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LONDON – Among the
most chilling developments in the
rise of the Islamic State is that so
many citizens of Western countries
have joined the group’s ranks,
becoming suicide bombers and
beheading hostages. Why do hundreds
of Muslims, many of them educated
and from middle-class backgrounds,
leave comfortable Western
democracies to join a brutally
barbaric movement? What makes young
men and women susceptible to the
extremist Islamist message?
As he watched the rise of the Nazis
in the 1930s, Sigmund Freud
described the dangerous appeal of
authoritarian leaders and the
satisfying self-aggrandizement that
their followers experience when they
subsume their personalities in an
ideology or group. For those
acolytes, freedom is a
psychologically burdensome
condition. As one of Freud’s
disciples, Erich Fromm, famously
argued, the urge to escape the
demands of free choice – by adopting
rigid beliefs or norms of conformity
– can be especially compelling for
those whose sense of a strong
autonomous identity or a capacity to
think for themselves is not fully
developed. The
contemporary democracies from which
Western jihadis defect offer an
unprecedented degree of freedom. It
is hard to think of a form of
political community that requires so
little allegiance from its members,
proposes so few shared norms, and
enforces so few behavioral
guidelines. In nearly every aspect
of our lives – morals, manners,
sexuality, family structure,
careers, and religious beliefs – we
Westerners are essentially free to
do as we like. This
may seem like a highly desirable
state of affairs, conducive to the
cultivation of a good life. But in
the last few decades, Western
democracies have been undergoing a
marked identity crisis, manifested
in an unwillingness to articulate
organizing ethical principles or to
project democratic values onto the
international stage.
Internally, there is widespread
disengagement from the political
system and a growing sense of
radical disaffection among some
citizens, especially the young.
There also appears to be a
widespread increase in psychological
dysfunction, ranging from anorexia
and obesity to attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder and
widespread depression, all of which
have led to a massive increase in
the consumption of psychoactive
drugs. Such
symptoms and syndromes cannot be
understood in purely economic terms,
if only because they are as
prevalent among the middle class as
they are among the poor. What is
possible, however, is that the
Western ethos of unhampered freedom
and permissive tolerance fails to
provide some people with the
psychological scaffolding needed to
construct an identity that can cope
with the demands and pressures of
constant individual choice.
We develop our identities in
relation to others. The
incorporation of cultural
assumptions, ideas, and aspirations
structures our perception of the
world and provides us with
psychological and moral orientation.
In today’s open, multicultural
societies, the need to choose is
ever-present, whether the issue is
banal (Which toothpaste should I
buy?) or essential (Where do I find
sources of purpose or meaning in my
life?). But, with no shared cultural
norms on which to base decisions
regarding, say, how to achieve
wellbeing or to direct one’s life,
how can one distinguish between good
and bad choices? What counts as
right or wrong, serious or spurious?
In a sense, Westerners who choose to
embrace fanatical Islamist ideology
are an extreme manifestation of a
much wider phenomenon. The Islamic
State’s ruthlessly rigid creed
relieves its followers of the
disorienting burden of autonomous
thought or choice. Fromm remains
relevant: The flight into the
embrace of a virulent movement like
the Islamic State is also an escape
from freedom by its discontents.
Some of the jihadis’ statements make
the connection explicitly: “The cure
for depression is jihad,” one
Western recruit declares in an
Islamic State video. “Feel the honor
we are feeling. Feel the happiness
we are feeling.” Another one simply
states: “No to democracy.”
Democratic ennui creates the
conditions for radicalization, and
the extreme Islamist movements know
very well how to exploit it.
The seductive call of extremism will
not be silenced with pleas to
fundamentalist imams in European
mosques to stop indoctrinating young
Muslim men. Initiation into Islamist
ideology needs to be countered by a
much stronger initiation into the
culture of democracy and its
fundamental values – and by a much
stronger affirmation of these values
within our political discourse.
It is through increased confidence
and conviction, rather than bland
tolerance, that democratic societies
can counter the appeal of fanatical
causes and their charismatic
leaders. Only renewed commitment to
the idea of democracy can address
the widespread disaffection and
disengagement plaguing Western
societies, of which the Islamic
State jihadis are just the most
disturbing and dangerous symptom. |
