Apparently Jonathan R. White, international terrorism expert and author of many books
White’s selection is meant to challenge the common view that terrorism is obviously, in all cases, morally unambiguous (i.e. bad). Our central paper is J. Angelo Corlett’s “Can Terrorism be Morally Justified?” (1996), which is unfortunately not free on the web. You can buy the article here; it was also reworked into a chapter in Terrorism: A Philosophical Analysis
To really answer the question impartially, you have to come up with a morally neutral definition. By tweaking existing ones in the literature, Corlett proposes this one:
Terrorism is the attempt to achieve (or prevent) political, social, economic, or religious change by the actual or threatened use of violence against other persons or other persons’ property; the violence (or threat thereof) employed in terrorism is aimed partly at destabilizing the existing political or social order, but mainly at publicizing the goals or cause espoused by the terrorists or by those on whose behalf the terrorists act; often, though not always, terrorism is aimed at provoking extreme counter-measures which will win public support for the terrorists and their cause.
This definition, Corlett thinks, helps to clarify the justificatory question: If it doesn’t harm “innocents,” if the fear it engenders is not morally outrageous (e.g. the fear that South African whites felt about the potential end of Apartheid), if it’s violence that does not breed violence but which actually helps change society for the better, then it could be potentially justified.
The rest of the articles selected present related arguments justifying violence from a variety of historical perspectives. All of these are available free on the web:
–Karl Heinzen’s Murder and Freedom (get it here), written in 1853 by a German-American newsman and revolutionary, defends the sort of “terror” practiced in light of the French Revolution. The rulers of his time, he claims, came to power on a wave of murder and are only kept in power that way. They are not innocent, and if you merely depose them and don’t actually kill them, then they’ll inevitably come back into power. Yes, all killing is always “unjust and barbarous,” but until we can get rid of all of it, it doesn’t make sense to prohibit it when practiced by revolutionaries against despots. “It were a crime to spare the tiger that rages among a society of defenseless persons, if any one could shoot him down.” Heinzen details the horrific acts of these despots and describes revolution as self-defense. He ends up applauding the then-new means by which small groups can even the playing field against the armies of despots: by sneaking around and blowing things (and people) up.
–Bhagat Singh’s “The Philosophy of the Bomb: A Brief Response to Gandhi” (get it here), was written in 1930 in response to Gandhi’s article (“The Cult of the Bomb”) condemning recent revolutionary acts of violence by Singh and his cohorts (it was actually written by Bhagawati Charan and Chandra Shekhar Azad). The issue was how to achieve Indian independence from Britain, and Gandhi was arguing that non-violence was the most effective (and moral) route to this goal, and that the revolutionaries’ actions did not represent the will of the Indian people. Singh argues (like Corlett) that people in power don’t just give rights to the oppressed, but that these rights must be taken, and Gandhi’s route would at best leave them with a government that, while not formally subservient to Britain, would still leave all the current oppression intact, whereas Singh thought that true freedom could only be achieved through revolution, which has terrorism as a necessary phase. He saw non-violence as an unproven strategy, not likely to succeed in gaining India “Complete Independence.”
–Carl von Clausewitz’s “On War” (get it here; we just read Part I of Book I). Clausewitz (1780-1831) studied Kant and was a Major-General in the Prussian army fighting Napoleon. He started writing “On War” in 1816, but never finished it (his wife published it in 1834). He argued that “War is simply the continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means,” and so that, while taken as an abstract, ideal conflict, the goal is to achieve some political objective, and in the process totally disarm your opponent so that you can’t be prevented from achieving this, as a real part of history, war will generally fall far short of this. How much the people of the two nations hate each other, how important the goal actually is, and chance factors will all have important roles in limiting action by one side or the other. Seen through this framework, we can understand the historical progression from the “limited war” of the 18th century, to the total war mentality from Napoleon through the end of the Cold War, and the logic of terrorism as we enter a paradigm shift after World War II (i.e. “fighting under the radar” given the destructive power of the U.S. and U.S.S.R.).
