It was all our fault. Other people have no free will

[davywavy]

In the wake of the recent bombings in London, various 'radical' (read: 'bonkers') clerics have been claiming that the bombings were the fault of the British people, and it is we who must accept responsibility for them. Somewhat more worryingly, this opinion has been echoed, and tacitly agreed with in some quarters. Not least some of the more left-wing press, but also it's been popping up on LJ here and there too.
Now, I don't know about you, but this attitude really irritates me. The first thing I don't like about it is the implicit racism of the assumption that it's our fault. It is our actions, the attitude says, that brought the attacks onto us. This abrogates the bombers of moral responsibility and effectively makes them less than human. They didn't have free will. They didn't make an active decision to step outside of civilised society. We made that decision for them, through our actions.
When Tim McVeigh bombed Oklahoma city and claimed he was doing God's work, nobody sat back and asked if it meant we weren't taking enough notice of the desires of the 'Christian community'. We sat back and looked at him for what he was - an extremist nutter and criminal who deserved to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Why is it, then, when other groups of nutters and criminals decide to take the law into their own hands, it is suddenly our fault? Is it because the bombers killed themselves in the attacks? There is an honourable history of suicide as a means of protest which does not involve the death or injury of others. Certainly, if the London suicide bombers has gone to an out-of the way placed and publically detonated themselves in protest against - well, whatever it was they thought they were protesting against - and alerted the press beforehand, then public sympathy would have been firmly on their side as nobody else would have been hurt.
The fact of the matter is they wanted to kill and harm other people and, irrespective of the woolly bleatings of the Guardian, Ken Livingstone and some of the more hard-of-thinking members of the Livejournal world, premeditated murder is not a legitimate form of protest; and more to the point the victims and the society of those victims have no moral responsibilty for those murders.
After all, if we start accepting external moral repsonsibility for the deaths of the commuters on the tube, how long will it be before 'She was asking for it' is an acceptable moral excuse for rape? In many ways, they are the same argument.
The bombers weren't religious, they weren't martyrs, and their actions were entirely their fault.
And anyone who says different is just asking for a punch in the gob. It'll be their fault, too.

In the light of this thought, I'd like to ask you a few questions:

[Poll #536667]

Comments

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

It's absolutely crazy

it would be like suggesting that those 20 children who were killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq recently were responsible for their own deaths because they were speaking to UN soldiers.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I know - it just pisses me off the way the Guardian readers of this world insist that we've got to 'open a dialogue' and 'understand' people who are just criminals. Oh, not forgetting 'being inclusive'.

[bringeroflight.livejournal.com]

I'd argue that it is useful to be able to understand people's motivations for doing such things. People don't take major actions like this because they wake up one morning and just decide to.

If you look at the chain of logic that it takes for individuals to commit such acts and do your level best to disrupt that chain as much as possible, be that discouraging intolerance of Islam and Muslim communities or banning those preachers whose philosophical / religious arguments encourage the actions in the first place, you remove the number of people who are going to be pressing the button on a bus or tube.

Prevention is better than cure.

It is also worth noting that by 'understanding' such groups you can come to understand that targets and similar are not often picked at random and meet with their beliefs to one extent or another. As such, the ability to predict those who have already chosen to commit criminal acts for their beliefs results in the ability, again, to reduce the chance that someone gets as far as blowing themself up before they get arrested.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Of course victims of unprovoked attacks bear no responsibility for the attack -- they're unprovoked.

However, the "free will" argument has holes in it big enough to drive a bus through, unless you happen to believe in a Supreme Creator who gave it to us all in some act of amazing beneficence. Evidence of the effects of biology on thought processes and decision making can be seen by the difference in behaviour within the same person when they are well-fed and rested versus tired and/or hungry. To suggest otherwise is patently ridiculous.

Similarly, to contend that one's social and cultural environment, both in childhood and currently, does not frame the kind of choices available to a person, the discourses in which they can engage (both conversationally and internally), and their likelihood of participating in abhorrent acts of terrorism, is fundamentally flawed.

