why people become Islamic extremists...


moralist

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Your finger is placed precisely on the pulse of the issue, Tony.

Typical modern societies look everywhere else for the cause of evil acts...

...except personal responsibility.

Greg

Yup, self-responsibility, otherwise known as the philosophy of thebuckstopsherewithme-ism.

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Your finger is placed precisely on the pulse of the issue, Tony.

Typical modern societies look everywhere else for the cause of evil acts...

...except personal responsibility.

Greg

Yup, self-responsibility, otherwise known as the philosophy of thebuckstopsherewithme-ism.

I consider it to be the only proper way to live. :smile:

Greg

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I think you are right that we shouldn't collectivize the description or psycho-social understanding of this killer or that shooter or the other assassin or suicide-murderer. One of the better kinds of analysis of the (ill-posed?) "Radicalization" process comes from the countries like Tunisia where the question is life and death, where so-called radicalization threatens their path to democracy and an open society. The amount of analysis is a lot to plod through, but the non-abstract processes (if process there is in actuality) are onea that the society hopes to understand, anticipate, defuse, dismantle, countermand.

I think you're over-complicating. It's simple before it gets complex. If a society tends to the idea that what men do is largely the result of causes beyond their control, it's because the society shows its dominant philosophy of societal determinism (even, predestination) and intellectually also would be largely collectivist. (I don't think this is black or white, more of a continuum). If another society is greatly individualist, implicitly and outwardly, it will incline to the other end, of personal volition and self-responsibility. And not breed a climate of apologism or shared responsibility where vile doings have "causality".

What I'm saying is that it's the general trend into Progressivism that encourages terror, or at the least, doesn't discourage it. Contemporary intellectuals and politicians with a determinist bent, have let the West down. Evil is as evil does - not a concept the secular are fond of.

Other nations like Tunisia, trying to find their feet and democratize, are just as vulnerable to the wrongs of western progressivism, since terrorist leaders aren't ignorant - they understand ahead of time what makes westerners tick, the universal fear of terror, our notions of cause-effect, and how our predictable media will play it.

It's about over-arching levels, before one gets down to the complications, psychologies and exceptions of individual cases..

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  • 4 months later...

I think the primary reason why people become Islamic extremists is the way they are brought up. Since childhood, they are brainwashed much more to adhere to their religion than people from other religion are brainwashed. And Islam is a religion which is meant more as a political agenda for spreading itself unlike other religions which though irrational, are inclined more towards the ethics parts. When one strictly adheres to faith in religion and that religion is this barbaric, they tend to become more of extremists than people following other religions in comparison.

Also, people from other parts of the world have changed as compared to their predecessors. There has been renaissance in the west but nothing like that has happened to any considerable degree with Islamic countries. They are almost as they were before a few centuries. Rationality and development in science, technology etc happening all over the world has not touched them to any considerable degree.

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Welcome to OL, Alexander. It is a dynamic of the West, widely accepted around the world, that young people challenge the norms of their parents. It is true in the Arab/Islamic lands. Nothing guarantees that "brainwashing" will work. If you goto the Ayn Rand Institute and find their annual Essay Contests, you will see that historically many winners and honorably mentioneds come from Catholic schools. In some years, you can find clusters from the same school. No one excels at brainwashing like the Catholic church. And yet... People make choices. Crimes are committed by individuals who make bad choices.

As for rationality and technology and all that, I have posted here before some statistical evidence that engineers are prominent among actual terrorists.

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Michael writes:

I have posted here before some statistical evidence that engineers are prominent among actual terrorists.

Yes... which is why it's a mistake to dismiss Islamic fascists as "primitive" when many of them are are highly intelligent, and even educated in Western liberal government "medrasas".

This is how evil operates.

Greg

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@Selene, more paranoid nonsense. No need to go on a crusade to eliminate a philosophy based on the actions of 1% of the adherents. Furthermore if you look into the history there's quite a bit of US meddling in the Middle East which these terrorists use as justifications. Not that I expect you to actually look into that, you'll probably just attack the way I think and spout more irrelevant facts that don't counter my argument.

Apparently, psychologizing is a way not to answer arguments.

Second, where did you get the "1%" figure from?

Did Islam meddle in the Middle East when Muhammad conquered and slaughtered the non-believers?

If that was "meddling," that would be earlier than the American meddling in the Middle East, correct?

A...

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  • 4 weeks later...

Two Middle East mothers are sitting in a cafe chatting over a plate of tabouli and a pint of goat's milk. The older of the two pulls a small folder out of her handbag and starts flipping through photos. They start reminiscing. ''This is my oldest son, Mujibar. He would have been 24 years old now.''

''Yes, I remember him as a baby.'' says the other mother cheerfully.

"He's a martyr now though." the mother confides.

"Oh, so sad dear...'' says the other.

''And this is my second son, Khalid. He would have been 21.''

''Oh, I remember him,'' says the other happily, ''he had such curly hair when he was born.''

''He's a martyr too...'' says the mother quietly.

''Oh, gracious me...'' says the other.

''And this is my third son. My baby. My beautiful Ahmed. He would have been 18'', she whispers.

"Yes," says the friend enthusiastically, ''I remember when he first started school...''

''He's a martyr also,'' says the mother, with tears in her eyes.

After a pause and a deep sigh, the second Muslim mother looks wistfully at the photographs and, searching for the right words, says . . .. "They blow up so fast, don't they?"

:)

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What do the Jihadi blow up dolls, the females, get in Allah's garden?

The dumb ass men get the alleged virgins...

A theological conundrum that involves sex...

Maybe we should ask Justice Kennedy since he is also a person who can't mind his own business either...

A...

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