die for a cause. Not all suicide bombers are religious.
Secondly, I see some sort of ‘species heroism’ in what the Palestinians do (to give a specific example, which he refrains from doing); while I could never choose such options, it is stunning how humans can, and will, wage war with whatever they have against a technologically superior foe. If aliens with forcefields and rayguns ever invade the earth, it is the Palestinian strain of humanity that will rise against it.
Lastly, we train soldiers so that some of them have what it takes kill themselves in the process of killing enemy soldiers, without promise of heaven, and well within the definition of heroic sacrifice.
In other words, if you see what he is saying in a human context, rather than instantly choosing a specific group of people whom you despise, he makes some sense, I think, trying to get at what makes humans capable of acting in such an unusual fashion, and warning, yes, that people who have nothing are the most dangerous to the social order.
MP
You make a sweeping assumption about whom the authors of the previous posts despise. Perhaps we’d best keep the discussion to what has been said, rather than trying to do any mind-reading.
MP –
“rather than instantly choosing a specific group of people whom you despise”
Get this straight. Obviously Bush is an arse; OBVIOUSLY it doesn’t help humanity to have a cabal of plutocratic human nerve-gas running the US and therefore influenceing Geopolitics in ways that our grandchildren – assuming there are any – will feel the true detrement of… that doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to lete alone validate inhuman and disgusting practices prosecuted by any other race, ‘species’, or religion, as long as they are anti US. So shove the vile hatred of peoples slur back where it belongs.
Meantime “it is stunning how humans can, and will, wage war with whatever they have against a technologically superior foe. If aliens with forcefields and rayguns ever invade the earth, it is the Palestinian strain of humanity that will rise against it. “
Absolute fantasist claptrap. Get back to your comics. They firmly believe thay have the will of Allah behind them, which gives them the definitive upper hand in the long run… check your facts with the realities of the recruitment process, not propagandist rags. […rallies held by bus-bomber recruiters – e.g. Abu Hamza. (That last item courtesy of BBC News reportage, not speculation). ]
MP tot clarify my comment
“And what does ‘historic’ mean here ? Really ?? Here it is then… ‘Newsworthy’. Oh they’re such bastards..”
By ‘they’, I meant the effete, off-hand generators and promulgators of such b.s. ‘Theory’, not the offenders themselves…
I’ll try again to move past what seems to be anger.
It seems to me that Eagleton is asking ‘what makes a human capable of a suicidal attack’, and ‘what factors might contribute to this’ and, ‘is there a history of actions similar to this’? And yes, it would seem to make sense to me that powerlessness and desperation would be contributing factors, and that yes, the act of choosing to die is a remarkable human ability that deserves study. It seems to me he is trying to keep an open mind towards shocking actions. He is trying to say, under different circumstances, these acts could be considered heroic. I didn’t notice any super-fancy words or attempts to apply literary theory, just a philosophical attempt at understanding, if a little dry and academic.
Nick:
Eagleton does NOT mention specific groups, just what might make a human being become a suicide bomber in general.
The evidence of ‘rallies held by bus-bomber recruiters on the BBC’ does not mean, gosh, that all suicide bombers are Muslim, nor that they are all religious. He also doesn’t mention Bush nor call anyone names, that’s what you did. I’m sorry if you think that my trying to understand why people might do such things as being somehow related to anti-US feelings or a ‘vile…slur’. All I did was read an essay and judge it based, as well as I could, on the contents within it, rather than any personal prejudices I might have brought with me. Were the kids at Columbine religiously brainwashed anti-US people? Or powerless, scared, and wanting so desperately to make a point that they did terrible acts which somehow must have seen necessary?
I would appreciate some degree of decency here, as well, unless what I read as insults were attempts at wit.
“I’m sorry if you think that my trying to understand why people might do such things as being somehow related to anti-US feelings or a ‘vile…slur'”
This is from Oliver Kahm’s Blog a few months ago.
“What drives and characterises terrorists is a question to which an economist at Princeton University, Alan Krueger, has devoted statistical expertise and dispassionate analysis. Writing in the New York Times last year he noted that Palestinian terrorists do not fit the conventional image of being desperate and impoverished:
The stereotype that terrorists are driven to extremes by economic deprivation may never have held anywhere, least of all in the Middle East. New research by Claude Berrebi, a graduate student at Princeton, has found that 13 percent of Palestinian suicide bombers are from impoverished families, while about a third of the Palestinian population is in poverty. A remarkable 57 percent of suicide bombers have some education beyond high school, compared with just 15 percent of the population of comparable age.
This evidence corroborates findings for other Middle Eastern and Latin American terrorist groups. There should be little doubt that terrorists are drawn from society’s elites, not the dispossessed.