–Donald Black’s “The Geometry of Terrorism” is a 2004 article (get it here) that describes terrorism as “self-help by organized civilians who covertly inflict mass violence on other civilians.” The innovation of this sociological article is describing all conflicts in terms of “social geometry.” Instead of looking at individual political motives, Black looks at the “dimensions of social space.” Terrorism occurs when there’s a great deal of social distance, where two groups see themselves as different, for reasons of culture, inequality, the fact that they don’t participate in the same circles (e.g. economic exchanges or social gatherings), and/or that one has political control over the other. These differences have always been there, but now transportation and communications technologies have reduced effective physical distance; you only get terrorism when these socially distant groups are in physical proximity (as in Israel-Palestine or England-Ireland), and so actions like 9/11 just couldn’t happen before air travel between the U.S. and the Middle East was so commonplace, and weren’t likely to happen if American troops hadn’t set up camp in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Conversely, the solution to terrorism is to reduce social distance: to increase the amount of cultural and economic interaction, to reduce inequality and perceived (or actual) social control. This kind of thing follows naturally, to some degree, from increased physical proximity: “The conditions of its existence ultimately become the conditions of its decline… its inevitable fate is sociological death.”
We live in a world where you can no longer make a distinction between a violent and non-violent act. My choice to wake up in the morning and not perform the revolution which is desperately required of humanity will condemn a large number of people around the world to oppression and death today that they would not otherwise have had to undergone. This also means it is difficult to perform enough violence for the sake of violence itself that will manage to overcome the violence that is always already done merely by intentionally non-violent acts. Your every decision is characterized by these paralyzing either/ors whether you recognize it in a given moment or not. Often I become distracted from it myself.
At the same time, it is unquestionably clear what terrorism so much as it is applied by the state consists in. I’m completely willing to be hypocritical here and say that no philosophical discussion need be had concerning it, it just needs to come to a final end right now immediately. Which it won’t. But if so much as one person has their mind changed about whether it is permissible for the United States government to be doing what it is doing, then the conversation is of absolute importance in its political ends.
“We live in a world where you can no longer make a distinction between a violent and non-violent act. My choice to wake up in the morning and not perform the revolution which is desperately required of humanity will condemn a large number of people around the world to oppression and death today that they would not otherwise have had to undergone.”
It’s okay. Jesus.
Or should that be: it’s okay, Jesus.
You mean “it’s okay” as in I am correct and we are simply going to continue living on even though potentially we are confronted by this problem in every single moment? Sure, I agree with you, although I don’t find it to be a sufficient response. Humorous in its biting irony, but then distressing to find that this trite concession was the best you could come up if my writing was really so readily dismissed. It’s not okay at all by any sense, I don’t know how you could believe otherwise, and yet either way here we are. In a world that is so much not okay that you felt the need to try and desperately change the situation through mere suggestion. As though revealing further desperation at work in people could do anything other than solidify my case.
It’s not ok, even if you are not Jesus. Jesus!
A busy week later…
I meant that simply worrying about it won’t change a thing. It’s very noble, yes, but that’s all. So enjoy your morning coffee, then worry about its provenance. Even Marx says this fer Chrissake. Otherwise you really will end in mental paralysis given the complexity of the state we’re all in.
I’m not criticising your writing, but your egotism. You are right to rail against the horrors of the world, of which terrorism, state or otherwise, is just a part, but to imagine that your “choice [is] to wake up in the morning and not perform the revolution which is desperately required of humanity will condemn a large number of people around the world to oppression and death today that they would not otherwise have had to undergone” is absurdly egotisical and counter-productive to solving the very thing that causes you grief. The revolution will not happen on an empty stomach. Get off that cross, have some breakfast and calm down or you’ll have no energy for the fight.
“We live in a world where you can no longer make a distinction between a violent and non-violent act”. This is so wrong in so many ways – ask those living under the threat of drone strikes – and accounts for your rage at my criticism of Zizek below.
Myself I like the following definition:
“The deliberate use of violence or threats of violence against civilians or civilian infrastructure to achieve a political goal”
It’s clear and to the point, one might need to add a definition of violence but i don’t think that’s very hard.
