Thesis – On Terrorism
‘Terrorism’ – as an action – is a mechanism that emerges in societies as a ‘release valve’ for otherwise un-utilised force. That is, terrorism allows surplus force that would have accumulated at a specific locus to be expended.
posted by MH at 5:23 pm
8 Comments:
I'm reminded of somthing I had read regarding the development of certain kinds of armed forces in particular medieval swiss states (before switzerland existed as a federation of states). The crux of it was that these developments only occured because there was an excess of capable bodies and no way to utilise them.
Your crux closely resembles the line along which I am thinking (and aren’t there whole Marxist histories arguing that the only reason certain wars were fought was an excess of man-power that needed to be controlled?).
My working hypothesis is that a considerable amount of ‘force’ must be channelled into a terrorist action, which means that the force must have an origin (point of generation) somewhere in the ‘social system’. The most obvious generators of surplus force are those individuals who are under-utilised, and whose capacity can be readily dedicated to the perpetration of a terrorist act. Further, it seems as though once the act takes place a considerable amount of force has been used.
The apparent problem with the thesis – or the one I’m not certain about asserting at this point – is the possible implication that if terrorist acts are a safety valve then they must be a necessary part of the system, like the other safety valves, even though they are a completely contingent mechanism … I’m just not sure about any of this, including the original thesis …
An apologies for the terminology, I fear that it reads rather post-Marxist for my liking.
Rephrase (after consideration) – surplus force is a necessary condition for terrorist acts; a terrorist act cannot occur without the system having surplus force.
Clearly cases of high un-employment, particularly due to over-population or lack of gainful war fought elsewhere, or similar scenarios are going to cause internal brigandry, civil war and social violence, which could be either a) termed ‘terrorism’, or b) manifest itself in the form of ‘terrorism’. In a) then with the definition of terrorism as internal social violence your statement is accurate for acts of internal social violence, but I feel the term ‘terrorism’ is applied to more specific sorts of acts, though it is basically true for all internal social violence whether terrorism or not. In b) we kind of need to define ‘terrorism’, not an easy job, though I am willing to postulate that it involves a conflict. To have a conflict you require more than one politically definable group which have met at some point. This means that you statement is possibly true of wars of all kinds at this point, as if the politically definable groups are of a comparable strength, then you fight a war.
To me it seems that terrorism can be thought of as a weapon, but one you use when it is the only available one, as it permits an outcome which is only desirable if you know you can’t win war by force, so you turn it into a psychological war of attrition. So there must be a lopsided conflict as a condition for your thesis to work for terrorism, as only in a lopsided conflict, would someone employ 'terrorism' (you would hope).
If there is a lopsided conflict, then there is generally one side which is dispossessed or excluded by the other. This results in an un-utilized force i.e. the excluded group, and generally speaking co-habitation of the two groups in some capacity (even if not the entire population of that group), as until only recently, the ability to commit acts of terrorism on the other side of the world been available and has only existed since the ability to exclude or dispossess on the other side of the world. Still, in cases such as Iraq, there is foreign occupation.
This means that unlike a) this definition treats terrorism as external conflict; it is conflict between groups, not within a group. This brings into question the internal nature suggested by 'mechanism that emerges in societies as a 'release valve' for otherwise un-utilized force' and 'surplus force'.
Also, by 'accumulated', do you mean that force expended in terrorism is the residual build up of a sort of bi-product, or that which just has not been properly used elsewhere?
I should clarify; at present I’m not interested in the causes or the methods of terrorism rather I’m trying to understand how ‘terrorism’ actually works given that as action it generally translates pure force into power. To this extent, I agree with your initial observations of how terrorism comes into being. I also agree that fundamentally terrorism is not all that different from other forms of social violence, because social violence seems to rely on there been un-utilised force.
