- The U.S. "war on terrorism" has now consumed
thousands of lives, approaches a trillion dollars in public and private
costs, weakens civil liberties, and recruits even larger numbers of terrorists.
Does such a price really enhance our long-term security? Does it actually
make the world a better place for our children?
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- [Beginning his professional life as a Protestant minister
and psychologist, now a cosmologist and author, Paul has served as a U.S.
naval officer, a U.S. Foreign Service Officer (15 years), and CEO of an
international nonprofit (15 years).]
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- An Irrational Response? Most of the world considers America's
primarily military response, including the invasion of Iraq, out of proportion
to the realistic threat to its citizens. Even if one accepts that special
interests secretly pushed the President to war, how did they get Congress
to ignore the Constitution's requirement that it declare war? How did they
convince voters to mortgage the war with their grandchildren's future?
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- In my view, the public's acquiescence was shaped by a
deep, unarticulated psychological sense of threat. A threat more ominous
than calculations about the odds of being killed by terrorists. A threat
to the individual's psychogenic core.
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- Europeans and others have had difficulty understanding
why America rejected offers of advice, based on their civil-police approach
to terrorism, in the weeks following 9/11. They know from experience in
Vietnam, Algeria, and other former colonies that conventional high-tech
warfare radicalizes multiple new terrorists for each one it kills. They
cannot imagine why the U.S. would take countermeasures (a full-blown military
response) that are so counterproductive (produce more terrorists). Unaware
of the psychological depth of America's religious fundamentalism, the Europeans
could only see irrational behavior.
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- A Psychological Perspective. To understand this American
"irrationality", I believe we must examine religious influences
on today's terrorism and the U.S. response to it. We must go deep enough
to identify the interaction of existential beliefs and their associated
psychological states with individual and group behavior. When the validity
of their soul-binding beliefs is threatened by physical or psychological
coercion, humans lash out at any representative of the perceived threat.
In a religious context, the fundamentalist, whether Muslim, Christian,
Jewish, or other, will use any means available to defend the faith that
holds his soul together. Their defense may be direct, as for kamikaze pilots
or suicide bombers, or indirect, through the use of mercenaries or surrogate
foot soldiers willing to be "heroes".
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- Historical accounts of Christians and Jews show them
fighting with tenacity, using acts of terrorism, when their fundamental
beliefs were threatened. From this experience, we have no reason to expect
that American force can subdue the abject existential terror that arises
when Islamic core beliefs are threatened.
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- In fact, we see this historical scenario being re-played
by America as well. The 9/11 attack had meaning far beyond its suggestion
of physical vulnerabilities. By its clear religious audacity, the terrorists'
tactical suicide called into question the American's presumption of a "God-protected
country". Due to its ingrained notion of "a chosen people, under
the True God", America was forced by its own psychosis to blast the
hell out of the enemy to prove that God was still protecting it. (Many
apparently saw the successful attack with airliners as God permitting the
Devil to "give us a wake up call" to return to God's fold. This
included not only fundamentalists, but some who had edged away from religious
orthodoxy.)
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- Seeking Ways to Erase Conflict. Some secular and more
progressive religious groups in the U. S. think the solution to terrorism
is for America (and the Judeo-Christian West in general) to separate out
moderate Muslims and "help" Islamic fanatics see the "light",
to convince them that their "extreme or out-dated religious beliefs",
in contrast to those of the West, are ill-founded. This unilateral "educational"
approach would be a mistake, reinforcing, as it does, a Western religious
elitism. It cannot succeed.
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- Muslims, just like Christians and Jews, do not readily
respond to proselytizing or attempts at conversion. It is conceivable some
moderates among them might respond to a sincere, egalitarian discussion
of fundamental beliefs. But how many Christians or Jews would put their
own theological assumptions on the table as just another belief system?
Without being obviously unfair they could not ask the Muslims to question
Islamic views of reality without questioning their own. For untold Americans,
it would unleash their own soul-wrenching terror.
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- I believe the psychological force behind the present
American-Islamic "war of terrorism" derives from the same source
on both sides. Each unconsciously fears a public, transparent discussion
of the assumptions on which all supernatural religions rest. A rational,
scientific exploration of the religious history of Western civilization,
and its role in powerful, modern institutions would reveal the shaky assertions
on which we have built the edifices of power (in the East and West). Believers
in any religion whose "sanity" rests on its theological assumptions
are not psychologically ready to be so vulnerable. Deny a fundamental precept
of their conception of "God and his people" and you get "a
srceeching, snarling, all-claws-bared, fight for survival".
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- Can we test this assertion? I believe we can by looking
at the correlation of behaviors with existential (religious) beliefs. Analysis
of believers' reactions to domestic issues show they shake important underpinnings
of the faith. Abortion rights, gay marriage, and evolution elicit deep,
existential emotional turbulence.
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- In the big picture of the cosmos, what difference did
it make in 2004 to give a few gay and lesbian couples the same civil rights
as heterosexual couples? Once again we saw a reaction way out of proportion
to the event. The national campaign became an all-out war to defeat candidates
who were on the "wrong" side of the issue. It became clear that
these voters had declared the goal of a theocratic state in America. They
gave their power to "religious" officials, even though those
officials made policies counter to the individual believer's own interests.
Support was given to economic policies detrimental to the voters' families.
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- This over-reaction, in many ways counter to the religious
group's own long-term interests, occurs because gay marriage poses the
same sort of psychological threat as Islamic terrorism. Namely, it calls
into question beliefs deeply buried in the psyche that have become the
foundations of one's deepest sense of being. Other so-called wedge issues
pose the same existential threat to believers.
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- On all these issues, we're in the realm of assertions
based in faith, a "take-it-all or leave-it" stance, that cannot
be negotiated with the non-believer. But, you ask, why do people feel they
must fight over these specific beliefs. Because they have boxed themselves
into a situation where all their basic assumptions have to stand up or
the whole "house of words" tumbles if one shibboleth is removed.
This means they cannot discuss, and certainly not accept, the possibility
that they might not have it all right. To admit a deficiency sends tremors
up the spine.
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- [This is the first in a series of articles that will
examine the hypotheses set forth here and explore possible options for
stimulating an effective dialogue that could foster human unity and the
development of greater harmony among different world views. Feedback from
readers is very welcome. I am testing a self-administered survey to help
individuals assess their relative tendencies in physical, supernatural,
mystical, and skeptical modes of consciousness. Participation in its development
is also welcome. See background and contact information below. Thanks,
Paul]
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- _____
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- Paul Von Ward - P.O. Box 55, Monteagle, TN 37356 - Tel:
931/924-3684
- Gods, Genes, & Consciousness and Our Solarian Legacy
discount prices at Hampton Roads Publishing. Order books and see my schedule
at: ttp://www.hamptonroadspub.com/go.php?a=63.
- Books are also available at on-line and neighborhood
bookstores.
- See my website at http://www.vonward.com
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