Is this a rigged definition? All the better if it is, since then we can all agree that terrorism is bad, adding it to the legal list of bad things, and making criminals of people doing it.
It could be asked, even with this definition, should there be no exceptions. Like in the case of war. War of aggression: bad, war of self-defence: not bad. Atleast not legally bad.
But the way the world works as soon you make an exception everyone and their mother starts using it as an excuse: Lying attackers become defenders and more thruthfull attackers become fearfull of future attack defenders and everyone has justice on their side. And since the waters of right and wrong are so muddy everyone walks free because the burden of proving that someone is not even possibly defending themself is too heavy.
Therefore I say, in the case of terrorism, give me that old time moral absolutism!
Let it be forever and always wrong.
That’s exactly the issue. The definition of terrorism provided remains open to very broad interpretation. For instance, might one interpret the PLA hacking American businesses as an act of “cyber-terrorism”? It might be seen as a use violence against the infrastructure of cyberspace (albeit sequestered from public). Do businesses constitute as civilians?
It seems to me that we cannot all agree that “terrorism is bad” any more than we have a consensus what constitutes as terrorism. What has become clear, is that it cannot rid itself of a pejorative stigma, something to be feared publicly, not just privately (e.g. domestic abuse is generally not labeled an act of terrorism). To label someone a “terrorist” is a serious accusation, of potential legal consequence that exceeds the severity of law applying to “normal” crimes. Lastly, it has its associations with ideological conflict. To label an act of violence, “terrorism,” is to pit one ideology against another, or at least to frame it as ideological conflict. And yet we generally do not call acts of war, “terrorism.” Perhaps all that stands between war and terrorism is whether or not it’s legally sanctioned, the same way that legal sanction sets capital punishment apart from murder? Or are we going to traverse down that absolutist path of claiming that terrorism only threatens violence against the “good” ideology? Then what would we make of “eco-terrorism” or what have you?
As I said the problem is defining violence so it’s not to broad class of actions, but this is not so hard to do since things like war-crimes are defined well enough in international law.
You simply list all the things you mean by violence for example: shooting people, blowing things up, etc. Now we could limit this to direct action causing other people to die, hacking is something that most people would not consider violent in this sense.
Whatever the public interpets a word to mean is quite beside the point what matters is the legal meaning.
Now what of actions like war? Well, if you during war engages in terrorism (as the definition stated), you should rightly be called a terrorist and brought to justice.
What reason you have for doing it or what ideology you have is quite irrelevant.
Since terrorism would be illegal, there would be no way of legally sanction it.
Okay, I see your point. My two take-aways:
1. “Illegal” = not approved by the state, regardless of whether or not it is “wrong” from a moral absolutist standpoint. (you’ve already acknowledged this point, so we need not discuss this any further)
2. Given that “terrorism” is a very politically charged word (that which threatens the state on ideological grounds and is thus to be feared), one could argue that the public image of terrorism in many respects precedes the legal definition.
I’m not trying to dismiss or defend terrorism. I’m trying to draw attention to the way the term “terrorism” is used to marginalize acts of violence against the state as more severe than other “lesser” acts of violence, such as domestic abuse. It completely pushes aside the issue of whether or not you support the ideology of the state in the first place.
I personally find myself sympathetic to the causes of (e.g.) the Irish Republican Army, though I personally do not advocate violence in any situation, and I think it should avoided as much as humanly possible. That being said, I personally cannot imagine any situation in which I would consider terrorism (according to the definition above) morally acceptable. Violence is sometimes unavoidable–in fact law can only sustain itself through enforcement (i.e. violence.)–but violence to civilians for political means is clearly avoidable. It cannot happen “accidentally” the way we might dismiss civilian causalities from predator drone strikes in Pakistan as merely “collateral” damage. It’s the ideology of the state that allows drones to continue killing civilians with little complaint while an IRA bombing attempt of British parliament is treated as worse than the worst of all crimes.
“the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature. This is done through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear.”
