Article Review: Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology
This fascinating article (http://www.policyreview.org/AUG02/harris_print.html), written by Lee Harris and published in the Hoover Institutions Policy Review, provides a compelling psychological analysis of why 9-11 happened. Although it is not about cults per se, many of the authors insights could be applied to some cult situations.
The author maintains that nearly everybody has interpreted 9/11 within categories that are meaningful to US, and that most such interpretations implicitly accept Clausewitzs famous statement that war is politics carried out by other means. He says:
This common identification of 9-11 as an act of war arises from a deeper unquestioned assumption an assumption made both by Chomsky and his followers on one hand and Hanson and National Review on the other and, indeed, by almost everyone in between. The assumption is this: An act of violence on the magnitude of 9-11 can only have been intended to further some kind of political objective. What this political objective might be, or whether it is worthwhile these are all secondary considerations; but surely people do not commit such acts unless they are trying to achieve some kind of recognizably political purpose.
Dr. Harris lays the groundwork for his argument by stating:
I would like to pursue a line suggested by a remark by the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in reference to 9-11: his much-quoted comment that it was the greatest work of art of all time.
Despite the repellent nihilism that is at the base of Stockhausens ghoulish aesthetic judgment, it contains an important insight and comes closer to a genuine assessment of 9-11 than the competing interpretation of it in terms of Clausewitzian war. For Stockhausen did grasp one big truth: 9-11 was the enactment of a fantasy not an artistic fantasy, to be sure, but a fantasy nonetheless.
Relating an anecdote from his youth, Dr. Harris tells us about a friend who planned to attend an anti-war rally, even though he knew that it was likely to generate more hostility against protesters than against the war.
What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him.
And what it did for him was to provide him with a fantasy a fantasy, namely, of taking part in the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. By participating in a violent anti-war demonstration, he was in no sense aiming at coercing conformity with his view for that would still have been a political objective. Instead, he took his part in order to confirm his ideological fantasy of marching on the right side of history, of feeling himself among the elect few who stood with the angels of historical inevitability.
Such behavior reflects a fantasy ideology, which refers to the use of political and ideological symbols and tropes for the benefit of furthering a specific personal or collective fantasy, not to advance a political agenda. Dr. Harris discusses Nazism and Italian fascism as telling examples of fantasy ideology in action. (Dr. Janja Lalich has suggested [personal communication, 9/6/02] that extremist ideology would be a more useful term, since fantasy has derogatory connotations (i.e., fanciful reverie) that dont capture precisely what the author is driving at.) His comment on the Italian invasion of Ethiopia is illuminating:
Any attempt to see this adventure in Clausewitzian terms is doomed to fail: There was no political or economic advantage whatsoever to be gained from the invasion of Ethiopia. Indeed, the diplomatic disadvantages to Italy in consequence of this action were tremendous, and they were in no way to be compensated for by anything that Italy could hope to gain from possessing Ethiopia as a colony.
Why invade, then? The answer is quite simple. Ethiopia was a prop a prop in the fantasy pageant of the new Italian Empire that and nothing else. And the war waged in order to win Ethiopia as a colony was not a war in the Clausewitzian sense that is to say, it was not an instrument of political policy designed to induce concessions from Ethiopia, or to get Ethiopia to alter its policies, or even to get Ethiopia to surrender. Ethiopia had to be conquered not because it was worth conquering, but because the fascist fantasy ideology required Italy to conquer something and Ethiopia fit the bill. The conquest was not the means to an end, as in Clausewitzian war; it was an end in itself. Or, more correctly, its true purpose was to bolster the fascist collective fantasy that insisted on casting the Italians as a conquering race, the heirs of Imperial Rome.
Relating this to Al Qaeda, he says:
To be a prop in someone elses fantasy is not a pleasant experience, especially when this someone else is trying to kill you, but that was the position of Ethiopia in the fantasy ideology of Italian fascism. And it is the position Americans have been placed in by the quite different fantasy ideology of radical Islam.
The terror attack of 9-11 was not designed to make us alter our policy, but was crafted for its effect on the terrorists themselves: It was a spectacular piece of theater. The targets were chosen by al Qaeda not through military calculation in contrast, for example, to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but entirely because they stood as symbols of American power universally recognized by the Arab street. They were gigantic props in a grandiose spectacle in which the collective fantasy of radical Islam was brought vividly to life: A mere handful of Muslims, men whose will was absolutely pure, as proven by their martyrdom, brought down the haughty towers erected by the Great Satan. What better proof could there possibly be that God was on the side of radical Islam and that the end of the reign of the Great Satan was at hand?
As the purpose of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia was to prove to the Italians themselves that they were conquerors, so the purpose of 9-11 was not to create terror in the minds of the American people but to prove to the Arabs that Islamic purity, as interpreted by radical Islam, could triumph.
The author then discusses at length the policy implications of his argument. These are of secondary concern for this publication, and we do not endorse or condemn the authors views. Other political scientists may come up with telling critiques of his views on Al Qaeda. Nevertheless, Dr. Harriss psychological perspective on Al Qaeda is relevant to the cult phenomenon in an analogical sense.
First of all, this article provides an out-of-the-box perspective for understanding certain cult horrors, such as Aums sarin gas attack, the Peoples Temple suicides/murders, and the Heavens Gate suicides. These actions seem irrational and bizarre when viewed by common-sense notions of motivation. But when viewed as fantasy ideologies emanating from the minds of the groups leaders, then they take on an internal rationality not visible to an outside perspective. Moreover, given the magical, if not psychotic, nature of the leaders thinking and the leaders need to keep his fantasy ideology alive in his followers, it follows that he would have to shield them from outside information, separate them from loved ones, etc. The processes associated with the concept of brainwashing become, in a sense, psychological defense mechanisms protecting the leaders ruling fantasy. As with 9-11, certain dramatic events, such as a ritual suicide or a doomed failure to bring about Armageddon, serve to prove the validity of the leaders fantasy ideology to his followers and himself.
The articles main value to cult researchers and families and former members trying to understand the cult phenomenon lay in its emphasis on understanding the world as seen through the eyes of people embracing what to us is a radical and irrational ideology. If, for example, we assume that a particular cult leaders behavior must aim at making him rich or politically powerful (motives that make sense in our world), we may lose our credibility in dialogue with current members, if in fact the leaders behavior is designed merely to make his followers believe in some fantasy ideology to which he clings. Although the members may not see the leaders vision as a fantasy, they do realize that the leader clearly is not motivated by money or the desire for political power (which doesnt mean that SOME leaders arent indeed motivated by money or political power). Parents, for example, who push that false interpretation, which will seem utterly silly to the son or daughter in the leaders group, run two risks: first, they may alienate the son or daughter they love; second, they may squander valuable time that could be devoted to listening and learning, rather than lecturing about a subject that misses the point from the group members perspective.
The fundamental lesson to keep in mind is the desirability to temporarily put aside the fundamental assumptions that structure our view of the world and to try very hard to understand the assumptions that form the group members view of the world.
Net Soup!