With a Czech collaborator, Jitka Maleckova, Professor Krueger published his research findings in detail in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper in 2002 (available for download here for a nominal fee). He concluded that there was in fact some positive correlation between privilege and terrorism, and drew a parallel with those who engage in political activity:
More educated people from privileged backgrounds are more likely to participate in politics, probably in part because political involvement requires some minimum level of interest, expertise, commitment to issues and effort, all of which are more likely if people are educated and wealthy enough to concern themselves with more than mere economic subsistence … Terrorist organizations may prefer highly educated individuals over less educated ones, even for homicide suicide bomb attacks. In addition, educated, middle or upper class individuals are better suited to carry out acts of international terrorism than are impoverished illiterates because the terrorists must fit into a foreign environment to be successful.”
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/01/ideological_apo.html
Some people do try and understand such things. Then again some people merely project their own politics onto the situation. Is Eagleton any better qualified than most of us to really speculate on such matters? I think not.
Mark, I don’t know if you’re still reading this thread, but I’m afraid I don’t understand your point.
You start out using the word “nerve” to refer to the way Eagleton tackled the issue. “Nerve” can mean either unmitigated gall or courage. It seems that Eagleton displayed the former rather than the latter. It doesn’t take much courage to write something like he did for the Guardian. It seems to me like he was just toeing the party line.
You also mention “power over their own death.” What is the point of demonstrating power over your own death, if you’re not there to get any benefit from it, and no one else does?
Yassir was estimated to have at least a billion dollars in his bank account. Maybe some consider it an injustice that he didn’t have more, but I’m not terribly sympathetic to that argument, and I don’t see what other injustice Eagleton believes the suciide bombers are trying to remedy. It seems to me that Eagleton is drawing specious analogies to adorn an observation that if it is true, is only trivially true.
Why do you say that not all suicide bombers are relgious? Okay, maybe some might be crazy atheists. But fhey aren’t the ones trying to remedy the injustice Eagleton thnks he sees. Besides, why can’t you buy the theory that they’re brainwashed? What is there about the Palestinian educational system, or the Palestinian media or anything else that would lead you not to accept that theory?
And what’s the point of your second observation? Suicide bombers are killing innocent people and you’re talking about t space invaders? I assume your point isn’t that we should try to understand suicide bombers, because when Jewish space invaders arrive and establish democracies, we can resist by blowing up familes at alien bat mitzvahs. But if that’s not your point, then what is it?
As for the rest of your comments, I don’t think you’ve dealt with the promise of the afterlife in the context of the Moslem religion. What other society has produced anywhere near the same number of suicide bombers?
Japan? (during the WWII)
Thanks, ChrisM, for that very interesting piece, which both argues against the ‘brainwashed idiots’ and the [Eagleton]’desperate people with no other power’ theories. While Eagleton may not be ‘better qualified’ to discuss such things than others, I don’t mind him trying.
Allan,
I was ambiguous with ‘nerve’ because I felt he was doing both – being daring and and a little obnoxious. I don’t want to seem like some sort of automatic Eagleton fan, just someone who found that article thought-provoking rather than infuriating.
I think people are drawing very strong and automatic conclusions about why suicide bombers do what they do, which is why I appreciated Eagleton’s view on the matter. I don’t think it is always knee-jerk brainwashed religionists- soldiers, under the right circumstances will do it, certainly atheists or racially-motivated people could as well. While religion is involved, it is not the only path.
My point about the aliens, which was poorly made, is that these qualities of fighting-tooth-and-nail, willingness to blow themselves and others up, are essentially human qualities, not Moslem or Palestinian. And that, in other possible circumstances (a different ‘us’ and a different ‘them’) could be considered excellent survival characteristics for the race.
My ‘power over your own death’ comment was intended to reiterate one of Eagleton’s points, and, yes, it seems evolutionarily viable to sacrifice yourself for the group, in some situations. Could you not imagine a situation where you would sacrifice yourself to save your family? These people obviously believe that their sacrifices have some result, but what? That’s the interesting quesion, why?
Mark,
But part of the problem with Eagleton’s piece is that there are some empirical answers to these questions, which he completely ignores. That’s why his piece seems so strikingly lit-critty. He writes as if all this were a play or a poem – a ‘text’ for him to play with. All he has to do is lean back and muse on the subject. But he leaves so much out – the empirical stuff, and also details like the people the bombers take with them. He leaves so very much out that the piece strikes a lot of people as mere word-spinning. The point wasn’t that it was too jargony or high-theoretical, but that it was vacuous, and in being vacuous on such a subject it seemed extraordinarily showoffy and narcissistic.
“and, yes, it seems evolutionarily viable to sacrifice yourself for the group, in some situations. “
Evolution probably works on the gene level rather than species level. If the “group” in question is close family members there may be something in that.
“Could you not imagine a situation where you would sacrifice yourself to save your family? “
Except that it does nothing to help save the family. Indeed, supposedly it is likely to bring a buldozer upon the family home.
