Comments on: The loneliness of the suicide bomber http://mindhacks.com/2010/12/10/the-loneliness-of-the-suicide-bomber/ Neuroscience and psychology news and views. Fri, 17 May 2013 22:36:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Gin http://mindhacks.com/2010/12/10/the-loneliness-of-the-suicide-bomber/#comment-15729 Mon, 13 Dec 2010 02:54:53 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=16244#comment-15729 Suicide bombers are quite often recruited from poor neighborhoods. Their families are given money and are honoured after a successful suicide bombing. I think it might be helpful to consider cultural differences when analysing issues like this – particularly understanding the social factors that operate in collectivist cultures (as opposed to trying to understand this from an individualist p.o.v.). Honour and poverty are motivation enough I’d think.

]]> By: alix http://mindhacks.com/2010/12/10/the-loneliness-of-the-suicide-bomber/#comment-15621 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:47:54 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=16244#comment-15621 While I don’t dismiss this concept out of hand, and feel it might be worthy of further research; I’m finding it difficult to imagine how to reliably measure the *pre-recruitment* state of mind of a suicide bomber *after* his/her successful suicide.

Wouldn’t this kind of ex-post-facto diagnosis depend on the quite possibly revisionist memories of the bomber’s surviving friends and relations?

]]> By: Steve Merrick http://mindhacks.com/2010/12/10/the-loneliness-of-the-suicide-bomber/#comment-15613 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:47:06 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=16244#comment-15613 “According to Robert Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism and expert on suicide bombers, 95% of suicide attacks in recent times have the same specific strategic goal: to cause an occupying state to withdraw forces from a disputed territory.” — Wikipedia

This tends to support patriotism as the cause of suicide bombing, not fanaticism and martyrdom.

]]> By: Tom Rees http://mindhacks.com/2010/12/10/the-loneliness-of-the-suicide-bomber/#comment-15612 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:00:20 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=16244#comment-15612 Scott Atran begs to differ: http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2010/12/07/is-it-possible-that-suicide-bombers-are-motivated-more-by-depression-than-revenge-or-religious-fanaticism/

Quote: “The thesis … is so massively wrong as to make me wonder why this nutty thesis is still around.”

]]> By: Erik http://mindhacks.com/2010/12/10/the-loneliness-of-the-suicide-bomber/#comment-15611 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:27:42 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=16244#comment-15611 Nice headline meta reference

That headline sums up the point which is bombers are like the protagonist in “The loneliness of the long distance runner”. Story of nihilistic youth (bomber) who would rather die than live in the establishment’s (The West)world.

Well done

]]> By: Vinnie http://mindhacks.com/2010/12/10/the-loneliness-of-the-suicide-bomber/#comment-15606 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 03:35:02 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=16244#comment-15606 If Lankford is right, it makes sense that researchers would dismiss the possibility. We usually feel sympathy toward suicidal people. If we think that a suicide bomber might actually be suicidal, it might lead us to feel sympathy for him, something most criminologists would rather avoid. Thus the possibility is dismissed out of hand.

I’m just speculating, but I know blind spots are often products of avoiding possibilities that might disrupt our worldview.

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