[lbo-talk] They lived in the next street from me

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Carl:
> Your strenuous efforts to deny the obvious are impressive, James, but
"going
> postal" is not a satisfactory explanation of the London bombings.  There
is
> every reason to believe the prime motivation was political, and I think we
> can safely assume that Hussain et al. were not, say, IRA sympathizers,
> Basque separatists or members of the Fuerzas Armadas Liberacion Nacional
> Puertoriquena.  Grievance over Iraq seems the most likely cause for their
> actions.  Here we have George Bush and Tony Blair "democratizing" Iraq in
> what appears to be an exercise in ritual humiliation of Islamic people.
> Here, too, we have the electorates of both the US and UK saying, "Way to
go,
> George and Tony!" and returning both war criminals to office.  George Bush
> said that his reelection was a "moment of accountability" for the war on
> Iraq -- the London bombings look like another.

On the one hand, I have similar reservations re. James' argument as you do -
on the other hand, however, I think that the dichotomy of systemic (social /
political) vs. individualistic (going postal) explanations is quite
limiting, if not false.  Going postal is not an individualistic act, but
re-enactment of a cultural script showed ad nauseam in movies, video games,
popular fiction etc.  Nor is it a purely "systemic" act since cultural
tropes with hyper-violent contents are quite widely spread around the world,
yet not necessarily produce hyper-violent acts on a massive scale (cf.
Japan).  Moreover, relative absence of hyper-violent cultural tropes may
coexist with quite violent nature of social interaction (cf. Russia).

My explanation of hyper-violent acts is grounded in social control theory of
criminal behaviour which in a nutshell argues that delinquency (and by
implication hyper violence) is triggered by social alienation i.e.
individuals having no stake in community of which they are a part and thus
not responding to informal social control mechanisms employed by community
to curb delinquent behavior.  

The half assimilated immigrants that James describes fit this model quite
well - they are alienated from the community of their parents - and thus not
subject to strict social controls exercised by that community - yet not
fully integrated to the Western community and thus not subject to social
control mechanisms that it employs.  Hence their propensity toward
delinquency and hyper-violence.

An additional element is socialization into a delinquent counter-culture
(cf. Jack katz, _Seductions of crime_) that treats delinquency and violence
as virtues.  Thus, members of such counter-culture engage in acts of wanton
violence to prove their own worthiness to their fellow travelers.
Alienation and socialization in delinquent counter-culture usually go hand
in hand - alienation enables delinquency and violence by weakening 'normal'
social control mechanisms, delinquent counter-culture provides positive
motivation.


>From that perspective, going postal (or blowing up buses) is both social and
individualistic.  It is a product of  social conditions characterized by a
high level of alienation and creeping delinquent counter-culture , but it is
also an act of individuals frustrated with the mainstream society and
seeking self-affirmation through delinquent acts against that society.
Politics and ideology - fascism, Islamism, Maoism, racism of one stripe or
another, etc - are mere window dressing and an excuse rather than a
motivating force.

Wojtek