When last seen here, Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber was taking his ball and going home, offended – deeply offended – that I might suggest that contemporary Western progressivism might have anything to do – well, OK, anything except some common historical roots – with Islamist terrorism.
I caught some inbound traffic on Sitemeter, and went and looked (I’ve been working waaay too much this week to read all the blogs I have in Bloglines), and lo and behold, he’s brought the issue up again. This time in the context of an interesting study (pdf) by Gambetta and Hertog which points out – with some statistical validity – that engineering students are significantly over-represented among terrorists.
It’s a fascinating study, and the kind of thing we need to be doing more of to understand the mechanics of the movement we have to break.The argument I originally made, to refresh your memory, was that the anti-Enlightment, anti-colonial progressive movements in the West influenced Islamic thought up to the 1950’s and the foundation of modern Islamism and that their bastard child is the movement we today call ‘Islamist’; the practitioners of the Islamist style know Fanon as well as Qut’b, speak the language of anti-colonial thought, and comfortably graft Chomsky onto a society that believes that woman can be best liberated by being kept in purdah.
The modern university, in which all forms of non-Western and anti-Western thought are given primacy, or at least lip service (the reality of the anti-Western and anti-Enlightment thought would be hard on the practitioners, as Arundhati Roy notes) is tolerant of these movements, romanticizes them, and – because much of the central arguments the critical-theory progressive movement (as opposed to the labor-union progressive movement I’d be happy to be a part of) have been coopted by Islamists, has no intellectual counter.
The authors discuss anti-Western values in their sample, and present three hypotheses as to why they were so powerful:
Furthermore, even before the Iraq war, radicals’ anger was not directed only against their national states of origin, but took a distinctive anti-Western colour. The focus of the radicalisation too therefore cannot be fully accounted for by relative deprivation per se. Three forces might have arguably intensified and shaped the direction of the frustration, among those with elite degrees. First, modern engineering and science curricula are a gigantic showcase of Western technological achievements, which put the backwardness of MENA societies in sharp relief (Moore 1994: 12f.; Hanafi 1997). Unlike those who pursue humanities or law degrees, engineers, doctors and scientists find it harder to ignore their thriving counterparts in the outside world (Hoffman 1995: 210). Unlike in the humanities, in the field of technology the West appears “monolithic and properly hegemonic” (Waltz 1986: 666), and students of these disciplines cannot as easily segregate their universe from the developed world. The contrast between Western achievements and their countries’ failures could have engendered a sense of collective frustration, which was felt more intensely by those with elite degrees.
Next, those who studied in the West, itself a sign of an even greater ambition and willingness to sacrifice than studying in Islamic countries, had reasons to feel even more deprived: there are at least 25 engineers in our sample who studied abroad, a ratio that strongly suggests that they are vastly over-represented among radical engineers (see fn. 15). At once attracted by Western achievements but disadvantaged in both home and Western countries’ labour markets, their cognitive dissonance was possibly aggravated by the direct exposure to an alien cultural environment. Those who studied in the West are more likely to have suffered not just from envy and resentment, emotions that derive from unfavourable comparisons experienced remotely, but also from anger and hatred, emotions aroused by cultural displacement (Wright 2006: 304) and direct humiliating interactions. These emotions are more likely to trigger action-responses (Elster 1999) – a desire to destroy the object of hatred, the West and its impure social mores, and a passionate embrace of traditional religious values. Mohamed Atta often bemoaned Western influence in Arab cities (Holmes 2005): according to Dittmar Machule, his thesis supervisor at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg in north Germany, Atta hated skyscrapers because in the city of Aleppo, on which he wrote his doctoral dissertation, tall buildings stole the privacy of the traditional Arab homes in whose courtyard women were once able to remove their veils unseen by strangers (Rose 2004).
Third, even those who did not go abroad found reasons to feel frustrated by Western technological dominance at home: resentment appears to have been fuelled by the competition of foreign firms, especially in public constructions funded by MENA states and international aid organisations. In Egypt in 1993 there were 60.000 foreign experts, 12.000 of whom were Americans, whose income often for the same job was manifold greater than that of local engineers – there are several testimonies of how much bitterness this caused not just towards foreigners but also towards the state guilty of privileging the latter over local resources (Moore 1994: 98; Hanafi 1997: 212).