“These people obviously believe that their sacrifices have some result, but what?”
72 virgins in paradise. (Clearly not paradise for the poor 72 virgins).
Whilst your points seemed to be made in good faith, Eagleton’s points do not. It was a peice of unoriginal polemic. It did not come accross as asking any questions, it was a load of rhetoric.
Well, I share your disgust at Eagleton’s neglect of the rights, feelings and suffering of the people killed by these limp-membered excuses for human beings.
I think this ’72 virgins in Paradise’ claim as to the motivation should be tested. I suspect that we have enough live suicide plotters and recruiters, plus notes left behind, to deal in their actual motivations.
I speculate that these may include
1)Anger and frustration at perceived injustice, with a satisfying fire of revenge, (though against unrelated innocents);
2) Committment and consistency, where they talk themselves into a place that they cannot honourably act otherwise, (f***ing stupid and evil as it is);
3) Huge right-here, right-now rewards of social approval and fantasised social approval;
4) And moral self-approval of the kind experienced by all stripes of extremists and moral entrepreneurs through projection fantasies.
These things are far stronger than your 72 virgins as motivators in my opinion. I think that is probably a vicious colonialist western stereotyping racist sexist projection ;-), but hey…
Has anyone got any actual data to link? ‘Cause that would be helpful.
“I think that is probably a vicious colonialist western stereotyping racist sexist projection ;-), “
Your points 1 to 4 all sound reasonable enough and highly likely. However, I reject the 72 virgins bit as being merely a “Western stereotype”. 72 virgins IS what is promised to martyrs on jihad. Cultures and religions must take responsibility for their own bs and not palm off absurdites as being sterotypes (western, or otherwise).
http://papers.nber.org/papers/W9074 for abstract to a paper dealing on causes and motivation. ($5 for the full paper unfortunately, but the abstract is free.)
Has anyone got any actual data to link? ‘Cause that would be helpful.
This link is free.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/povterror.htm
Here’s another.
http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/18/walzer-m.html
Thanks, ChrisM for the postings.
Perhaps it would be better to say that the evolved mechanisms that make it possible for someone to sacrifice themselves to benefit specifically the genes of their close-kin (group selection theory) might also be made to serve this cause. Certainly in bees (some species die after stinging), we see the clear possibility that there are advantages to be gained.
The Holyoke paper was interesting and provocative. A couple of points occurred to me reading it, but mostly that fuzzy statistics can be made to serve almost any point, especially when correllations are made that are not defendable.
The Walzer (the third link) paper actually managed to infuriate me. Terrorist is a term that ‘the big army calls the little army’; I’m sure the British army considered Americans terrorists because they didn’t play by the rules of the established powers. I’m always hearing how ‘terrorists’ are bombing ‘innocent bystanders’ – should they be targetting the trained, armed armies? They themselves are just citizens for the most part. Uniforms and lines are for the bigger, better equipped forces. Do we expect them to play by ‘the rules’ where they cannot win?
The tactics of ‘terrorism’ are the tactics of the few, stongly motivated, who have no proper military training or equipment, at least in comparison to their enemy. It is logical and ruthless, yes, but if we drop bombs from airplanes on them, it seems a little ridiculous to say they aren’t playing fair when they carry the bombs in themselves because they don’t have a military.
I happen to think all killing is wrong, but I don’t think suicide bombers are more wrong than soldiers in tanks. I also don’t think killing softer targets is ‘worse’ than killing soldiers.
“Certainly in bees (some species die after stinging), we see the clear possibility that there are advantages to be gained.”
A bit OT admittedly, but such bees are drones. Being sterile, they do not pass their genes on directly. Rather they pass them on by proxy in the form of serving the queen.
I would comment on the rest of the post, but OB has already dissected it and identified its weaknesses.
I would just add that anyone who defends terrorists is only honourable if they would accept themselves or there own loved ones being blown to bits in the aid of a “greater good”. (I doubt there are many such people). Afterall, the actual victims of terrorism are certainly no more deserving of such a fate than any of the rest of us.
Further to my previous post: Such people would still be wrong, but they would at least be honourable.
Mark,
I think you are making unwarranted assumptions about terrorists . They’re often very well funded. I don’t know who was supporting the guy who pulled the trigger on Franz -Ferninand, but Yassir had an estimated billion or so, Saddam was paying the families of suicide bombers, the Baathists in Syria are rolling in dough, the Saudis chip in their bit,, and last I heard Osama has a nice little stash which he’s not spending on himself. Besides ,many of the terrorists in Iraq are not “just citizens,” they are citizens of other countires who have come to Iraq to further the cause of Jihadi.
Also do you really think that the only difference between soldiers and terrorists is the size of the armies? Do you see any significant difference in what they are fighting for, or is it all the same to you?
