Sociology and Explanations (Re: Hitchens responds to critics

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>James Heartfield wrote:
>
>  > More than that. It produces Al Qaeda and the Taliban. These are not
>>  primitive elements from some previous social order. They are wholly
>>  contemporary products of, well, 'finanzcapital'. Let's face it Osama bin
>>  Laden is more a product of financial speculation than he is of Islam,
>>  and the Taliban more a product of the Pentagon than of Afghanistan.
>>
>>  Hate to say it, but those chickens did come home to roost.
>
>I think an adequate explanation of Al Qaeda and the Taliban would include
>the role of "finance capital" (which, like Islam, or indeed Al Qaeda and the
>Taliban themselves, isn't one homogeneous thing) in creating conditions in
>which the mentality at issue develops and functions, but it isn't the only
>important explanatory factor, is it?
>
>The Kleinian psychoanalysis underpinning Robert Young's analysis of
>fundamentalism and terrorism, for instance, points to relations in infancy
>and childhood as playing a crucial role in the development of this
>mentality.  Moreover, these relations require for their full description an
>account of the mentality of e.g. parenting adults.  This mentality is itself
>the result of current and past social relations including family relations.
>Kleinian psychoanalysis treats these relations ("object relations") in a way
>that makes them very close to "internal relations" in the sense of Hegel,
>Marx and Whitehead (a point made use of in Jessica Benjamin's _Bonds of
>Love_).
>
>If this is a realistic psychology, a full explanation of the Taliban would
>require examination of the social relations including the economic and
>family relations within which its members developed and live.  This is what
>I understand Marx to have meant by a "materialist" analysis.
>
>Ted

It is possible that the terrorists who committed the 9/11 bombings 
had "relations in infancy and childhood" that played "a crucial role 
in the development of this [terrorist?] mentality [sic]."  However, 
even if such were really the case (which would be impossible to prove 
or disprove, in my view), it would still make sense politically for 
anti-war activists to focus only on the causes of terrorism that 
could become targets of collective political actions.  I don't think 
it's necessary for an anti-war teach-in to include tips on 
psychoanalytically better parenting.

Yoshie