The Anatomy
of
Terrorist Psychology
By Richard Geist, editor
Strategic Investing
For
decades America has been uniquely fortunate and essentially invincible
to what Loren Eiseley once called the "lethal element in
the universe." Open borders and a worldview that, despite
occasional aberrations, promotes creativity, productivity, freedom
and human life have fostered unparalleled economic growth and
personal achievements in this country. But much of this success
relied on the underpinnings of a rational, technological revolution
that has given us a false sense of safety and security a feeling
that our imagination and sense of vision can provide rational
solutions to any problems, anywhere. We found proof of our worldview
in the results of the Gulf War. A few well deployed technologically
perfect air strikes, no casualties on our side, and it was over.
I am reminded here
of comments on the Vietnam experience written by George W. Ball,
Under Secretary of State during the Kennedy and Johnson administration.
"What mislead
a group of able and dedicated men was that, in depersonalizing
the war and treating it too much as an exercise in deployment
of resources, we ignored the one supreme advantage possessed
by the other side: the non-material element of will, of purpose,
and patience, of cruel but relentless commitment to a single
objectiveYet, that was the secret of North Vietnamese success
a rebuke of the spirit to the logic of numbers."
As we listen to plans
for our retaliation for the atrocities committed by a band of
terrorists who value neither peace nor life ours or theirs, it
occurred to me that this war will be more of a psychological
one than a traditional mobilization of combat methodologies.
Deployment of resources is not the issue here; we've always been
good at that. Understanding the psyche of the enemy will be required
to win this war; we've never been sophisticated at that. We are
dealing with pseudo-species a group of people who are essentially
different beings, the most ruthless exploiters of our civilization
since Adolf Hitler.
The Psychology Of Narcissistic Rage
To
understand this human aberration and eliminate it necessitates
an understanding of the psychology of narcissistic rage on both
an individual and group level. For it is only by penetrating
the superficial rhetoric of politics, religion, and economics
that we can understand what motivates them, the meaning of their
hate, and why it is directed at us. It is only by understanding
the terrorists' rage in depth that we can plan an effective and
specific campaign against them rather than relying on the usual
weapons of war.
On an individual level,
narcissistic rage has four characteristics. First, is a thirst
for revenge, an unrelenting need to right some perceived attack
on one's self esteem. It may seem simplistic to say that bin
Laden resented the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during
the Gulf War, or that Timothy McVeigh resented the government's
Waco attack. But if these individuals are distributed in a way
that enables them to identify and personalize what most of us
experience as outside of our selves, then our presence in Saudi
Arabia or our efforts to break up a cult become highly personal
experiences in which terrorists feel personally invaded, insulted,
and humiliated. You may find it hard to imagine that anyone could
feel that way, but make no mistake about it; these folks are
deeply disturbed individuals not crazies in the sense of being
out of touch with rational reality as some would have us believe,
but extremely vulnerable individuals who experience any insult
as a nuclear attack.
If you explore the childhood of the Hitlers of the world, you will typically find a history of abuse, humiliation, deprivation, insult, and injury despite the storybook tales that they like to create about their early growth and development. In minor form we see the revenge aspect of narcissistic rage expressed through road rage. A slight, usually unintentional insult to a driver sets off a chain reaction of rageful revenge that is all out of proportion to what happened occasionally resulting in murder. Multiply this one thousand times and you'll get the picture of the severity of the narcissistic pathology that exists in these terrorists.
Lack Of Empathy
Second,
narcissistic rage is characterized by a lack of empathy. These
individuals have no capacity to put themselves in another's shoes
and see the world from the other person's perspective. Because
most human beings have some capacity for empathy, we become incredulous
when we encounter another individual without such a capacity.
For just as we need oxygen to keep the physical self alive, empathy
the realization that some one else can feel and think their way
into our world is the sustenance that keeps the psychological
self alive; it is the guardian of our self esteem and our personal
equilibrium. Empathy is the basis for human understanding. Without
empathy, there is no ability to understand any one else's point
of view except one's own. In fact, without empathy, there can
be no humanness.
An inability to empathize
is a psychological deficit that precludes negotiation with friends
or enemies. At the height of the cold war, Soviet and American
leaders frequently threatened to kill each other's citizens;
but what prevented that from happening was that leaders on both
sides had the capacity to empathize with the consequences of
destruction. There is no such capacity in the terrorists, or
in other equally disturbed individuals.
Many of you probably
watched in horror a television interview with a terrorist who
showed no emotion when confronted with the fact that he was asking
his close friends to perform suicidal missions. He coldly acknowledged
that he had no feelings about the death of these compatriots.
It is all too easy to be a martyr when empathy is lacking. Not
only does one's own death or the death of others not matter;
true evil is only possible where empathy does not exist.
Boundless Rage
The
third characteristic of narcissistic rage is that it is boundless.