As to your point about all killing is wrong, I’m assuming, without knowing for sure, that you would qualify that somehow, But my question would then be, do you think the terrorists Eastland was referring to would fit within that qualification?
ChrisPer
You can easily find the actual data you asked for. Just measure the testosterone levels of the relevant parties.
1) Might I remind everyone that for decades we all lived under the threeat that all life on this planet would be destroyed by nuclear war and that the people who made this possible in the West were not regarded ipso facto as pathological or brainwashed or in the clutches of an evil ideology? I remember that it was the accepted political wisdom in Britain that no party could be elected to government that did not support that country’s “nuclear deterrent”.
2) The phrase “suicide bomber” is a useful shorthand in the mass media but conflates two separate things: that the bomber kills himself in the act and that his victims tend to be civilians.
On the first point, note that our culture actually admires self-sacrificing violence: Britain’s highest award for bravery in war, the Victoria Cross, is usually awarded posthumously. On the second point, there is the whol question of whether say killing 10 civilians deliberately is more reprehensible than killing 100 as ‘collateral damage’. (And I wonder which culture coined phrase?
“they didn’t play by the rules of the established powers. “
Like non-combatant immunity? That sounds like an axiom of human decency; not some cultural artifact of “established powers”.
” Might I remind everyone that for decades we all lived under the threeat that all life on this planet would be destroyed by nuclear war and that the people who made this possible in the West were not regarded ipso facto as pathological or brainwashed or in the clutches of an evil ideology? I remember that it was the accepted political wisdom in Britain that no party could be elected to government that did not support that country’s “nuclear deterrent”.
That is begging the question. No party came to power promising nuclear war. Some people felt that the best way to avoid nuclear war was unilateral disarmament. Others felt that given that such weapons existed and the enemy had them, the safest cause of action was to maintain a deterrent ourselves. Which position is correct is not relevant here. The point is that many of those for a nuclear deterreance felt that it was the best of a bad set of choices. Your “analogy” is no analogy at all.
Paul P,
it was a “deterrent”, right? It wasn’t used and no one really wanted to use it. That ‘s at least one way that it’s different from the suicide bomber as high theater scenario described by Eastland. If your point is that there’s a moral equivalence somewhere, I think you need to spell it out more clearly.
Same thing about your point about the deliberate killing of 10 versus the “collateral damage” of 100 . Why is that question relevant? It’s not like we have a choice between one or the other. We’re trying to avoid both.
Since this seems to be continuing… some of the above contributors said things I would have, but I shan’t waste space repeating them. A couple of thoughts that maybe didn’t come through clearly enough:
1) One can certainly investigate the question of whether suicide bombing is linked somehow to evolutionary viability. Proving that certain behaviour has roots in traits that may be inherent in all, or most of, us doesn’t alter the fact that it is gratuitously destructive. Let’s not forget that the reason that suicide bombing gets discussed to this degree is not because it’s somehow consensual or easily comprehensible. It’s because it’s shocking and contrary to most of the instincts that guide us in life, both in the sense of self-destruction and in the total disregard for others (most such attacks also take with them individuals that the attacker might have considered to be “on his/her side”). It strikes one, for all these reasons, as a barbarous and inhuman act and that is why one must really wonder when intellect is expended not necessarily to justify it, but to describe it in terms belonging to academia, terms that attempt to have one consider as it as something other than inner organs hanging from trees and people in the kind of pain that prevent them from the simplest articulation, let alone an academic treatise on what just destroyed everything they knew. And, and here I will repeat myself, how dare anyone discuss the issue without the motivator and emboldener – religion – taking top billing? And by pointing that out, I do not mean to negate desperation and hopelessness. How about a little census of desperate and hopeless people who don’t blow themselves up at pre-determined locations according to instructions and with promised rewards?
2) Armies are men and women in uniform who wage war in an organised and usually open fashion. Most countries have them, even the nice ones. If their soldiers inflict unnecessary damage to civilians, they may certainly be liable to trial as war criminals. Terrorism, of all stripes, intends less to conquer accepted military objectives and more to instil fear, especially in civilian populations, usually by apparently random targetting of the latter. That just might be why it’s called terrorism (huh, never thought of that before…). It is absolutely true that both soldiers and terrorists use force and that there may well be grounds in even a great many circumstances for making some comparisons. However, it often seems to me that there’s a free-for-all going on in which all of the many differences between them are ignored. The soldiers who did what they did at Abu Ghraib (whether following orders or not) are going on trial in very public fashion and the whole affair has been a humiliation for their country. The video-beheaders (for lack of a more precise term) will never be punished unless someone catches them. I see differences there, beyond the difference of one group being part of an occupying army and the other being “locals” (and one should always have respect for local traditions, if one doesn’t want to be accused of cultural imperialism).
