Many religious texts contain examples of mass murder condoned by god or gods.
When you have your mind shaped by a religion which throughout your childhood and adolescence forbade having a pet dog, playing a musical instrument, or dating a girl, its little wonder that so many grow up unhinged.
ISIS makes it pretty clear what they’re standing for and the sorts of things that ISIS members do. It’s not really duping.
Psychopaths fit right in. The only thing good about it is they’re not here; corporations have lost future CEOs, and political parties have lost future “world leaders.”
Is it really that surprising though?
Humans do this. Humans go to war. Happens quite often, and getting folks - young, old, men, women - to sign up for it doesn’t tend to be very hard at all. “Something something righteous cause, something something ancient pride, something something divine right” tends to be more than enough to do the trick.
If everyone around you is saying something is normal and obvious, it may become obvious to you. If most of your political discussions are with people who debate the virtues of Al-Qaeda vs. ISIS that starts to be the range of opinion you orient yourself in.
I hope I’m agreeing with you by saying this: Using the word brainwashing makes something common through human history sound extraordinary.
Absolutely right, and very well put.
If these people are “brainwashed,” than practically all of Europe was “brainwashed” during WWI and again during WWII; practically all of France and Great Britain was “brainwashed” throughout the entirety of their respective colonialist periods; and practically the entire ancient world was “brainwashed” for millennia. Warfare is a thing that humans often choose to engage in. Historically speaking, the ISIS “phenomenon,” such as it is, doesn’t stand out as in any way exceptional.