# Posted 8:58 AM by Anonymous  

WHAT IF TERRORISM REFLECTED a cultural phenomenon in which much of the world, not only religious fanatics, participated: a growing rejection of big organizations as effective channels to reform; the resort to extra-institutional means; the taking of global affairs into personal hands; the turn to solitary political exertion as the world becomes increasingly complex – and its institutions distant and alienating?

That’s a big thought, a generalization liable to thousands of objections. But I’m airing an idea in order to refine it; I’d like to trigger some discussion. In the meanwhile, let me continue with a bit of elaboration.

It seems to me that if one retreats from the particularities of a number of stories coming in from around the world, there are patterns. Events and trends that appear unrelated at first – from the proliferation of high-school dropouts in Japan to the popularity of home-schooling among Christian conservatives, from the ground-up reinvention of the family in France to the volunteerism of my apathetic generation.com – reflect an underlying dissatisfaction with the way things are; but, more than that, a confidence that they will not be fixed by traditional means, by bills and proposals and commissions and papal promulgations. And the result seems, almost uniformly, to be a rejection of those means, and a resort to Do It Yourself.

In equating this with terrorism, the obligatory must be said (though we ought to live in a world where it need not be): the frustration with the failings of institutional reform does not explain away murder. And Japanese high-school dropouts, truant though they may be, are not Marwan al-Shehhi or Mohamed Atta. But for all the time we spend isolating the variables that make the zealots of al-Qaeda so different, it is worth appreciating that they nevertheless inhabit the same moment in history as we do, the same climate of thought, however separated by distance and by faith. What makes them different, in the end, is not an alternative source of stimuli, perhaps, but a twisted response to stimuli experienced by all of us. To grasp their evil, we must understand how grievances known to millions refract perversely through their lenses.

It might be said that, as democracy has spread in the Cold War’s wake, it is has been quicker to spark the consciousness of self-government than the reality of self-government. There are two reasons for this. Democracy has moral prerequisites – the faculties to be free – that are just beginning to germinate after a season of hibernation. But more than that, globalization has had contradictory effects: while diffusing the idea of popular sovereignty (in the last decade, for the first time, half the world enjoyed it), it has also entwined governments in world bodies and corporate affiliations that dilute the voice of lay participants, while increasing the general level of social complexity, inflating bureaucracies and transferring decision-making centers in Europe, for example, to distant netherworlds like Brussels, Strasbourg and Frankfurt. The result, in short, is a misalignment: a swelling chorus of citizens eager to exert control over their lives, and governments – shackled by treaties and free trade and supranational bodies – unable to cede control.

Some examples: this is the gripe of the anti-globalization rock-throwers, whose views I find simpliste, but whose anger is real, if misshapen. The smart ones are not really against globalization, perhaps because they have understood it is not something that will soon be voted upon, but rather a foregone conclusion. They are for fair labor standards and democratic bodies to represent poor workers and environmental safeguards – things the marketplace alone will not provide. However intelligent or practicable these ideas are, it is important to note how they have evolved from political agitation to angry protests and rants. It is the belief of the anti-globalization crowd that their voices, and the voices of the third-world workers they claim to represent, are drowned by companies, who block conventional corridors to reform. That’s why they throw rocks; that’s why my generation is generally so apathetic; but they nevertheless have a civic sense, for people my age are said to volunteer at among the highest rates ever. They are challenging a failure to fix the world through the old ways, and taking their ignored proposals into their own hands. The most extreme example of this worldview was supplied by the college-student-turned-pipe-bomber.

The phenomenon manifests itself in other ways too – not all of them having to do with globalization. The French – more than others, but not unlike others – have reinvented the family. Since the creation of PAC’s in 1999, the civil unions largely intended for gays but quickly swallowed up by straight couples as well, some 43,000 couples have registered, says the venerable Le Monde. Another 545,000 French couples are raising a child that does not belong to both members of the couple. Thirteen percent of the people live alone. Nearly a fifth of all couples live together without being married. More than half of all first children are born out of wedlock. And 16 percent of households with children have only one parent. Clearly, the old pattern – courtship, followed by marriage, followed by children, and then tranquil bliss – is not working for millions of people. But how is marriage to be reformed? Never mind: Do It Yourself!