To this, I’d add another; a lack of any legitimizing philosophy that they may have been exposed to that supports the West as any kind of learning model; for students who studied in Western universities (who were, interestingly even more over-represented), exposure to philosophies and values which legitimized their growing rage and helped direct it at the West, while offering little balancing criticism of Islamist radical thought.
From the paper, an interesting footnote on the place of radical values:
There is anecdotal evidence pointing to some degree of ‘continuity of style’ [in Egypt – AL] between Marxist groups and Islamists. In the episode we mentioned at the beginning, when Zawahiri boasted to Schleifer about the medical and engineering students in his
groupSchleifer replied that in the sixties those same faculties had been strongholds of the Marxist youth. The Islamist movement, he observed, was merely the latest trend in student rebellions. “I patronized him,” Schleifer remembers. “I said, ‘Listen, Ayman, I’m an ex-Marxist. When you talk, I feel like I’m back in the Party. I don’t feel as if I’m with a traditional Muslim.'” He was well bred and polite, and we parted on a friendly note. But I think he was puzzled.
(Wright 2002)
That university culture of contentless radicalism is what I’m happy to criticize. I don’t suggest (and never have) that political theory professors attempt to get their students to join radical movements (mine just tried to get me to go to grad school and get a PhD). But I will suggest that the cheap coffee-house political philosophy of my youth – in which Huey Newton was idolized at my alma mater – is strikingly close to the contemporary philosophy in which the articulate thug of the day is the current idol.
What does it say for our current political philosophy that it has so few answers to this?
And I guess the interesting question to me – right after the one raised in the paper that you ought to read – why it is that someone would study political philosophy if they didn’t think it had an impact?
There’s a lot of stuff here, of which Farrell’s attempt to obscure the connection between academic leftism and terrorism is probably the least interesting.
A few rough observations about the engineer-terrorist connection.
Middle eastern terrorists who become notorious enough to achieve “name” status, as opposed to the anonymous pawns (many of them children) who have been sent to perish in droves in terror attacks over the past several decades, tend to come from upper income families who can afford to educate their children in the West.
Their families generally do not send them to the West to study Comparative Literature or Sociology. They send them to become doctors or civil engineers. I would say that for the great majority of them, their educational field is not a matter of choice, still less a matter of predisposition.
[Having known many such people when I was in school, I know that many of them struggle more to meet their family’s expectations than to meet their own, and feel very bad if they fail. Many of them also feel guilty about being enticed into all of our non-Islamic practices. I believe (albeit without proof) that terrorists have exploited this guilt to recruit such people, by promising them violent redemption.]
You can’t assume that a Saudi student studying abroad has the same choices that an American or European student does. Likewise, engineering and science students were well represented among 19th and early 20th century Russian terrorists, who were sent to school by their families to learn a useful profession, not to become terrorists.
So if you want to talk about either predisposition to terrorism, or the likelihood of an academic discipline to encourage terrorism, you would have to exclude all students who are not free to choose their academic careers – which outside of the comfortable West is a hell of a lot of them.
If you look at this smaller group, which spawned your typical middle-class Western terrorist, I think you will see that the non-technical disciplines are overrepresented, and so are women.
HOWEVER: You find scientists, engineers, doctors, and technical experts in every area of Goofdom. Conspiracy theory abounds with them, and they are often pushed to prominence because their background gives them a false appearance of authority. Arthur Butz, the Dean of American Holocaust Deniers, is an electrical engineer. (Ernst Zundel, on the other hand, is a graphic artist.) Engineers and chemists are prized by people who like to make bombs; if the Weather Underground had a few more such minds in it, they might not have blown themselves up.
Reading your intro para, unwary readers might expect that Farrell was recanting, rather than producing evidence that strengthens his point, and suggests little or no role for the critical-theory progressive movement which is, as I’ve said on other occasions, notable mainly for the harmlessness of its “critique”.
I’ll second Glen’s comments about lack of choice, in some cases. In addition, it leaves out the very real possibility that a terror cell organizer would see in an engineer someone who has the flexibility to to do many things. Let alone start one themselves.