I don’t know how close Eagleton has ever been to an event of the type he’s analysing with such detachment. I do know that their victims include academics and those opposed to the policies that are being blamed for the suicide-bomber phenomenon. Funny how it can be easy, for example, to slap down a child instigating an assault on a sibling, but right and wrong can be so hard to pin down when dozens of people are torn to bits by the actions of a single fanatic (or is somebody going to insist that they’re relative moderates?).
ChrisM, thanks for responding to my comments.
ALthough I satirically described the “72 virgins as motivators … is probably a vicious colonialist western stereotyping racist sexist projection ;-)” I did not mean it was manufactured out of whole cloth in the West. Rather, I see it used as a put-down – e.g. the ’72 Virgins Dating Service’ T-shirt whereby VRWC members show support for lethal counter-terrorist activities.
Doesn’t bother me either way, but I feel that if Eagleton’s analysis of motives is worth trashing, let’s put up an alternative.
Maybe I need to value the 72 virgins idea more highly? Perhaps the Iranians promised them to 10-year-old boys when they sent them jabbing sticks into minefields with plastic keys to heaven, as reported in the Iran-Iraq War.
” but I feel that if Eagleton’s analysis of motives is worth trashing,”
I think it is worth trashing such views (although it is a bit like shooting fish), because such acts must be seen as beyond the pale by as many peple as possible. However, I am reminded of one of Wolfgang Pauli’s contemptuous putdowns of someone’s point.
“It is not even wrong.” – Wolfgang Pauli
Nato’s policy regarding nuclear weapons was “first use”: if the Warsawe Pact invaded Western Europe and the war was not going Nato’s way then Nato would use nuclear weapons.
Suicide bombers in e.g. Iraq see their country as having been invaded and therefore they unleash their own personal version of “mutually assured destruction”.
The difference is that in the one case the conditions for unleashing nuclear never materialised, while in the case of e.g. Iraq they have. One could argue that it was precisely Nato’s willingness to use nuclear weapons that prevented a situation arising in which they would be used. The problem with this argument is that the US would not have invaded Iraq if Iraq had nuclear weapons, and there would be no suicide bombers. You end up defending a willingness to end all life on earth while condemning a willingness to kill a (by comparison) a tiny number of people.
Allan:
Indeed we do want to avoid a suicide bomber deliberately killing 10 people as well as “collateral damage” killing 100. However the existence of the phrase “suicide bomber” with no equivalent for the “collateral damage” case shows we are making some sort of distinction. There is obviously an ontological difference but a lot of the comment here is making a moral distinction. I agree there is a moral distinction but do not accept it as being as big as some here claim.
You make the point that those involved in the nuclear arsenal of the West did not want to use it. Well, suicide bombers in Iraq do not want the US army there either and only become suicide bombers because of the invasion. If the US had been unwilling to invade Iraq because it knew that this would give rise to suicide bombings, there would have been no suicide bombings, so would that mean suicide bombings are ok ? That’s the logic if your argument: it’s ok to threaten any amount of death and destruction to prevent the situation in which you would unleash that death and destruction.
BTW: I supported and still support the invasion of Iraq.
ChrisM, “It’s not even wrong” (W Pauli)
Excellent! Here is the point missed by pointy-eared moral relativist commentary. We should not have to argue over what is evil, and we should not have to argue over whether it is right to try and stop it.
PaulP, I think you are mistaken on connections of your argument: The preparedness to use nuclear weapons is not identical with the willingness to destroy all life on earth. The former is a credible and rational response when one is threatened by a nuclear state. And if Iraq had been nuclear the options to be considered by the US would include far more comprehensively destructive choices, not just ‘containment’.
I think that you are trying to correct an imbalance in perceived rightness /wrongness of great and less-great harms; but greatness of the harm is only a related concept to its being a moral wrong, not the actual measure of a wrong.
ChrisPer:
I think you do not understand the concept of Nato’s policy of being the first to use nuclear weapons. Nato was willing to use nuclear weapons if the West was invaded even if the Soviets had not used their nuclear arsenal.
As this means the slaughter of vast numbers of innocent civilians I do not see a distinction in quality between the immorality of this and the immorality of a suicide bomb attack on civilians.
“As this means the slaughter of vast numbers of innocent civilians I do not see a distinction in quality between the immorality of this and the immorality of a suicide bomb attack on civilians”
Well one was actualised and one was not for a start. We have no way of knowing whether the NATO position was a bluff or would actually have occured if it came to the crunch. We DO know that homicide bombings ARE occurring. Not threats of, but actually really happening. The distinction is clear even if you beleive it to be a distinction without merit.
We came quite close a couple of times to complete annihilation.
Your distinction is really this: Suicide bombers are bad because they actually kill a few people after their country had been invaded. Would-be nuclear bombers were not because they were never put into a position of finding out if they would have killed everyone on earth if their country had been invaded, even though they built up the capability to do so.