The same thing in the media. The rise of blogdom is not random; it is a reflective cultural phenomenon. One of the signal developments of the past few years is the near-incestuous absorption of media firms by one another. There is a widespread sense, I think, that one is not hearing all sides, because some sides own more channels than others. That is the genesis of bloggers like Matt Drudge, and the reason he can draw more than 4 million hits a day. It also explains his bizarre obsession with media conglomerations. When you grow alienated from vast organizations like AOL Time Warner, you Do It Yourself – you blog.

This is about escaping from a sense of impotence – about agitating to reassert power over one’s affairs. I think back to conservatives in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, who grew disaffected and disillusioned by the succession, first, of civil rights and integration rulings by the Supreme Court, and then by the holding in Roe v. Wade that women have a constitutional right to abortion. There was a feeling that morality had been hijacked by distant, manipulative elites; not a sense of slipping from the majority into the minority, but rather of the majority losing control over the levers of power. That was the spark for a conservative revival, but it was accompanied by quieter acts of protest and solitary exertion: a growing fraction of kids taught at home, raised in Church and barred from the culture of Hollywood in movies and on TV. There was a real sense that virtue was slipping away and could not be restored; so depravity had to be escaped.

The frightening wave of populism across Europe reflects this, too. Le Monde writes: “It was not long ago that François Mitterand got himself elected with a promise of ‘changer la vie.’ Today by contrast, politcal elites seem impotent: between the constraints of globalization, of our European engagements and the ‘invisible hand’ of the market, the game seems blocked.” As has been argued, the millions who voted for Le Pen and Fortuyn could not all have been racist fanatics with a penchant for Moroccan-baiting. There is a deeper disaffection with the increasing length of the leash on which European governments operate. Think of the populist gains as positive, nor normative – as a critique of inefficacy, not a utopian dream.

There are less momentous but equally revealing signs of this cultural climate. The popularity of rap and tattered clothes and “independent” music and films among the rich suggests how nonconformity – the a priori rejection of tradition – has become mainstreamed even among those who actively uphold tradition. Even the culture of self that so absorbs Americans these days reflects an underlying dissatisfaction with discussion of the alternative – public life. Once upon a time, ordinary people would talk in private about public things; now powerful people talk in public about private things. Oprah tried to get serious: no one would watch. When people feel they can’t reform the world, they fall prey to “remembering your spirit.”

Which brings us to terrorism (no offense intended to Oprah in that admittedly rough transition). The virgins-bound (or raisins-bound, as proper Koranic exegesis might dictate) 9/11 hijackers were only the most extreme and heinous participants in this global culture. Though their hatred of the West is blind, it did not spring from nowhere; it has flourished in moments when Western power has stifled local control. In my view, most such moments were plainly justified. But that doesn’t relieve Arab frustration.

From the Soviet presence – in which this recent round of jihad has its origins – to the Gulf War angry Muslim zealots like Osama bin Laden began to complain of alien rule, of foreigners depriving them of government by their native traditions – in their case, unvarnished Islam. It is important to note, though, that bin Laden’s effort is not just against infidels, but heretics, too – in his mind, the secular, moderate, corrupt states of Arabia who have given in to the machinations of the West. There is a reason America is called the Great Satan in Iran – the Devil does not conquer by force, but by temptation; however guilty Americans are of penetrating the Middle East, Islamist fanatics blame their own for being seduced by the allure of “Friends.” The result, in the minds of fanatics, has been the departure of Arab states from Islam – the substitution of Western morality for a home-grown variety, and the demise of local control.

Terrorism, then, is not a simple demonstration of anger, but a carefully calibrated rejection of political solutions: such solutions are hopeless for the zealot, because politics is dominated by the West. Suicide bombings in Israel are often timed to stall or cancel peace settlements. Of course, the Jewish settlements, too, show a determination not to hold out for an institutional solution, but to Do It Yourself. When Colin Powell, in the recent aftermath of September 11, called President Musharraf of Pakistan and told him, one general to another, that he would have to cooperate with the American war on a regime his country helped to create, with seven specific demands, he acceded on the spot. It is crucial to think about that for a second. For all the right reasons, Musharraf admirably changed Pakistani policy overnight to satisfy America. But what is the effect of that if you were a Pakistani who, perhaps, liked bin Laden. You are, in such a case, an objectionable human being, but you are now also an angry one, and you might not have patience to wait around for the next referendum; you might just Do It Yourself.

If you do, you will be only the most vile exemplar of an attitude exhibited far beyond the Hindu Kush.

Let’s talk – docsmiley@aol.com.
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