You’d rather have that person running your terror scheme more than a history major. If you did a sample on, say, the suicide bombers in Iraq or people who fire rockets in Gaza, I think the percentage would decrease.
I find it.. interesting that the authors comment on the West’s lead in engineering, but does not bring up Israel’s – which should also add to the collective frustration they bring up.
_is tolerant of these movements, romanticizes them_
I think this is as easy as determining if someone believes in absolute or relative evil. I don’t think it’s a matter of romanticizing them. Tolerance, sure. But convincing someone that there are other ways rather than killing you, and tolerating that they have a different way of living are too often combined. As that Roy link does, it combines these in order to mock.
_What does it say for our current political philosophy that it has so few answers to this?_
Too much attention to Marx over the past 50 years, not enough to Qutb?
How deeply offended do you think that Farrell would be if someone were to suggest to him that the scythes of the Cambodian killing fields were forged in Paris?
Philosophies don’t kill people, people kill people.
Do other folks read the opening paragraphs as John Q does? I don’t see it (hence can’t see an easy fix)…but am open to suggestions.
A.L.
Glen – the study pretty clearly makes the point that even for the number of engineering students, engineers are overrepresented as terrorists.
There’s some interesting correlation there, and it’s definitely one worth pursuing.
A.L.
_”That university culture of contentless radicalism is what I’m happy to criticize. I don’t suggest (and never have) that political theory professors attempt to get their students to join radical movements”_
Well, that’s not “entirely”:http://www.nysun.com/article/8865 true.
And of course lets not forget our friend “Sami.”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_Al-Arian
Im not sure where apologizing for terrorism ends and encouraging it begins, but I suspect that is the fuzzy line the far left has walked with Islamofascism.
And furthermore, I fail to see any connection between engineering and political/social philosophy curricula (which you decry as tolerant or even-without evidence-supportive of particular “bad” philosophies). None of the engineers I know or knew in college spent much (or any) time in “soft” science classes, certainly.
Engineering students, both in America and abroad, are generally more conservative in their mindset, more rigid in their thinking and worldview, and less tolerant of uncertainty than experimental scientists (which you are, incorrectly, lumping together with engineers I believe). This places them on the right, not left, of the political spectrum.
As a result, the connection between terrorist and right wing personality types is easier to make, in my view.
First thing we do is kill all of the engineers? From the study:
bq. _Italian engineers were attracted by Fascism’s corporate ideology and vigorously supported Mussolini’s regime (Tacchi 1994), and German engineers gave their enthusiastic backing to Fritz Todt, the man who re-organised the engineers of the Third Reich and whose ideology combined rapid technological progress with a reactionary worldview (Herf 1984: 199-201). Without their unconditional collaboration it is inconceivable that Germany could have become a military-industrial giant in less than a decade._
I haven’t read the whole thing, but it does appear to focus on more recent events (post 1967), in which the dominant form of illiberal-ism was Marxist. It briefly mentions that Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, was a school teacher with a University education. (I think he also fixed clocks) The study does not mention his love of Musolini and appreciation of what Hitler and Musolini did for their people. A view that formed Islamicism, but a description that became less compelling after ’45.
If Islamicism is currently dominated by engineers, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the engineers are creating the philosophy. By way of bad example, Ayn Rand was not an engineer or architect, but her writings appear to have been disproportionately influential on that group.
bq. If Islamicism is currently dominated by engineers
How can this be true, or even known with any degree of certainty? Do people in the ME who are part of Al Qaeda wear some kind of identifying mark that allows them to be easily distinguished from the rest of the population? Do they volunteer this info (Hello. My name is Ali. I am an Engineer and a Terrorist.)? Or are we talking about known terrorists (i.e., those that have committed acts of terrorism)?
_Glen – the study pretty clearly makes the point that even for the number of engineering students, engineers are overrepresented as terrorists._
_There’s some interesting correlation there, and it’s definitely one worth pursuing._
It looks likely to be biased sampling to me.
They got their lists of “terrorists” from various sources, all of which might be more likely to keep names that look important rather than names of minor members who aren’t particularly important. Even then they had to discard around a quarter of the names because they just couldn’t find enough information about them to tell whether they were engineers or not. Probably they weren’t. If they’d been engineers they’d have looked important enough to have more information available.
