A psychological underpinning of jihad
Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert writes at page 22 of Stumbling on Happiness:
people find it gratifying to exercise control — and not for the future it buys them, but for the exercise itself. Being effective — changing things, influencing things, making things happen — is one of the fundamental needs with which human brains seem to be naturally endowed, and much of our behavior from our infancy onward is simply an expression of this penchant for control. Before our butts hit the very first diaper, we already have a throbbing desire to suck, sleep, poop, and make things happen…Toddlers squeal with delight when they knock over a stack of blocks, push a ball, or squash a cupcake on their foreheads. Why? Because they did it, that’s why…Look, Mom, my hand made that happen. The room was different because I was in it. I thought about falling blocks, and poof, they fell.
Fouad Ajami speaks of the “belligerent self-pity” of the Arab Muslim world, and we see the results of such perversity on a daily basis. Consider the consequences of growing up with a language that has no word for curiosity, where apostasy is a capital crime, where invention and innovation — and all free questioning — are taboo or highly circumscribed, and where groupthink is the oppressive norm. For certain of those of a zealous, literalist and devout mind (leaving aside the perverse elements for a moment), is it really all that surprising that young, sometimes quite talented men, turn to jihad — one place where their innate desire for control, rather than submission, has a scripturally approved outlet?
Of course the consequence is irrational destruction, often self-destruction. Great crimes. But the greatest crimes are those of the old — those who have themselves made a kind of adaptation to life but will not bring down the literalism in theology that empowers their children to create such evil in the world.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
The Arab Muslim world has been bypassed by the rest of the world, such that they make the Third World look like a step up. And it is all self imposed.
Countries like Turkey have found ways to be Muslim and not be backward, but it involves keeping a certain level of secular control, as recent political events there show.
The more ideological a Muslim country is, the more backward and economically stagnant it is. Look at today’s Iran compared to the Shah’s Iran before Jimmy Carter pulled the rug out from under him. Look at the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. Compare the vitality of Pakistan vs. India.
No wonder Muslim youth are so frustrated, particularly when they can see what the rest of the world is like on cable television. And their answer to their religion imposed ignorance and drudgery is to drag the rest of the world down to their level, so they can feel less inferior.
It has been over six hundred years since a Muslim nation has made a significant contribution to the world, and as long as these countries mire themselves in 14th century laws and beliefs, they will never be a significant contributor to the world again.