There’s a pretty interesting critique I always recall seeing of this simple, standard definition used by the U.S. Government and Noam Chomsky, right here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/06/27/warfare-stuff-happening-and-terrorism/
I wonder what this terrorist expert would make of this article. Take this excerpt for example:
“Obsessing about terrorism creates a serious moral imbalance. It obscures the plain fact that ordinary, legal warfare typically produces horrors with which terrorism can rarely if ever compete. The most respectable actions of the most respectable nation may be utterly free of any terrorist taint. They may conform to the laws of war, international law, and the Geneva convention. They may show impeccable respect for the strictures of human rights organizations, the resolutions of United Nations, and the wishes of Lady Di. But conventional, squeaky-clean, NGO-approved, UN-sanctioned, Geneva-Convention-friendly high explosive frequently turns human beings into a bloody mist, or blows off half a face, or empties its eye-sockets. And it is not just that this can happen to innocents, including children. It is also that we know this will happen to them. All of us know it when we support or participate in a war.
These should be recognized as trivial truths. Instead, it is beginning to seem as if any ‘standard’ military action must be above reproach, as if the proverbial old-school Wehrmacht officer who plays by the book, who hates Hitler, hates “ziss shtinking varr”, should bring tears to our eyes. Presumably in less sentimental moments we realize that the most scrupulous warfare is an atrocity when the cause is unjust. But we still, sometimes in an agonized Wehrmacht-officer way, congratulate people who kill and mutilate when we think it’s all in a good cause.
Though we should stop trying to convince ourselves that we have gentler attitudes, we shouldn’t change them, either. It is indeed sometimes wrong to kill and mutilate, but it is also sometimes right. It matters whose side you’re on, whether you’re a Wehrmacht officer or his opposite number in the allied forces. We may believe that there aren’t many worse things than inflicting the horrors of war on other human beings, but certainly there are a few: letting Hitler win would have been one of them. You can say that, in such situations, ‘there are no right actions’, or ‘this is a lesser evil, but still an evil’, or ‘killing is never justifiable’. But the last one just doesn’t seem to be true. As for the first two, if we ought to have fought Hitler, how is that–lesser evil and all–not right? Common sense suggests that our morality, at least, approves of such warfare.
So our conventional morality, even restricted by the concerns expressed in international conventions, does sanction horrible violence. Does it sanction violence against civilians? “
(cont. from above)
Regarding the article “Warfare, Stuff Happening, and Terrorism”, linked to and excerpted above, Michael Neumann concludes:
“…we do lower our standards when it comes to politics: because we expect countries to act like vicious beasts, the mutilation of children in war does matter less to us than a single mutilated child found in an empty lot. And it’s not simply that the brutalities of war affect us less. It’s also that we cannot help thinking they are sometimes, under not very stringent restrictions, justified. The other guy’s atrocities horrify us, not our own.
Terrorism
In short, here’s where we stand on mutilating children:
1) If it’s deliberate, part of a bombing campaign to demoralize a civilian population, its morality is perhaps somewhat questionable. We shouldn’t do such things when we’re not fighting a really big war against an enemy who seems to threaten our survival. But if we are, it might be ok.
2) If it’s not deliberate, it’s fine. It’s ok in any war we have any fairly good reason to fight given possibly false but not too ill-founded beliefs about the world. In such circumstances it’s quite acceptable to take actions which we know with moral certainty–certainty for all practical purposes–will mutilate children.
In other words, the crucial point about collateral damage is not that it mutilates children and is therefore wrong; it’s that it mutilates children and may at times be right. There really isn’t any question about this. Even if every war the US has fought since 1945 was wrong, we can easily conceive of wars that are right, or at least in which we were right to participate. Most of us think that such wars have actually occurred. And such wars involve just the sort of collateral damage we’re talking about.
This is why there can’t be any serious issue about justifying terrorism. Yes, it sometimes mutilates children for political purposes. This is clearly wrong if done in an obviously bad cause, or for very stupid reasons. But–I am not in a position to change or judge almost universally accepted moral principles–otherwise it can certainly be ok. That’s why we so often cause it to happen.
