A common stereotype is that someone who commits such abhorrent acts as planting a bomb on an airliner, detonating a vehicle bomb on a city street, or tossing a grenade into a crowded sidewalk café is abnormal. [pp. 26-27]
In fact, there is no psychological evidence that terrorists are diagnosably psychopathic or otherwise clinically disturbed. [p. 30]
there is little reliable evidence to support the notion that terrorists in general are psychologically disturbed individuals. [p. 30]
It seems clear that terrorists are extremely alienated from society, but alienation does not necessarily mean being mentally ill. [p. 30]
captrek's note: Under the circumstances, Nero and his crew are of course alienated from everybody and everything except each other.
Commonly held assumptions about the relationship between fanaticism and mental illness...seem to be inappropriate. [p.32]
Terrorists whose only sense of significance comes from being terrorists cannot be forced to give up terrorism, for to do so would be to lose their very reason for being [p. 35]
captrek: Once again, it's clear that Nero and crew would struggle to find a sense of significance. They have no home, no family, no business, no history in this century. What matters most to them is their home in the Prime timeline's 24th century, and there’s not much they can do to be significant to that world besides avenge its destruction.
Every group, according to Bion, has two opposing forces—a rare tendency to act in a fully cooperative, goal-directed, conflict-free manner to accomplish its stated purposes, and a stronger tendency to sabotage the stated goals. The latter tendency results in a group that defines itself in relation to the outside world and acts as if the only way it can survive is by fighting against or fleeing from the perceived enemy; a group that looks for direction to an omnipotent leader, to whom they subordinate their own independent judgment and act as if they do not have minds of their own; and a group that acts as if the group will bring forth a messiah who will rescue them and create a better world. [pp. 35-36]
On the basis of his observation of underground resistance groups during World War II, J.K. Zawodny (1978) concluded that the primary determinant of underground group decision making is not the external reality but the psychological climate within the group. For action-oriented terrorists, inaction is extremely stressful. For action-oriented members, if the group is not taking action then there is no justification for the group. Action relieves stress by reaffirming to these members that they have a purpose. Thus, in Zawodny’s analysis, a terrorist group needs to commit acts of terrorism in order to justify its existence. [p. 38]
Pearlstein points out that other examples of the political terrorist’s self- justification of his or her terrorist actions include the terrorist’s taking credit for a given terrorist act and forewarning of terrorist acts to come. By taking credit for an act of terrorism, the terrorist or terrorist group not only advertises the group’s cause but also communicates a rhetorical self-justification of the terrorist act and the cause for which it was perpetrated. By threatening future terrorism, the terrorist or terrorist group in effect absolves itself of responsibility for any casualties that may result. [p. 38]
Albert Bandura (1990) has described four techniques of moral disengagement that a terrorist group can use to insulate itself from the human consequences of its actions. First, by using moral justification terrorists may imagine themselves as the saviors of a constituency threatened by a great evil. For example, Donatella della Porta (1992:286), who interviewed members of left-wing militant groups in Italy and Germany, observed that the militants “began to perceive themselves as members of a heroic community of generous people fighting a war against ‘evil.’” [p. 39]
Terrorists do not perceive the world as members of governments or civil society do. Their belief systems help to determine their strategies and how they react to government policies. As Martha Crenshaw (1988:12) has observed, “The actions of terrorist organizations are based on a subjective interpretation of the world rather than objective reality.” ... Their convictions may seem irrational or delusional to society in general, but the terrorists may nevertheless act rationally in their commitment to acting on their convictions. [p. 41]
Terrorists are generally people who feel alienated from society and have a grievance or regard themselves as victims of an injustice. [p. 50]
Russell and Miller found that, according to arrest statistics, more than 75 to 80 percent of terrorists in the various regions in the late 1970s were single. [p. 51]
Another finding is that the terrorist is not diagnosably psychopathic or mentally sick. Contrary to the stereotype that the terrorist is a psychopath or otherwise mentally disturbed, the terrorist is actually quite sane, although deluded by an ideological or religious way of viewing the world. [p. 60]
