Part 3 of Brink Lindsey’s articles on terrorism is up, and here’s a quote:

The terrorists’ strategy is, of course, delusional to the point of psychosis. No faith, however blind, will make rote memorization of ancient texts, suppression of critical inquiry and dissent, subjugation of women, and servile deference to authority the recipe for anything other than civilizational decline. The Islamists therefore cannot win, at least not as they conceive victory. All they can do is try to bring us down to their level. But on that score, the threat they pose is formidable.
In the longer view, the threat of the new barbarism goes far beyond Islamist totalitarianism. Over time, the chaos of underdevelopment could spawn other radical anti-Western movements. Less speculatively, there are fringe political movements here in the West %u2014 white supremacists on the right, radical environmentalists and animal-rights zealots on the left %u2014 that have already demonstrated their willingness to use violence against their fellow citizens. Likewise, apocalyptic cults can double as terrorist cells, as happened with Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. Although members of such groups may have been born and raised among us, their deep alienation from the larger social order can make them, in effect, internal barbarians – enemies of a civilization that, psychologically at least, they are unable or unwilling to make their home.

Not much to disagree with, from my point of view. I think he misses two key issues, that may provide leverage for dealing with this stuff:
First, that societies live through their philosophies. This isn’t wa-wa incense-waving nonsense. The reality is that societies function because they can constrain the behavior of the people who live in them. What matters a lot is how they do that constraining.
Second, that the dislocation caused by modern technoloigies and modern economies throughout the world tear up the social structures that constrain people’s behavior, and leave the door open for new ones, which may often be pernicious.
We were talking last night about speeding and traffic laws (which I’ve discussed before). I often ride a motorcycle, and the behavior of many of my fellow riders concerns me…they act stupidly, have accidents, the general public gets mad, laws get passed, etc. I’m thinking about how to make stupidity ‘uncool’, and figuring out how to make that a viable meme.
We started talking about the role of ‘belief’ in obeying the law…the same kind of thing I talked about as ‘legitimacy’. I can obey the law because I believe it is right (through upbringing, socialization, rational discourse), or because I am afraid of ostracism. Or, on the other hand, because I’m afraid I’ll be arrested or jailed or fined.
Society depends on the first kind of constraint, on the internal constraints of socialization and conscience. As those are eroded, we’re trying to replace them with remote cameras and email sniffers, but there are a few problems with that model…
– that it is a lot less likely to work;
– that if it works, it will create a kind of society that we may not want to live in;
– that we will gradually (as we have been doing) reduce the ability of people to internally control their behavior, which will go on to make a vicious cycle of more external control, less self-control, more problems, more calls for external control, etc. until the whole system collapses under the weight of the pinpoint control each of us will be subject to.
So for me, the key is the seed…the idea…that we need to plant and cultivate to try and reverse this trend. And that seed is philosophical.