Now, if you’re asking why it’s more engineers than lawyers or political scientists or architects, that might be vaguely interesting.
My experience has been that engineers are more variable than other professionals except for chiropractors and a few others. There are engineers who do holocaust denial. Fundamentalist christianity (and creationism). There are engineers who’ve published books claiming that blacks don’t have the same intelligence as whites. There are engineers who believe in zero-point energy. There are engineers who believe in cold fusion. There are engineers who believe in Scientology. (But I’ve never met an engineer who believed in astrology, There’s a limit.)
I think maybe engineers don’t get socially screened as much in school. It’s like, if you’re an economics major and your teachers are marxists then you’d better be a marxist. But if your teachers are not marxists then you’d better not be a marxist. Like that. It takes particularly tolerant fundamentalist christians to get along in the sciences. I knew a creationist grad student in molecular biology once. He had a hard time. He was good at keep his mouth shut around unbelievers, but it was a struggle for him to study the material.
Engineering students get judged mostly on how well they do the material, which is inherently apolitical and acultural. Sodium light measures the same in angstrom units whether you’re christian or muslim or scientologist. Get your haircut, keep your mouth shut, do your work, and you can get by.
So engineers have more variety than other professionals and more of them will join any particular crackpot cult than others. Except for astrology. Not that a *lot* of engineers will join any particular cult. But they haven’t been trained not to the way other professionals have.
AL:
Overrepresented among “Islamist movements in the Muslim world.” What I’m saying is that this might tell you something about the educational aspirations of the Muslim world, but it tells you nothing about engineering or terrorism. A large number of these terrorists did not choose their career paths, but had them chosen by their families. In fact, a large number of (mostly uneducated) Muslims do not choose terrorism, either – they are “volunteered” by their families.
Lenin’s older brother Alexander was a zoology student who became a violent terrorist. It would be pretty tedious to wonder what zoology has to do with terrorism. He didn’t learn terrorism from zoology, he learned it from a radical student culture that was steeped in Marx, Bakunin, Chernyshevsky, etc. That’s what all the Russian student terrorists had in common, not their academic calling.
Another possible flaw in the engineer theory- do Arabs go in for ‘soft’ sciences at all? Is it possible that the nations producing terrorists are simply overrepresented in engineering in general? I just dont see a lot of Saudis taking Womens Studies or Coms at Riyadh University. In my experience ‘engineering’ for Middle Easterners is about equivalent to ‘liberal arts’ for Americans, a catch all. If you arent going to be a doctor you study engineering. Maybe thats wrong, but its the impression i get from Middle Eastern cultures (Indian too I might add).
“I think maybe engineers don’t get socially screened as much in school. It’s like, if you’re an economics major and your teachers are marxists then you’d better be a marxist. But if your teachers are not marxists then you’d better not be a marxist. Like that. It takes particularly tolerant fundamentalist christians to get along in the sciences. I knew a creationist grad student in molecular biology once. He had a hard time. He was good at keep his mouth shut around unbelievers, but it was a struggle for him to study the material.
Engineering students get judged mostly on how well they do the material, which is inherently apolitical and acultural. Sodium light measures the same in angstrom units whether you’re christian or muslim or scientologist. Get your haircut, keep your mouth shut, do your work, and you can get by.
So engineers have more variety than other professionals and more of them will join any particular crackpot cult than others.”
JT: I concur. Your experiences and observations are very similar to mine. Most disciplines, especially at the graduate level, do have alot of ‘social screening’.
But engineering is a different culture, and yes, it does tolerate cultural unorthodoxy better than most. If your bridge stays up, no one cares whether you think the Egyptians were ruled by pointy headed aliens.
On the other hand, I would argue that things like Marxism are ‘crackpot cults’. I do not agree that the ‘social screening’ that the other disciplines provide cuts down on the number of crackpots. In fact, maybe the opposite. The difference is that you can be an engineer and belong to any wacky belief system of your choosing, but to be a professional in other disciplines its often necessary to subscribe to a particular crackpot cult.
As for a correlation between engineers and terrorists, I would guess that the real correlation is between engineers and effective terrorists. Who else is going to build a bomb?
