Why do people terrorize others? I don’t see a point. Why bother? All that happens is the destruction of the country they live in.
I’m new to GD and am not sure if this is more of a GQ, but since it really doesn’t have an answer I’ll post this here. Mods please move this if it needs to be moved.
On the philosophical side, one resorts to terrorism when one wishes to demoralize and/or one feels helpless, threatened and righteous.
On the practical side, Al Queada doesn’t give a damn about the people of Afghanistan (or any other country for that matter). They are not beholding to any particular government and care not if the US eradicates every Afghani man, woman and child.
As well ask “Why are there bullies?” Or “Why do people call each other nasty names?” Or “Why do people laugh at Gallagher?”
Er, strike that last one.
That’s right, “strike that last one” because if assaulting consumer goods and produce with a mallet isn’t funny, I don’t know what is.
It’s all about belief.
It doesn’t matter what’s true, or logical, or moral, or right. As long as a person believes that something is right, they’re going to act on it.
A Central American dictator believes that his power is important, so he goes to great lengths to keep it (arrresting, executing, lying, inducing poverty).
An oppressed Central American farmer believes that his family’s well-being is worth getting violent over, so he starts an underground movement that blows up government buildings and causes a lot of mayhem.
A couple of Middle-Eastern groups believe certain things with respect to their religions and their history and the other’s wrongness, and so they shoot each other and engage in suicide bombings and assassination.
A catholic man believes what he reads, so he becomes a priest.
A group of people believe that ‘America’ is evil, so they fly some planes into some buildings as a way to oppose that evil.
A western government believes that it’s current situation justifies war and military action and the imposition of it’s ideology on another nation, so they do so.
A man is angered, and believes his anger is important enough to justify acting on it. So, he yells at someone.
A woman believes she will be improved in the eyes of others if she has surgery to alter her appearance, so she has bags of silicon implanted in her breasts.
This is what people do. They believe things. And they act on them. People do it every day… whether overspending at the mall, or committing genocide. That’s why there were crusades. That’s why people burned their Beatles records. That’s why China invaded Tibet, and that’s why people become terrorists.
As they say, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. (Or just a righteous hero.)
When you convince people to stop doing things based on what they feel and believe, you’ll have removed perhaps the largest obstacle to peace around here.
I have changed the title of this thread from What’s the point? to What’s the point of terrorizing others? Please try to choose more descriptive thread titles in the future.
bibliophage
moderator GQ