Sun Tzu, 2000+ years ago, wrote "one man willing to die can inflict terror on a thousand."
So terrorism is nothing new, or as King Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun."
Liberalism's ideals typically are presented as emotional arguments: people need health care, people need, people deserve, the rich have, equality, equanimity.
And conversely, Conservative views are typically presented as overly dry and unfeeling, a desire to relive a glorified past that never actually existed.
Terrorism works on Liberals because it affects them emotionally. Humans have instincts. We have the instinct for survival. Our instinct drives us to form social groups and norms. Living in a group increases one's chance of survival. One of our most cherished social norms is that we don't kill other civilians.
A suicide bomber goes against the instinct for survival and our social compact. The act of terrorism is a deeply traumatic and powerfully emotional act.
A liberal, who has trained their mind to filter all events and decisions through the logic of emotional need, responds to powerful events with agreement.
People cry that they need and the liberal agrees and attempts to pass laws to give.
People cry that they need and the conservative says, maybe, and reviews the data and how it affects the whole group and their rarefied view of the fake past.
A liberal sees an act of terror and Feels that if someone is committed to such drastic action, then they must deserve to succeed. Or at the very least, such a counterintuitive act, such a powerful act as terror, demands that their cause be somewhat just and worth deep consideration.
Sympathy is not a major natural instinct of the individual. Sympathy is a social norm. So the liberal is not affected by the suffering of the victim, rather the liberal is only affected by the emotionally charged act of counter-instinctive violence.
Liberalism that continues to be based upon reactions to emotional needs is the luxury of selfish needy minds and ultimately ends in disaster for everyone who is unlucky enough to be touched by its members.
2 comments:
Wow, very thoughtful article. I am always interested in the psychological impetus that compells individuals to certain view points.
Thanks. The impetus for this article was a reaction to the weak minded and emotional philosophies of students who are pro terrorism all over university campuses.
If these student were intellectually rigorous or intellectually honest, they would protest the middle east dictatorships and theocrats rather than spend all their energy feeling bad for bus bombers and protesting the only semi-democracy in the middle east.
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