To give you a hint of this uncontained and infinite prolongation
of rage, think of the adult who, upon meeting a first grade enemy
thirty years after their childhood skirmishes, immediately remembers
"when he pushed me down on the playground, and I've been
waiting since then to pay him back." Only severely narcissistically
disturbed people carry this boundless need for revenge. Terrorists
have it in spades. Reasonable limitations such as waging war
within agreed upon parameters (trying to avoid killing and maiming
innocent civilians and children) evoke utter disgust and disregard
in the terrorist. They are willing to wait decades to achieve
their revenge. And the infinite nature of their rage structures
a sophisticated patience and single-minded dedication to their
atrocities.
While the rest of us
are able to get on with our lives after a minor insult or injury,
narcissistically disturbed terrorists lack the capacity to tolerate
suffering an emotional injury. As Heinz Kohut once commented,
"the irrationality of the vengeful attitude becomes even
more frightening in view of the fact thatthe reasoning capacity,
while totally under the domination and in the service of the
overriding emotion, is often not only intact but ever sharpened.
This dangerous feature of individual psychopathology is the parallel
of an equally malignant social phenomenon: the subordination
of the rational class of technicians to a paranoid leader and
the efficiency and even brilliance of their amoral cooperation
in carrying out his purposes."
The Fantasy
Of
Absolute Control
The fourth characteristic of narcissistic rage is the fantasy of absolute control over the environment. Every young child perceives him or herself at one point in development as having omnipotent control over the world. "When I want to raise my hand, it raises; when I am hungry you feed me." The infant perceives that his or her omnipotent will forced the adult to feed the hungry child. Narcissistically disturbed individuals perceive others as part of their own self, over which they expect absolute control. This is difficult to comprehend, but the mere fact that another person or group has its own set of beliefs or feelings is experienced as offensive and intolerable by those with severe narcissistic personality disorders. Absolute control over others is necessary because the maintenance of their emotional stability depends on it. These desperate individuals are literally fighting for their psychological life; the more it is threatened, the more extreme their rage reactions.
Chronic Narcissistic Rage
All children experience moments of rage growing up. If rage does not subside as one becomes an adult, if it is not transformed into mature anger, many other processes are slowly subsumed under the rageful personality gestalt. These processes include the aims and goals of the individual's personality and the individual's reasoning capacity, religious affiliations and beliefs, as well as political motivations. All these processes are rationalized as motivating (terrorist) action, but in fact they are merely channeled through the pervasive rage. No limitations on the power of the terrorist's self is acknowledged; he is, in his own twisted mind, omnipotent. Any failures are blamed on the wickedness and persecution of the defined enemy. And to be sure, every narcissistic personality disorder must find an external enemy to avoid confronting the internal, underlying disturbance that leads to the rage.
Solutions
Clinicians
are accustomed to helping these very difficult, chronically rageful
individuals through years of psychotherapeutic work. It is never
an easy task, and these are patients who are willing to engage
in a therapeutic encounter. Needless to say, terrorists are not
interested in spending any time on the couch, so the question
arises as to how we approach these disorders politically.
First, it is clear
from the description rendered above that these individuals are
not open to negotiation because they have a psychological incapacity
to see the views of others. Nor can they tolerate differences
from their own way of thinking. This will make it extremely difficult
to infiltrate their organization without using one of their own.
It will thus be necessary for the United States to alter its
policy of not using and paying the enemy as infiltrators.
Second, we must remember
that this battle is less of a political one and more of a psychological
one. However much politicians want to turn this into a country
versus country battle, the bottom line is that we ultimately
must mobilize those healthy-minded individuals in the world who,
despite differing philosophies and worldviews, have the psychological
capacity to join together to defeat terrorism. There are many
groups around the world (including Muslims) who will join this
fight if we don't act hastily by ruthlessly bombing their countries
and trying to turn this battle into government vs. government.
It is only on the level of psychological understanding (empathy)
that diverse groups will join together.
Third, the pathology
of the terrorist group is such that any partial escalation of
military activity emanating from the U.S. government will foster
increased acts of revenge. In other words, a partial response
before we are ready to mount a full scale, world wide campaign,
united with other countries, will, in fact, increase the terrorist
retribution fantasies and acts and promote an Israeli-Palestinian
type conflict. We will need to act globally and with decisive
power which will take time and planning rather than attacking
this problem in a piecemeal fashion.
Finally, the reaction
to the terrorist attacks have promoted a specific group of reactions
among many of the U.S. population: irritability, depression,
confused thinking, a manic sense of revenge (as in wanted dead
or alive), sleep problems, and a low level of agitation that
interferes with work. In this context, rational decision-making
is often very difficult. Therefore, we would urge government
officials, who are not immune to these reactions, to be extremely
careful with their threats and immediate action. Even though
the country is longing for immediate retribution, it will be
much more successful if carefully planned and thought out over
time. We cannot and should not let our rational judgments be
impaired by that rage evoked by terrorists' atrocities.
Editor's Note: Richard
Geist is editor of Richard Geit's Strategic Investing,
1905 Beacon St., Waban, MA 02468, 1 year, 12 issues, $157.