I do like the way you use the examples battered wives and LGB people emotively to attempt to preclude disagreement by implicitly demonising those who disagree though. Nice touch ;-)

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Removing the sense of alienation and disaffection that leads people to commit these atrocities, as well as increasing the likelihood of diagnosing and treating any mental health problems they might have, can only be positive. To dehumanise people who take part in criminal activity is to miss the point and perpetuate the cycle.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

This is especially true where suicide bombing is concerned. The process by which one decides to blow oneself up is fairly counter-intuitive, after all, and requires that many instincts be overridden.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Except that, in their minds, the decision that they made was not to commit murder but instead to strike a blow for their beliefs. Reducing it all to a numbers game precludes a number of beneficial approaches to preventing a recurrence.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The logical inference ramins consistent throughout the argument - the actions of the victim are to blame for the attack. You can dress it up as you like.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Quite so; they're humans, they chose to stage an unprovoken upon a civilian population. To suggest otherwise dehumanises them. To suggest that it was 'us' who 'made' them do it is nonsensical.

[omentide.livejournal.com]

Ah, it has let me in now! (I was being barred from commenting earlier).

I won't do ticky box on complex issues...

There are a number of logical fallacies here.

I can't accept that the people who were killed and maimed in London a couple of weeks back are 'identical to the electorate'. Nor do I know the political views of those people. I do not know how many of them were responsible for random acts of cruelty or violence.

It makes no difference.

Assuming that those who voted labour in the last election support the invasion of Iraq is also a fallacy. The government didn't stand on that issue - they stood on many issues. Oh there will always be 'one issue voters' but I don't believe that the electorate returned our current government because they approved of the invasion.

For as long as I have lived (and before that) there have been those who are capable of mounting unprovoked attacks in order to achieve their aims. Whether or not I agree with those aims is immaterial.

For so long as people have strongly held ideals and for so long as people believe that those strongly held ideals can be promoted/brought about/achieved by acts of violence, then acts of violence will persist.

The problem (from my own pacifist viewpoint) is that violence does get people what they want.

The rest of it is a bit beyond me. I get confused about responsibility and free will. There are, no doubt, complex reasons why men and women of violence become men and women of violence. Reasons arising out of believing that the ends justify the means and that they have some kind of right to dictate the ends to the rest of us. Which (and yes, I think I am getting muddled here) puts them on the same level as governments who like to employ violence to dictate to foreign Nations. I'm getting muddled because I am not sure that I can see the difference.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

And Tim McVeigh 'struck a blow for his beliefs'. What makes Muslim whackos 'striking a blow for their beliefs' worth more of my time and any less criminals than a Christian whacko 'striking a blow for his beliefs'?

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Nothing whatsoever. The correct approach in both cases to avoid the same happening again is to understand the processes leading to the event, and responding appropriately.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

OK, then, to extend your argument:

Battered wives have free will. They could leave any time they liked. Obviously, they choose to be beaten.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Human consciousness is a complex interplay of biological and environmental factors. It's not a rational decision-making machine.

It's not about individuals killed holding personal responsibility for the attack. Of course, the bombers made a series of choices that led to that point, but what of those who framed those choices? The alleged al-Qa'ida contact who presumably trained, prepared and equipped them? The factors feeding into their decision-making process that made them take this path.

Everything is inter-related; everything rests on everything else.

And to extend your argument...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The people who died on the tube had been warned by the government that London would be attacked sooner rather than later. They didn't leave the city, thus they chose to be dead.
That's not my arguemnt, and you know it.

Re: And to extend your argument...

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

But neither is my argument that victims are directly responsible for their victimisation.

Actually, they chose to take a calculated risk. That much is true. The factors leading into that decision were, again, structural.

Re: And to extend your argument...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

My argument is also that the victims are not responsible for the actions of criminals, and to suggest that the killers are criminals. Attempting to place the blame for calculated murder anywhere but on the planners and perpetrators dehumanises them and makes them less 'responsible' for their actions

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

It's a catch 22, really.

If you understand what the flaws are in society that caused the lower-level terrorists to bomb in the first place, you prevent future bombings.

