> All of life isn't a teach-in. Don't we have an interest in
> understanding why people do ghastly things?
I think so. Moreover, the two activities are connected.
Acts of vengeance in some psychological contexts will provoke an escalation of violence from those against whom they're directed. That's why the development of a willingness to accept "money" payments as a substitute for revenge against murder, injury and insult (as institutionalized in practices such as wergild) was progressive. It provided a way of ending the escalating blood feud, the vendetta. An argument against military action in the present context may therefore be that it would be counterproductive from the perspective of reducing the likelihood of future acts of terrorism.
Klein's argument is that we all as infants had the mentality of the terrorist (this is why we either find acts such as those of Sept. ll "inexplicable" and get very upset when anyone attempts to explain them or, if we do attempt to explain them, deny our own irrational rage and hatred by giving explanations that demonize or idealize the terrorists). What we required was understanding adults who could recognize and "contain" our phantasy assaults against them and in this way enable us to become ourselves strong enough to overcome fear rationally. (This, by the way, is why the language of bravery and cowardice is usually inappropriate. Those who overcome their fear of death by believing that they won't in fact die but will be transported to a "paradise" where they will, among other things, have sex eternally with 72 virgins are not "brave" even if, as Stanley Fish apparently believes, there is no way of knowing if their "story" is true.)
What we needed, in other words, was to be "loved" in the very particular sense embodied in Marx's idea of "mutual recognition".
Ted