The Singer, not the Song
More evidence of the decline of the popular notion that people do things because of their membership in groups. This one is especially striking because it does not target the notion that people behave in particular ways due to skin color or nationality -- a notion we could call the ``naive'' version of the zombie theory of identity.
Instead, this description of the ``bunch of guys'' theory of terrorist recruitment strikes at the more intellectually respectable -- though equally false -- idea that people kill and die because of their beliefs. Call this the sophisticated version of the zombie theory: The model is, I hear a sermon, or read a book, and, as a consequence, change what I believe. Then because of my new beliefs, I go forth and wreak mayhem.
As Marc Sageman describes his research in this New Yorker piece by Raffi Khatchadourian, he found that terrorists were usually motivated not by their ideas, but by their immediate social circle.
Perhaps his most unexpected conclusion was that ideology and political grievances played a minimal role during the initial stages of enlistment. “The only significant finding was that the future terrorists felt isolated, lonely, and emotionally alienated,” Sageman told the September 11th Commission in 2003, during a debriefing about his research. These lost men would congregate at mosques and find others like them. Eventually, they would move into apartments near their mosques and build friendships around their faith and its obligations. He has called his model the “halal theory of terrorism”—since bonds were often formed while sharing halal meals—or the “bunch of guys” theory. The bunch of guys constituted a closed society that provided a sense of meaning that did not exist in the larger world.
In other words, they don't believe and then join. They join, and then believe.
By the way, this is the second time in the past few months that Sageman's work has been cited in a New Yorker piece about terrorism. (The other was George Packer's ``Knowing the Enemy'' of Dec 18, 2006.)