“Another possible flaw in the engineer theory- do Arabs go in for ‘soft’ sciences at all?”
Yes, but when they do, they don’t go abroad for it. They stay within the Arab world and take ‘Religious Studies’.
When Indiana succumbs to Islamism, I guess we’ll being wondering about the connection between terrorism and college basketball.
Celebrim:
bq. As for a correlation between engineers and terrorists, I would guess that the real correlation is between engineers and effective terrorists. Who else is going to build a bomb?
This is a more pithy way of making a similar point as I was in #11. Applying this line of thought to Armed Liberals statement…
bq. It’s a fascinating study, and the kind of thing we need to be doing more of to understand the mechanics of the movement we have to break.
…then focusing on the “troops” rather than the “ringleaders” (who may or may not be engineers; more likely religious fanatics and sociopaths) will not achieve an effective end or reduction in terrorism.
Calling into question the entire premise of this thread.
Now that Bobby Knight is gone Indiana is probably safe from the terrorism-college basketball connection… A million unreserved apologies. I couldn’t resist. Though I certainly should have.
I have less problem with Glen’s critique in #1 that others have observed, that the study necessarily focuses on named terrorists, as opposed to anonymous pawns. If I wanted to study the roots of Nazism and who that ideology appealed to, I don’t think I would be focusing on the children who joined the Nazi youth.
AL to Glen: _the study pretty clearly makes the point that even for the number of engineering students, engineers are overrepresented as terrorists_
The study concludes that engineers are overrepresented as terrorists, *except in Saudi Arabia.* The reason suggested is that in Saudi Arabia, unlike other countries like Egypt or Pakistan, Saudi engineers can find jobs. In other words frustrated engineers become terrorists. Seems plausible, particularly given a good discussion of what Nasser did to Egypt’s economy. But one wonders if there is something about Saudi culture that encourages a more proportionate call to terrorism?
PD Shaw:
Your study would find that Nazism and fascism dominated universities before they dominated countries, that their impetus came from youth, and that the professors were not in the lead but dragged cravenly in their wake.
“But one wonders if there is something about Saudi culture that encourages a more proportionate call to terrorism?”
I think it is fair to say that the religious indoctrination is much more pervasive in Saudi Arabia than it is in other Arab states. In other Arab states, often the first time that someone is seriously exposed to Islamic extremist thinking is in university.
Whether we like it or not, there is an academic and philosophical component to terrorism. I don’t think that there ought to be much question that the leadership of the terrorism movement is often radicalized in a university setting of some sort. That’s really not surprising. University is a time when people are searching for an identity and are being exposed to alot of new ideas. Likewise, alot of the more successful terrorist groups have featured several trained engineers. That’s not surprising.
It is to me an interesting question as to whether that the radical revolutionary character of Islamic extremism finds a certain philosophical kindred in the radical revolutionary Marxism popular on Western campuses. Both movements are Utopianist Statist and Populist in character. Both movements laud violent anti-social heroes. A certain blending of the two movements has occured in the past – for example the Iranian revolution. It’s certainly undeniable that the Islamist movement readily adopts the language of Western criticism employed by Marxists, ‘progressives’, and other Western radical groups.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not certain exactly what is being argued or why it is contriversial.
First “Arabs” was a product of Europe Romanticism and was used by Europe to destroy the Otoman Empire. Before XIX Century Arabs were only those that came from Saudi land. This still happens in Middle East where many pepole dont consider itself Arabs.
Then came the marxists groups in Europe after WW2 they followed the paths of Bolcheviks and their intimidatory practices where everything is moraly right for the ultimate propose. This culture went to Muslim world with Marxist political and terrorist groups.
In turn were rewarded with political power by the leftists in Europe Political & Media everytime somone popped a bomb specially if said something against America must there is some grievance.
An example for today is the leftist newspaper The Guardian, calls for their conferences Hamas envoys replacing the Fatah envoys out of favor but not some Palestinian that protests against Gangsterism and Intimidation and Murder, rewarding Hamas with political recognition.
As such is not surprising that Beslan Massacre by Islamists is the heir of
Maalot School Massacre in 1974 of marxist PFLP.