The reason I do not put much importance on this distinction is that the would-be nuclear bombers think they would “push the button” and that to do so would be the moral thing. Yet the very same individuals, and all the people who vote in support of this – ie the majority in the US, UK and France, are revolted by suicide bombers. And no one here thinks that situation is pathological. These people are revolted by suicide bombers doing (on a small scale) what they themselves would think it right to do (on a huge scale) if they were in the same situation as the suicude bombers.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that suicide bombers are not that different to us for all the talk of a “cult of death” or Islamo-nihilism.
“The reason I do not put much importance on this distinction is that the would-be nuclear bombers think they would “push the button” and that to do so would be the moral thing.”
Which is all just so much supposition. The fact is we don’t know. Afterall, for a threat to be effective, it must be beleived. If a nuclear conflict occuured, we would know, and I would agree that the perpetrators were monsters. But it didn’t, so we don’t know what would have happened.
We do know that homicide bombers are carrying out acts, there is no supposition there.
“Suicide bombers are bad because they actually kill a few people after their country had been invaded. “
It depends on who they are killing. It is not merely occupying forces they are killing. It is people who are carrying out the crime of voting.
“Suicide bombers are bad because they actually kill a few people after their country had been invaded. “
You also make the mistake that the way to measure evil is in outcome. That is not how we generally “measure” evil. We take into account intent, state of mind etc. Thus Hitler was not 5 times more evil than Pol Pot, nor is a cold blooded murderer only 1 ten millionth as evil as hitler.
I am talking about ways of thinking, in particular about how someone could come to be a suicide bomber. I am saying it is not so strange when you consider what we in the West were and are willing to do.
Before you accuse me of supposition – again – let me point out that you too are supposing. You are gambling that Nato was bluffing. I do not agree. From the strategic bombing campaigns of the Second World War we know how much carnage we are willing to inflict on civilians with conventional bombs, never mind nuclear ones. General Sir John Hackett wrote a book about a posible invasion of the West in which each side only launched one small nuclear strike. The result, if memory serves, was the annihilation of the cities of Birmingham in England and Kiev. His book was regarded as optimistic in every sense. This is in keeping with everything I have come across about the military mind so it is realistic to think Nato would have destroyed Kiev. Your claim that it was all bluff is unrealistic. Have you any evidence to support it?
There is no supposition in thinking that people have voted for those who advocate the creation of nuclear arsenals and their use if their countries were to be invaded. Offered the choice between such parties and those of a different view they decided for nuclear armament. Nor have I ever heard the people we are talking about saying “Well we need these weapons as a bluff – if we are attacked we would never use them”.
There is no distinction between the innocence of would-be voters in Iraq and the innocence of average citizens in the Soviet Union and elsewhere who would have been killed by Nato’s use of its nuclear arsenal.
“Your claim that it was all bluff is unrealistic. Have you any evidence to support it? “
“Nor have I ever heard the people we are talking about saying “Well we need these weapons as a bluff – if we are attacked we would never use them”. “
You have actually just paraphrased a peice of game theory. YOU may have never heard the people we are talking about say such a thing; but there is of course the possibility that to say such a thing would cock up the whole bluff thing.
“Before you accuse me of supposition – again – let me point out that you too are supposing.”
I accused you of nothing, I made the observation that it was supposition. I on the other hand was not supposing they were bluffing. I made the point that it was a possibility. I did not suppose they were bluffing, I observed that it was a possibility.
“There is no supposition in thinking that people have voted for those who advocate the creation of nuclear arsenals and their use if their countries were to be invaded.”
I don’t recall there being a referendum on the matter. Again you suppose that people voted on this issue alone AND that those people voted that not only we maintain a nuclear arsenal, but that it be used in a first strike. This is not how representative democracies work.
“There is no distinction between the innocence of would-be voters in Iraq and the innocence of average citizens in the Soviet Union and elsewhere who would have been killed by Nato’s use of its nuclear arsenal. “
The disinction is the soviet innocents are still with us, whilst the victims of homicide bombers are not.
Furthermore, we are stuck with nuclear weapons, they can not be uninvented (well except if they were used). So the choice was not between nuclear war and no nuclear war. The choices were what stategies would minimise the chances of a nuclear war. This involves a mix of game theory (hence MAD), disarmament (in a controlled manner), diplomacy, detterence (more game theory, or bluff if you prefer). It is a very likely suppostion to think that people voted for what strategies they beleived would minimse a holocaust. You may think their choices were wrong, and they did not chose the best strategy, but people did NOT vote to drop a nuke on Kiev.
To maintain their is no distinction between someone who blows himself and others up, and someone who votes for one of a few candidates on a large number of issues is totally disingenuous.