However, by changing the societal and governmental structures that caused that, you have just rewarded the higher-level terrorists, and shown them that to affect a change one just has to convince someone else to blow themselves up and take as many others with them as possible.

What someone needs to do is figure out a way to tell the terrorists, "Stop the bombing and killing. Show up here, and we'll talk out differences. Anything that seems reasonable, we'll change, and in exchange, you disband your organization and not participate in any others like it in the future." and actually figure out some way for those people to prove they're maintaining their word.

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

It's the whole purpose of the US Constitution protecting redress of grievances. To make sure that things can be discussed. Unfortunately, that only goes for our citizens. How do foreign citizens excercise that right when they're effected by our foreign policy? Apparently by blowing themselves up while standing next to kids and private citizens.

Hmm ...

[rgljr69.livejournal.com]

I've read this post and the comments several times. I keep coming back to the same thought, and I hope you can forgive my American bluntness, and that is;

"Blah blahblah blah, blah blah blahblahblah."

It's all a bunch of words about something that is fundamentally wrong. It was wrong in the beginning of time, it was wrong in Oklahoma, it was wrong on September 11, it was wrong when it was the IRA and it's still wrong today.

I call 'em as I see 'em.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It took me all day to work out what 'LGB' actually meant, until I realised that it was a painfully politically correct way of saying 'gay'.
The bomb that David Coleman set off was in a a gay bar and I'm sure that if you take a deep breath you can say it.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

It's the "industry standard" term in the student movement (gradually becoming LGBT as more and more local Unions' liberation campaigns move towards Trans inclusion), hence my using it. It's not about political correctness, or fear of using terms like lesbian, gay or bisexual, it's just a common shorthand in this next of the woods.

Re: And to extend your argument...

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

But the prevailing social structures create the alienation and resentment, and provide them planners and perpetrators with that approach, no matter how abhorrent you and I may both find it.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I'm not questioning that, from my standpoint and yours, it's premeditated and unconscionable. In the process of prevention, however, understanding the underlying cause is vital.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Evidence of the effects of biology on thought processes and decision making can be seen by the difference in behaviour within the same person when they are well-fed and rested versus tired and/or hungry. To suggest otherwise is patently ridiculous.


This was nagging me last night, so I'm coming back to it. Now, we're both psychologists. We both know there are effects of biology on thought processes, but to use this argument in this situation just doesn't work. There is even some legal acceptance of this - for example the French legal code accepts Crime passionel as a defense in some cases of violent crime. However, biological processes cannot be used as a justification for premeditation except in some rare cases of insanity.
The bombers must have spent a long time premiditating the attacks; thus short term biological factors (hunger? Tiredness) can't be used in this instance.

Similarly, to contend that one's social and cultural environment, both in childhood and currently, does not frame the kind of choices available to a person, the discourses in which they can engage (both conversationally and internally), and their likelihood of participating in abhorrent acts of terrorism, is fundamentally flawed.

Quite so; but I would ask you to expand your statement here by convincing me that an upbringing in South Yorkshire, and exposure to western liberal media values on a daily basis, failed to provide these people with the cognitive tools to make choices other than premeditated murder.
IN fact, you statement stands to strengthen my contention; that through the process of exercising their free will, these people overcame their cultural upbringing and society, and the social abhorrence to premeditated murder.
It is this ability which raises us above the animals; the ability to make decisions which transcend the immediate and our environment and to apply willpower to our decisions.
To argue that the thought processes which led these people to become killers were simply a reaction to their society and culture (the dad of one of them owns a Chip Shop and reads the Sun for God's sake - where does that turn you into a killer?) reduces them to the level of animals, incapable of applying thought of decisivenesss to their actions. I object to this process of dehumanification.
That's just plain incorrect; to plan, build, and execute their plan took thought, and a degree of decisiveness I doubt either of us are capable of. Nobody made them killers but them. Nobody forced them, nobody made the decisions for them. They were as human as you and I, and as capable of decisiveness, rational judgement and planning. And they were criminals.