Interesting discussion. I’m surprised that no one mentioned what in my experience is perhaps the two greatest reasons for the popularity of engineering & technical studies among most foreign students (excluding those from western Europe):
First, it’s much easier to pass courses that require math than those that are English- and especially culture-intensive.
When I was hiring programmers and engineers I found that the majority of foreign-born/raised applicants had mastered the tactical material in their courses, at least insofar as being able to quote it back. Where they were often deficient however (sometimes to the point of not being qualified even for junior level jobs) was in broader cultural fluency. Successful engineers need to understand the context within which requirements are defined and interpreted and to interact with marketing, procurement and other professionals. Asian and middle Eastern students often carried with them assumptions about roles, power and influence that simply don’t work in US offices and manufacturing plants.
I was saddened, but not repentent, to find that many such people whom we could not hire became convinced it was due to racial or similar prejudice.
Now consider a 4th year engineering student from a middle Eastern country. He may or may not have had an adequate mathematics and scientific education before college. He might in fact be funded by his family or others, have no work requirements or pressures. But by the 4th out of 5 years of study the students around him are doing internships and shaping their likely futures. And he, on the other hand, may well be at sea culturally or perceiving a huge conflict between the culture around him and his own background. Imagine taking difficult mid-terms in advanced classes during the Ramadan fast, for instance.
The second reason for an emphasis on engineering and medicine is that those are the most visible and likely well-paying jobs. The quote about foreigners, and especially US engineers, in Egypt gives a taste of how the international job market looks to an Egyptian family. Technology is both intrusive and prestigious in a globalized economy.
isare perhaps the two greatest reasons ….PIMF
_On the other hand, I would argue that things like Marxism are ‘crackpot cults’. I do not agree that the ‘social screening’ that the other disciplines provide cuts down on the number of crackpots. In fact, maybe the opposite._
Celebrim, I don’t want to argue about that label. What I want to point out is that the particular “cults” that increase success in particular academic departments in particular universities, are likely not to predispose someone to become a muslim terrorist. If you learn to pass as a marxist or a libertarian or any of the other crazy cults that doesn’t make you more likely to become a fundamentalist muslim.
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A.L.,
Farrel was never “deeply offended”, he just thought your theory was idiotic, and loony, and that there wasn’t any evidence for it.
Basically, he’s shaking his head at your theory, as say some people shake their heads at people such as Ron Paul, who say they want to return to the gold standard.
It’s important to get this right. Farrel isn’t saying he’s offended, he’s doing a Bugs Bunny, saying “What a maroon!”. He thinks you are so obviously wrong, it’s hilarious.
So you get that wrong.
In regards to the vague abstract string of causation from western progressivism to Islamic terrorism – well, I don’t see much there.
There is clearly the “politics of resentment” going on. That’s true. but how related that politics of resentment – given an intellectual sheen and justification by various intellectuals who wanted to “overthrow the system” – it’s hard to trace causation back, it may simply be similar strands that always appear, in intellectual politics of resentment, and the justifications that arise therefrom.
They may only look similar, but not be similar.
And certainly, even if one admits a small whiff of causation, as an actual causative entity, it’s very very very very small. really. there are a lot of more constitutive causes, in this case. The youngness, and to a degree, the “all in” nature of the Koran, and what practices are asked. The revulsion to modernity, which exists everywhere, but is a bad brew when mixed with a tyrannical despots, who rely on the “black gold” to hold their power. Which of course, the whole world uses, which only strengthens the despots hold on power, which only strengthens the resentment. Not to mention the forcible throwing together, and drawing of artificial lines, as done by the imperial powers, after World War 1. (We’ve been over this before, but LOTS of conflicts and bad blood seem to derive from bad border drawings after WW 1.). And of course, there is an additional element, Israel. And the natural tribalism of young cultures.
All of the above contribute to certain Arab countries difficulties (as they contribute to similar issues in Africa).
But even here, different countries are – guess what? – different! Kuwait is Islamic, as is Bahrain, or the U.A.E. To a degree, the witches brew above hasn’t hit these smaller countries as much. Look at Dubai. Only 3% of the economy is based on oil now, and it has boomed incredibly over the last 20 years.