“To maintain their is no distinction between someone who blows himself and others up, and someone who votes for one of a few candidates on a large number of issues is totally disingenuous”. Where did I say that ? I repeat: I am talking about how people think. The idea here is that suicide bombers’ mentality is completely alien to that of us secularists. I am questioning that. (BTW I do not think you meant disingenuous, which means “giving a false appearance of simple frankness “)
You did not address my point about the willingness of the US and UK to slaughter civilians in their strategic bombing campaigns in the Second World War.
I am claiming that people did vote to use nuclear weapons if the West was attacked. I would like some evidence that when they voted for parties that supported nuclear weapons (and against those that did not) they did not agree with those parties’ policies on that issue. – I note that the British Labour party nearly tore itself apart on this issue in the 1980’s and that its leader Neil Kinnock was never forgiven by many on the Left for accepting the nuclear deterrent having opposed it before becoming leader. The received political wisdom in the UK was that opposition to the nuclear deterrent was political suicide. – I note that opposition to nuclear weapons is non-existent in the two main US parties. – The question of the nuclear deterrent was a huge political issue in Europe during the Reagan presidency. – I recall Francois Mitterand, newly elected to the French presidency, saying he would use nuclear weapons to preserve French independence, the integrity of French territory and the independence of French foreign policy.
People spent entire careers designing, building and planning to use nucear weapons. They were deadly serious about using these weapons. I am interested in their mentality, in particular if it was so different from those of suicide bombers. Hackett’s book was widely read and people were relieved that perhaps the nuclear destruction could be so limited, not that even then so many civilians would die.
“I did not suppose they were bluffing, I observed that it was a possibility”. For your argument to work you need them to be bluffing, otherwise the mentalities of the suicide bomber and the nuclear deterrer are not so different.
Well, this has certainly ‘exploded’.
OB,
I don’t think that ‘terrorists’ always speak for a larger group. Often, (like Tim McVeigh) they speak only for themselves. I just refuse to believe that ‘terrorism’ necesarily identifies anyone. We apply it to groups that are NOT goverments, are nore military organizations. They are clubs, families, individuals with goals. To say terrorism is a political failure would imply that the people had any faith whatsoever in political solutions. Terrorism is like the printing press, it is a tool for a few to reach many.
They may not be ‘poor’; but despite Yassir’s millions, he definitely did not have the resources to measure up against Israel as a nation. My point is that ‘terrorism’ is just a reasonbly logical way to fight when there is no chance of winning in a direct confrontation- we call that ‘smart’. It isn’t honourable.
I like Paul’s point, can you say it is evil to use the deterrance of videotaped beheadings and the threat of suicide bombings, but it is acceptable to use the threat of nuclear annhiliation? Which one doesn’t use terror as a weapon?
And one last time, attacking ‘civilians’ instead of established military is not dishonourable if you aren’t military yourself! The Palestinians (for example) don’t have an army.
Is there a difference between scientists who design nukes and terrorists who deliberately blow themselves up? asks paulp. Well, there’s certainly a difference in their psychology and intentions. I’ve known a few scientists from the Lawrence Livermore Lab and they’re mainly in it for the pleasure of solving interesting technical problems: they get big bucks and lots of great equipment to play with. I seriously doubt they give much thought to the social or political implications of their work. Self-immolating terrorists, on the other hand, are mainly motivated by political or religious ideology, or else by the satisfaction of “redeeming” their failed lives through one grandly melodramatic and bloody gesture.
MP wonders why paramilitary groups like Hamas or the PLO shouldn’t attack civilians instead of the military. Well, what have their tactics brought them so far? Not much that I can see. If, however, they had adopted either Gandhian tactics or had targeted only the military, they would have done a much better job of influencing public opinion (particularly in the US, where it really counts) and might very well have their own state by now.
MP, I think I may have misread an earlier posting and passed some harsh words unduly, for which I apologise. My only excuse is a bad bout of the flu. Sorry though.
PaulP “For your argument to work you need them to be bluffing, otherwise the mentalities of the suicide bomber and the nuclear deterrer are not so different.”
The eighties end of the Cold War was full of complex issues – but it is fairly safe to assume that the only real threat was in terms of an accidental launch of ICBMs triggered by software failure or a gross situation misdiagnosis, which very fortunately did not happen. The real horror of nuclear age was the rampant global commercial market in nuclear materials, from France building lucrative power stations for the likes of Saddam, to the US selling dodgy, over inflated power plant technology to Latin Amrecian countries that palpably had neither the know-how or controls to maintain them safely.
