Recent research suggests not:
Suicide bombers are thus motivated by a “simple cost-benefit analysis”, in which the ‘benefits’ of self-destruction outweigh the cost. The benefits are perceived by the terrorist to be so great – in terms of membership of the group, achievement of collective goals, the promise of benefits in the after-life, and so on – that they outweigh the cost.
Related posts:
- The Internet as a path to suicide
- Suicide drama on RateMDs
- Assisted suicide and how insurers should embrace it
- The profession with the highest suicide rate?
- Malpractice and physician suicide
- Does Chantix increase suicide risk?
- Physician suicide
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 8 comments }
Indeed, for the believer the cost-benefit ratio should have them lining up outside the door.
A few years more of life (likely to be nasty, brutish, and short) versus an eternity of carnal lust with 64 virgins (or whatever is the quoted number). If that’s a genuine belief, then the calculus is a no-brainer.
No, they’re just misunderstood.
Of course not. What an utterly silly hypothesis to consider in the first place. It is only the sickness of modern Western psychiatry and clinical psychology that attempts to classify the certain aspects of the spectrum of normative behavior as being an illness. The norms for other cultures are substantially different than the societal and cultural norms of the secular West.
Not mentally ill. Brainwashed and coerced. Peer pressure at its very worst.
” certain aspects of the spectrum of normative behavior as being an illness”
Strapping a bomb on you back and blowing yourself (and others) up is your idea of the spectrum of “normative” behavior? You’re delusional.
Not everyone who is nuts or acts crazy is mentally ill.
A more everyday example. Someone cuts me off on the interstate. If get pissed, speed up, flip them the bird, and cut them off, that is nuts, it is stupid, it is crazy. . . but it does not make me mentally ill.
Strapping a bomb on you back and blowing yourself (and others) up is your idea of the spectrum of “normative” behavior? You’re delusional.
Clueless. You should leave the discussion to the adults and go back to playtime.
This behavior is considered normative by those that engage in it (as well as the society that they live in). They have a rather silly belief in their flying spaghetti monster (like most Americans have in their idols)that leads them to the conclusion that engaging in violent Jihad against the Kaffir will ensure their place in paradise.
They’ve reached a point where the alternative to blowing themselves up looks impossibly hard.
First, they will have to disappoint their peers and leaders in the cult.
Then, they will have to suffer the blow to their identity/ego that comes with realizing their belief system is flawed.
Then, they will have to come to terms with the parts of their life that made them unhappy to begin with.
Then they face hard work: They have to pay rent, and buy food, study, earn, have adult relationships, compromise.
compare all that to a glorious ending that punishes the very people they perceive as getting ahead at the expense of their entitlements as middle class arab males.
Mentally Ill? No, more like emotionally stunted whiny arab middle class babies that took a wrong turn on the road to adulthood.
Comments on this entry are closed.