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The Forum > Article Comments > Terror and the ‘self’ > Comments

Terror and the ‘self’ : Comments

By James Cumes, published 2/8/2005

James Cumes argues we must harness our narcissistic tendencies to bring about peaceful change and the elimination of disease and poverty.

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It is interesting to see an alternate explanation for a possible cause of terrorism, too much of what is said in the media focuses on simplistic explanations for a problem that we clearly don’t understand or know how to address. Narcissism may well be a key driver of terrorists, and I suspect it may also be a key reason why terrorism is so effective against us.

Jean Baudrillard’s 1990 book “ Transparency of Evil” considers terrorism as the modern world’s incarnation of evil – the mirror of terrorism as he calls it. In our own narcissistic image of society we have expunged evil and violence and believe we are ruled by reason, freedom, democracy etc. In reality we still face the possibility of violent death through things like car accidents or lightning strikes, but we accept these random acts as part of our world. Terrorism presents a far smaller risk than other causes of death, but it threatens our image of our world, and so is a much more potent force. According to Baudrillard terrorism derives its force from our inability to understand our own natures – something which the terrorists understand better than we do. Perhaps as James says in his article we should look inward if we want to understand terrorism.
Posted by AndrewM, Wednesday, 3 August 2005 9:24:00 PM
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Excellent article James.
May I refer you to "Subhuman Filth and Other Animals" on New Matilda (www.newmatilda.com.au)? Issue 45 or 46, appeared about 2 weeks ago, anyway. You might find it interesting.
Posted by enaj, Thursday, 4 August 2005 4:17:06 PM
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A major cause of terrorism in the last decade has been US arrogance and blowhard from mostly neo-cons associated with the White House, both before and after 9/11. In fact, even before the end of the Cold War when America became proudly unipolar, the neo-cons and associates were devising what they called the Plan.

The perpretators are still part of the White House establishment - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and associates, all having pushed Gulf War One with George Bush Senior. But they were not happy with Bush not finishing the job, because they knew that Iraq would make a perfect base not only to knock out Iran, but to take control of the whole ME, which the neo-cons regard as the natural command centre to own and run the world.

The problem was that the Americans blew their bags too much about it. No apologies to the rest of the world for such threatening rhetoric as the New World Order and The New American Century. Not a tactical word to the former Soviets who were never conquered in war, and left with the second largest arsenal of active nuclear weapons. A Third World also , if it came to a vote, would be right against cocky Americans ruling their world. Then last but not least a growing China, now with so much nuclear bite, it might have been better if the neo-cons and their hangers-on had held their tongues, and the possibility that the current terrorism (we could hope) might not have taken the path it has
Posted by bushbred, Thursday, 11 August 2005 2:01:50 AM
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