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Totalism - The Terrorists Mindset
Steven Barrie-Anthony
We all have our enemies � from playground
bullies and patronizing bosses to racists, to rapists and murderers. But
there is a line that separates the more totalistic individual from
regular people. Let�s say the playground bully of your youth was a short
kid with black hair. Most of us won�t live the rest of our lives hating
everybody who is short and has black hair.
The totalistic individual, however, has a hard time making that
distinction. He tends, instead, to see whole groups as "evil", to use
them as a scapegoat onto which he projects his rage at the unjust nature
of the world. The totalistic individual tends
to characterize himself as the tragically, even heroically oppressed,
and to blame and vilify the defined oppressor.
What factors contribute to the development of the "totalistic identity"? Scholars such as Robert Lifton and his mentor Erik Erikson have suggested that totalism is a solution to various hardships in childhood, or to severe "identity confusion" in adolescence or young adulthood.
Simply put, being confused about who you are during these very important developmental stages may lead to the central question: Am I good? If the person in question sees fault within, he will see himself as totally bad, which he cannot afford. So he looks elsewhere to find an "evil" group (the oppressor), and is able to see himself (the oppressed) as wholly good when contrasted with the evil other. His fractured identity comes together similarly to the way a divided nation might come together when faced with an attack.
Whether you agree with this analysis or not, what seems clear is that when charismatic leaders express totalism as a solution to widespread suffering, people tend to listen. Hence the countless Nazi soldiers, who, under Hitler�s hand, murdered millions of fellow humans. Hence the terrorists who recently ploughed passenger-laden planes into crowded centers of government and commerce.
It�s also clear that there are specific psychological and sociological characteristics present in these, and in every situation where totalism has showed its face. These specific characteristics, if interrupted, would severely lessen the future effectiveness of charismatic leaders such as Mussolini, Hitler, and Bin Laden.