We were lucky not to have 10 Chernobyls and fifty three-miles islands
really…
Mutually Assured Destruction ensured that – from Cuba onwards – neither ‘total’ war nor ‘limited’ (i.e European theatre) nuclear war were on the table for the bi-polar powers; and although China had warheads, it had piss-poor delivery mechanisms. Some of the heads of the military in Washington and Moscow most certainly did have a strong desire to use them, but they were reigned in by their political masters, in policy if not in oversized budgets. And then SDI (Star Wars 1) took the notion of bluffing to a new magnitude. Frankly, Moscow like the rest of us, didn’t think it could really work, but there was a slim chance it might have, so they had to do something… which is what bankrupted the country in the end, which is arguably what Reagan and Bush’s team wanted all along…
There is of course huge capacity in any nation state for developing evil things and doing extremely nihilistic things ,
and that goes for a state’s dissidents but I think the nuclear argument is a bit of a red herring. Which isn’t to say that e.g. the net effect of America’s involvement in say Nicaragua wasn’t just as evil, or worse, for ordinary Nicaraguans, as the Palestinian bus-bombers’ effect on ‘ordinary’ Israelis…
I suppose I should be retrospectively relieved that the whole Mutually Assured Destruction thing was the most gigantic bluff in history, but I’d really like some evidence to support this claim. An awful lot of people spent an awful lot of time and effort on their countries’ nuclear arsenals and I have never heard anyone involved, from the lowest to the highest, say they were not serious, that if the other side did not blink then they would. I am extremely happy that the Soviets did blink twice – in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Yom Kippur war – but I note that both these cases were of limited interest to them.
If we are going to introduce Israel into this discussion, may I point to the Biblical story of Samson: he could be described as a suicide bomber without explosives. He brought a building containing his enemies down by his own brute strength, thereby killing them and ending his own life. Samson is a hero-figure to Jews, the sort of ordinary Israelis who find the mentality of the suicide bomber hard to understand.
“I have never heard anyone involved, from the lowest to the highest, say they were not serious, that if the other side did not blink then they would”
Really? I’m not sure about that. It seems to me I’ve read of some discussions where the highest did fret about exactly that – did ask themselves and each other ‘do we mean it?’ ‘are we serious?’ ‘can we do it?’ ‘should we do it?’ ‘do they think we think they think we think they’ll do it?’ and the like. During the Missile Crisis, most obviously. I think there was massive uncertainty – at least in the civilian branches of government, if not in the military. That was a tension in the Kennedy administration, if I remember correctly: the civilians were considered (by the military, that is) to be too hesitant about the idea of using nukes; and the military were considered to be way too unhesitant about the idea of using them, by the civilian (you know, the elected, accountable) branch.
What they said in public, of course, was entirely another matter. That was the whole point.
As it is the whole point of the greatest movie ever made, ‘Dr Strangelove’. It all turns on the fact that if there is a choice, humans might choose not to do it, therefore the only way to make retaliation certain was to remove the human decision altogether. So they did. The end.
“…the greatest movie ever made, ‘Dr Strangelove’.”
Certainly the greatest dark comedy ever made. Amazing how well that movie holds up after all these years and all these viewings. I wonder if younger generations will feel that way about it, though: I showed it a few years ago to a bunch of undergrads and most of them didn’t like it, didn’t “get” it, said it was too cynical and crude and irrelevant!
Re: Samson and ordinary Israelis
At the beginning of August 2002 I attended the funeral of a former professional colleague who was killed in the Hebrew University cafeteria bombing. The local supplement of “The Jerusalem Post” asked me to assist a reporter who was supposed to be writing individual profiles of the victims and he asked to meet me at the funeral. He gave vent to many expressions of anger, including something along the lines of “everyone knows we’ve got the bomb; why don’t we use it on them?” I rather delicately tried to remind him of the proximity of the populations (anyone out there remember Spike Milligan on S. Africa and the Bomb in the mid-1970s?) and that no one on the Jewish side would go unaffected by such an act. His response was the biblical quotation “tamut nafshi im plishtim” (Let me perish with the Philistines), adding that he thought it would be worth all of “us” going, as long as all of “them” went in the process. My comment, however, would not be that this attitude is typical of most Israelis or Jews of my acquaintance; on the contrary, I think most of them would relegate the journalist in question to the loony right-wing fringe.
Just a personal memory triggered by PaulP’s comment, for whatever it’s worth…
OB: A person only frets about a course of action they think they might take. If they definitely did not intend to unleash the totality of their nuclear arsenal, if they were consciously playing a role to bluff the Soviets and nothing else then they would have only worried abut the effects of their bluffing on the other side, in case their bluffing were to create the very scenario it was meant to prevent.
Obviously until one actually kills one cannot be sure one is capable of killing. But plenty of people have found both a taste and an aptitude for mass murder who beforehand were beset by self-doubt.
There’s an interesting article over at spiked : see http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA8B9.htm.
The subject is the morality of the bombing of Dresden. One interesting quote : “it was also British policy to target civilians”.
[…] had written on suicide bombing back in 2005. I wasn’t paying attention back then, but Ophelia Benson was. As I read it and re-read it my blood began to curdle. I mentioned that Eagleton’s […]