There is a common error that runs through your thought. A vague, undefined “influence” connectivity claims, which even if they MIGHT have validity, have no type of data behind it, only a 1st year’s history student version of connection, blowing one cause into “the thing”.
Very interesting article indeed.
I think the result has many causes, IMHO
It is true, engineering itself is all about harnessing reality and make it work for you. It is about overcoming difficulties to directly transform your environment, to shape the world.
In order to carry out this process, first of all you need a theoretical model, usually provided by a scientist, to understand the part of the reality you are working upon. Then you develop a technical solution, and finally you apply it and check the result.
That is how the mind of an engineer might work. Then put you in the shoes of a Muslim student whose mind is shaped this way. He needs a model to understand reality, not only the issues of the field he works, but also the rest of reality. Then, which model is loaded in his mind?
Moreover, there are other causes, such as that the better technical knowledge makes them far more effective, in this case, in shaping today’s worth in a violent fashion. The personal situation may also trigger that his attention is focused on social issues rather in engineering.
Please check that the contrary is also true. For instance, the man that has tackled the Spanish secret services and oligarchs from a perspective completely in line with the Rule of Law in the 3/11 case is Luis del Pino, an electronical engineer that suffered the crash of the sector in 2001.
The question is which model is loaded in his mind. Of course, for a westerner is easier to adopt the anglosaxon one of the Rule of Law-Separation of Powers, because the cultural differences are very low and getting lower in the fields of science and engineering. But for a Muslim one it might be really difficult and shocking.
The engineer is simply a technological factor in a technological world. His believes determine whether he will turn into a sharp tehcnological weapon.
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Thank you. I saw it happen, I clicked POST and nothing happened and after awhile I clicked it again.
Lots of other sites will post a second time if I click the BACK button to go back to the main menu, but this one handles that fine.
I’m an engineer and I’m not completely against astrology 🙂
I second Robin’s comment on roles, power, etc between America and other countries.
“If you learn to pass as a marxist or a libertarian or any of the other crazy cults that doesn’t make you more likely to become a fundamentalist muslim.”
I don’t think that anyone is arguing that it does. As I previously stated, I’m not sure I understand what is being argued, but as I understand the thesis it runs something like this:
In the early 20th century, the Arab nations were in something of a nationalist crisis in that pretty much all of them were now conquered by and colonies of some non-Islamic western power, and the Ottomon empire and seat of Islamist political power had collapsed. Religious-minded pious inhabitents of those lands saw this national crisis as a religious and moral crisis, which is what you’d expect of any religion. But in Islam the military and political crisis was particularly acutely religious because for many Islamic believers, one of the foundations of thier belief was the divine promise of success in battle so apparantly borne out by Islams amazing initial success in creating an empire. Islams apparant military failure since them is thus a crisis of faith and reinforces the normal reactionary impulse in the face of crisis you’d associate with a pious person.
This movement began to try to express its beliefs in a coherent and emotionally powerful way, just as any philosophical movement is motivated to do. And, as you might expect, those writers with the most force tended also to be among the most learned members of the movement, and as such many of them had studied Western philosophy. And in doing so, they were unavoidably exposed to Marxist revolutionary literature, because that was what the radicals in the West were writing and studying at the time. And, in this literature they found a certain kindred in it abhorence of traditional Western views, and in the language it used to denounce those views such as ‘Imperialism’. Thus, Marxist revolutionary literature was adopted at least in part into the fundamental literature of Islamicism, and the precense of radical anti-Western literature and philosophy in the West helped validate these views to succeptable young men. After all, you are far more likely to take seriously criticism of someone if thier own public statements about themselves confirm that criticism.
Even if the Marxist leaning professor wasn’t advocating violence in his class room, doesn’t mean that the violence promoting Marxist literature wasn’t in the dorm rooms.
I don’t think that anyone is claiming that Marxism creating Islamicism. But I do think there has been some influence based on historical accounts of the movement that I’ve read.
Indeed, it forced the Saudis to set an alliance with America and send arms and Jihadist to Afghanistan.
The problem of Islamic extremism is previous to Marxism.