Why then, would any of us, even Chomsky, feel entitled to find terrorism morally repugnant? Imagine trying to make such a claim. You say: “To achieve my objectives, I would certainly drop bombs with the knowledge that they would blow the arms off some children. But to achieve those same objectives, I would not plant or set off a bomb on the ground with the knowledge that it would have that same effect. After all, I have planes to do that, I don’t need to plant bombs.” Ah, the mysterious West.
Like war and killing and playing soccer, terrorism is sometimes justified, sometimes not. One would hope that it would be justified only on the strongest of reasons, but, if our attitudes to war are any guide, this isn’t the case. Pretty good reasons will do fine. Perhaps Bin Laden’s reasons for 9-11 were so very stupid that he committed a great crime. Perhaps the terrorists who ravage Algeria today are so insanely, profusely brutal that their evil is patent. But there are very few other cases as clear-cut. What is absolutely clear, clear beyond any shadow of a doubt, its that we all accept the mutilation of children as a suitable means to certain political ends. No self-induced, self-serving revulsion against terror will change this.
The Palestinians have often said that, given an army like Israel’s, they would never engage in terror. Perhaps they would be as scrupulous as we are, or ten times moreso. One thing is certain: could the Palestinians trade terrorism for conventional, legal, approved warfare, thousands more innocent human beings would be reduced to bloody lumps of flesh. Why this would be morally preferable is not entirely clear to me.”
A law prohibits what it prohibits, if a law do not prohibit all wrong actions is it useless as a law? Furthermore the fact that some law say “you shall not do X”
does not mean you can’t have a law saying “you should not do Y” or that you think it’s good to do Y.
Nothing in the definition states anything about; if you are at war terrorism is legal. However in the real world there is in most countries different law applied in wartime contra peacetime. In the real world there are also a list of international law that applies in both war and peace time. There is the place for terrorism, universal jurisdiction.
“The Palestinians have often said that, given an army like Israel’s, they would never engage in terror. ”
I found this doubtfull since the Israely army engages in terrorism all the time.
“One thing is certain: could the Palestinians trade terrorism for conventional, legal, approved warfare, thousands more innocent human beings would be reduced to bloody lumps of flesh.”
This might be true, but a law against terrorism doesn’t say that conventional warfare is better than terrorism.
“Why this would be morally preferable is not entirely clear to me.”
That’s because it’s not morally preferable.
Kill lists. This was just in the news, you have to talk about it. The gov’t making assassination lists. And you can work Drones into this discussion too.
is there any philosophical sense to be made of the idea of a war on terror?
http://www.historiesofviolence.com
I tend to think that you can’t have a war against an abstract noun. It’s a put on, a horrible gag.
it’s a “gag” with a mounting body count, a huge budget, and diminishing civil/human rights…
True. That’s kind of my point. Hence the qualifier “horrible”.
I do not like brutality (which I will distinguish from lesser violences). There is hardly a continental philosopher who does not use the word violence, often traced back to Nietzsche. It would not be hard to get into an argument that even he did not want brutality, but strength as represented in the life of a passionate artist.
Zizek defends violence everywhere and represents a neo-Marxist position, but on this site, an individual who has read most of Zizek defends him against brutal violence. Notice that so far, there has been no moralism, just a preference which I will defend until death do us part–life is not about the truth of moralism, but about the preservation of value with the will to power (not brutality). If you take out your gun and shoot at me, I will take out my gun and shoot your bullet out of the air–but that is fantasy (and not morality). Everything else is justification in the name of some big Other.
The problem with Z’s position on violence is that it ends up the same as Bush/Blair/Obama: nice versus bad violence. It just depends what ends it really serves. There is no doubt that these three leaders believe they are helping to save the world as much as any “terrorist” or revolutionary believes they may be. Revolutionary violence is in service to the Other.
Violence, to justify its involvement in socio-economic structural change, is flattened by Z: Ghandi practised “violence” against the British Raj just Robespierre did against the remnants of the ancien regime.
Crap. Any way you cut it, Robespierre was committing state violence. This flattening does nothing but make “violence” vague in a time when many people are at the sharp end of the word. It sounds sexy, radical, by softening it for sub-Nietzschean papers. It also serves to recuperate Robespierre morally. Now he’s hanging out with Ghandi.