Where I think we differ is that you are trying to analyse the political elements – which is a perfectly legitimate method – where as at the moment I’m simply interested in the nature of the mechanism itself, hence the focus on a force/power analysis. And, yes, I think that the mechanism can be sufficiently isolated from its political (in the ideological sense) context to sustain this analysis. The problem with a political analysis such as yours is that issues like trying to determine whether the mechanism originates internally or externally arise, which seems to be less of a problem from my perspective at present because they are always internal to a system at some level (whether they view themselves as being internal or external to other systems seems irrelevant when contemplating a mechanism that is, in essence, the same in a wide variety of contexts).
[I feel as though I’m Ol’ Merciless at the moment, apologies if I’m coming across that way.]
On to the slightly more technical point of ‘accumulated’. I’ve been thinking that a terrorist act requires a considerable amount of force to be expended, in basic elements like planning and preparation and in the actual act. Now this force must be generated by various ‘agents’ who come to constitute the mechanism that facilitates the act. It seems that an amount of force – that is not used in other systems – must ‘collect’ within the mechanism, and be converted into power during the act, hence the accumulation. What I’m presently thinking is that the capacity to generate this force must exist prior to the terrorist act, but the force used is specifically generated for the act.
[Please tell me that I’m completely mistaken in my analysis, because I’m not at all sure about it at the moment and would like a good reason to throw it all away and start again.]
All violence can fit your mechanism at the current moment, even wars, and this is my contention with it being a mechanism for terrorism - it is, but it fails at any real explanatory merit . It must, as a blueprint of terrorism, describe a model of why terrorism occurs, though at the current moment it describes a model as to why violence occurs.
Currently it reads although force is generated and expended (I maintain internally) with a certain amount of residual build up of left over force, which eventually must be released in the form of terrorism. Once this is done, terrorism ceases until a new build up occurs.
Ultimately what your model does is give a mechanism for civil unrest, a kind of political checks and balances which produces social violence periodically when the internal use of force is not fully used productively. It is infact already politicized. This is my problem.
Force implies a vector: it has direction, and as such some description of these vectors is required for the model to work. If by adding these vectors to your mechanism 'politicizes' it then this is by virtue of the fact that terrorism is a political mechanism. By political I am meaning the interaction between distinct entities, which amounts to the interaction of power. Primarily terrorism is a form of resistance. Maybe rather than talking about un-utilized force, you should be looking more at a build up of resisting force, that eventually is expended in acts of terrorism as what is occuring is not so much un-utilized force, as redirected force.
Although this is not that distinct from '...the capacity to generate this force must exist prior to the terrorist act, but the force used is specifically generated for the act,' this hardly needs the collection of un-used force, it simply requires force previously expended elsewhere to be re-directed. I am assuming that the built up force you are refering to is a kind of anger or resentment towards a force acting against the generating force.
The mechanism and causes of terrorism is simple then: an entity with a force acting against it will eventually redirect its own force to resist it and this may take the form of terrorism if that is the only means of resistance available.
This brings me ultimately to what the issue is: terrorism isn't a mechanism, but a deployment.
Rowan
I’d just like to clarify where we’re at presently.
Are you attempt to refute the thesis – ‘Terrorism’ – as an action – is a mechanism that emerges in societies as a ‘release valve’ for otherwise un-utilised force. That is, terrorism allows surplus force that would have accumulated at a specific locus to be expended – as presented, or are you proposing that the thesis is insufficient?
My argument is that it seems to me to be nonsensical treating terrorism as the mechanism. What I believe you have is a mechanism for violence. Terrorism needs to be looked at as a strategy - an attempt to attain a specific end. The mechanism that allows it is still that of violence, but this is not a sufficient explanation of either a) what terrorism is, or b) why it occurs. Sadly terrorism I feel can not be explained as a strategy withiout some degree of historization or politicization. To look for a hostorical necessity in its functioning, as the release valve idea does, fails to explain why it only occurs under very specific historical conditions usually tied to colonial or empirial behaviour. Violence on the other hand may be treated as an inherent aspect of society and possibly even an essential part of maintaining a functioning society.
There is currently ideas describing mechanisms such as yours for the rise and fall of empires in history, but they have high emphasis on points of contact along borders, and to my knowledge they still only postulate violence as the mechanism with its specific forms as historically and politically contingent.
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