I think Glen has it mostly right. Not only are the hard sciences held in great esteem in the Middle East (the title ‘Engineer’ is found as frequently as ‘Doctor’ on business cards and in introductions), but it generally leads to guaranteed employment.
Thus, choosing to follow that degree, with or without parental pressure, has decided benefits to Arab students. (And their families, of course.)
Second, by choosing to follow an Engineering degree, it’s far more likely that a student can tap into some financial resource for post-grad study abroad. Governments pay for engineering degree work; they don’t for liberal arts degrees. Private companies (including US companies) may invest in a student’s studies if they think they can lock him into a job; that doesn’t happen for Lit. majors.
Perversely, hard sciences also tend toward the black/white. An answer is right or it’s wrong; and equation balances or it doesn’t; an experiment succeeds or it fails. That the minds of engineers are different from those who are not engineers has been noted widely. (Check out the Myers-Briggs attributes for a hoot.)
Rigidity in thinking is not compatible with abruptly being forced to undergo cultural dislocation. So many things that had been deemed ‘wrong’ at home are now suddenly ‘right’ in a new environment–and the opposite. This messes up non-flexible minds.
It has been documented that Muslims suffering from cognitive dissonance tend to head back to the Mosque, Islamic centers, and other establishments (formal or not) that re-emphasize home values. Voluntary segregation into ethnic ghettos is not uncommon. Finding places and groups that offer the comfort of language, food, shared world view are all common. Faced with what feels like oppression (and perhaps at times actually is), there’s a tendency to lash out in reaction.
Islam has a tendency to provide clear black/white answers for the intellectually lazy and mentally inflexible. Islamic societies deprecate criticism of religion and social norms when they don’t outright outlaw it.
Saudi Arabia’s history of education has not helped matters. It’s xenphobic approach to the world and other religions helps set the stage for radicalization. It cannot be held solely to blame though as the vast majority of Saudis do not end up as terrorists; as xenophobes and as ignorant of the world around them, absolutely.
_Perversely, hard sciences also tend toward the black/white. An answer is right or it’s wrong; and equation balances or it doesn’t; an experiment succeeds or it fails. That the minds of engineers are different from those who are not engineers has been noted widely. (Check out the Myers-Briggs attributes for a hoot.)_
I vehemently disagree. For instance, a system of equations may have many different solutions, all of them right; another example in engineering is when a certain amount of error is considered right.
If your hypothesis were right, scientist, and especially mathematicians, would be the worst terrorist of all.
I wouldn’t blame rigidity in thinking, but in the facts that engineers are taught to modify the reality thru technology (and we live in a technologic world) and that their minds are structured in a way were all the factors that the problem involves could be studied and modelled, that is, understood, in order to solve it (to transform the reality). The rigidity does not go beyond those two concepts.
_Rigidity in thinking is not compatible with abruptly being forced to undergo cultural dislocation. So many things that had been deemed ‘wrong’ at home are now suddenly ‘right’ in a new environment–and the opposite. This messes up non-flexible minds._
But that has nothing to do with being an engineer. What Islamic extremism does, in my humble opinion, in the minds of some engineers, is simply to make them discard many solutions of their system of equations, where the entire reality fits in. Mathematically I think it could be expressed as that a certain subspace in the solution of the system is axiomatically put aside, it is named “forbidden territory”. Then, the only solutions left constitue a violent response to the Western world.
It is a if in a computer system all subroutines of error handling had been erased, any program flaw or computing error might hang it, being impossible to regain control unless you pull the plug. Usually, it is not the processor’s fault, which simply executes the code, but the programmer’s, who has erased any limit to avoid such incorrect operation.
Please, note that working upon reality to transform it, is quite often some kind of S&M process, where you are constantly hitting it, hitting the limits. A real experienced person in many fields of engineering has come through mistakes that should have transformed his “system of equations”. Maybe for that reason fairly unexperienced ones are used as terrorist.
Check the Columbia accident, a problem considered under control, it wasn’t. They assesed it was under control because they did not have evidence to think the contrary, however seven persons died, an orbiter was lost and the entire program was halted for two years and a half. And they are the best of the best engineers. The story of engineering is all about factors not taken into account that proved critical, and truly engineers undestand that reality is always beyond the best of their system of equations.