The question is, why? To wake people up to the idea that they should violently revolt? Will Z lead the charge? I hope so. Otherwise he’s a bit like those old guys who persuade young fools to put explosives round their waists or let themselves be slaughtered for God and Country.
The thing about violence is that it may be necessary, or felt to be necessary, but it is always a failure of human relations.
You clearly haven’t read Zizek. The questions you ask of him are the questions he is working with. I don’t understand why his detractors are always so proud to be making these naive novice level critiques of his work which he has supplied devastating responses to decades ago? And it’s always his tone and style they seem to really have a problem with even though all they are themselves is empty rhetoric and nothing compared with the mountain of actual content Zizek has graciously given to philosophy.
Z’s intelligence and philosophical acrobatics do serious violence to ignorance.
Ryan, can you briefly summarize what you understand as Z’s position on violence for the sake of this topic?
Hello again,
Amusingly, your reply is exactly what you criticise me for when I said it’s okay. At least my reply was self-evidently ad hominen.
Oh yes I have read him. My wife is a Lacanian analyst. We have about half a dozen of his books at home, including The Sublime Object of Ideology, The Ticklish Subject, The Metastases of Desire and Violence. I’ve also seen The Pervert’s Guide to the Cinema and The Reality of the Virtual and gone to hear him speak at the Institute of Education in central London back in 2002.
No, I’m afraid that he does not address these questions because he does not ask why he is performing the flattening in the first place, what it will achieve, what will have to be compromised by the premises that manoeuvre requires. He never does. Who needs reality when you have a good theory, as the man says. Will you deny that he does flatten violence with non-violence (which he insists in Ghandi’s case brought about a revolutionary violence against the Raj)? No wonder you can’t discern the difference. This isn’t radical, this is exactly how The War on Terror (aka TWAT) is justified. THEY commit “dysfunctional” violence, WE bring peace (by dropping bombs). Both sides claim they will change the world, violently ending the reign of terror.
Oh, and style has everything to do with content. Just ask Nietzsche, and Zizek for that matter. Z has provided a mountain of content (“graciously”?!! Who are you, his agent?), I’m not sure it’s all that great though. It’s proselytising for Hegel/Lacan rather than philosophy. Have you ever been doorstopped by a Christian who says, “Jesus is the answer. What’s the question?” This is why I think Z is a poor philosopher. His answer to this is that he is an outsider and people want him to stay in his box. Although, it must be said, he’s an outsider whose works are about to become operas at one of the key symbols of the British establishment.
Nick, any chance you can persuade your wife to join in Seth’s group on Lacan for some authentic feedback?
Oops. Questions:
1)Can you distinguish different degrees of violence, including where terrorism fits?
2) In other words what are the more clear boundaries of dysfunctional violence.
3) Doesn’t the use of the word terrorism already overstep the bounds of functional violence–how is that not an oxymoron, and just justification?
Just a quick thought on “The Geometry of Terrorism” entry above. I have yet to read it so this response is based on the summary above.
The idea of “social distance” seems to be contradicted by the simple fact that the majority of terrorist acts commited by the various Islamist movements in the decade since 9/11 have actually been acrried out against other Muslims.
I agree wIth Corlett’s definition of terrorism except for one point. When the word “violence” is put in the
Sentence, that ends the discussion. Like the refusal to give into a kidnappers demands after he or she has committed the violent act of kidnapping to achieve an end–the mere act of violence closes the conversation. Done. Finished. There is no justification. The conversation is closed.
It is not possible to be impartial nor is it possible to have violence which doesn’t harm an innocent or creates untenable feat. The word, the fact, must be shut down for good.
Nice.
It would seem, prima facie, that justifying violence on the grounds that it does not breed further violence only begs the question: “Justified violence” (i.e., non-reciprocal violence) is bred – if we are to define “terrorism” as a reaction – from original violence, which would suggest that the justified violence is reciprocal itself, and therefore it would fail to meet the criteria of it’s own justification (i.e., non-reciprocation).
Yes? No? Maybe?
I look forward to this episode!!!
Corlett’s definition mentions violence against property.
It doesn’t seem to me that violence against property (and not against people) should be considered as terrorism.
Off the top of my head, questions…
1) What’s the motivation behind your work on terrorism?
2) Does Jonathan R. White believe that terrorism is, in some cases, morally ambiguous and what is the importance or relevance of this view to American citizens? How does this moral ambiguity of terror pan out in terms of what people should be prepared to accept as justified terrorist acts against the U.S. as well as actions by our Government?
3) Who is the greatest terrorist threat in the world today?
4) What is the best way to prevent terrorism?
5) What concerns you the most about the U.S. Government response to terrorist threats (generally speaking “what keeps you up at night”)?
This should be a fascinating program!
In the political world, the word “terrorism” is always used by states to designate “the violence that others, most often non-state actors, do to us”. So defining it seems like a less interesting problem.
For me, some of the interesting questions are related to the genealogy of the word and its current function.
When did it become a separate term from “war” or “violence” or “aggression” or “guerrilla warfare” ? What function does it serve to keep it separate? Is it merely classificatory, or does it serve a function from the point of view of the user of the term? Namely: are the states that employ the word, actually (knowingly and purposefully) exploiting the “terror” element? What symbiosis is there between the actor of terrorism and the larger object it intends to affect?
Again, this should be fascinating.
Filipe, well done. The word terrorism seems to suffer from the same fate as a word like evil (or bad)–it covers a lot of unspecified territory already condemned as bad, and thus the morality issue just confuses and biases the use of the word. If you stand against me I call you stubborn, if I stand against you I call it persevering.
These kinds of words are almost tautological (or empty), and can only be defined by being clear how the person you are talking with is using it.
So, like you said, terrorism tends to be what bad guys (terrorists) with a gun (or weapons of mass destruction) do to us good guys (patriots) with a gun (nuclear weapons), and thus is a limited and biased aspect of the greater phenomenon of violence and aggression. Like Nietzsche said, it’s power all the way down.
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-02-20/jess-bravin-terror-courts-rough-justice-guantanamo-bay
I think one of the most incisive philosophers on the idea of “violence” and false power is Foucault–he identifies how it is hidden in the fabric of the world and in ourselves, and he helps us be more honest in revealing it.
“If you got to know me well enough, you would not like me, and if I got to know you well enough you would not like me either, lets acknowledge that and honestly work with it” –is an approach that comes out of Zizek, Lacan and Foucault, et. al.
Another way to approach violence, or peace is through deconstruction as used by Derrida. Is there justice in the world? First, there must be a distinction between justice and law. Law is the attempt to lay down general principles to instantiate justice. However each situation is singular and so the law needs to be applied new each time in order to approximate justice. That is so hard that perhaps justice is impossible, but still something to strive for.
Violence and terrorism seems to arise out of injustice.
“Where ever there is injustice you will find us” you and me. (Three Amigos)
I only glanced at J. White text “Terrorism and Homeland Security” so perhaps I am speaking too quickly, but the idea of ‘state terrorism’ seems to be absent. I didn’t see it in the index or notice any chapters treating the issue. What I do see is a treatment of groups like the I.R.A. and the P.L.O. as terrorist groups. I only mention this because in my reading of terrorism literature there seems to be a common thread where the authors, while they may acknowledge the idea of state terrorism-usually by referencing the origin of the word-, they do not focus on it or they do not mention it, again. A similar commonality is that if state terrorism is mentioned it is almost always the state terrorism carried out by countries other than the U.S.A.
As I said, I cannot speak for this book, but in other books this deliberate omission or framing of the issue downplays actions carried out by states or with their permission or with their unstated approval (usually this means they are not prosecuted), which the results tend to be much more extreme than the ‘terrorism’ carried out by non-state groups or actors. This is not to justify either, but to point out that the terrorism discourse is often characterized by an a priori acceptance of state actions and state legitimacy, which I think is crucial when discussing terrorism.
I found this book to be enlightening: Terror and Taboo by Joseba Zulaika, William Anthony Douglass
folks may want to pipe up over @: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/terrorism-is-politics-by-other-means/273469/