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Boston, the Tsarnaevs and terrorism: no, it really is complicated Boston, the Tsarnaevs and terrorism: no, it really is complicated
(5 months later)
A narrative is quickly congealing to explain last week's bombings in Boston: religious extremism was to blame; the killings were motivated, in short, by faith alone. On Tuesday I argued that this is too easy a conclusion, relying on a glib notion of "explanation" that deserves more scrutiny. According to various people in the comments to that post and elsewhere, this was a squirming liberal's effort to ignore what was self-evident; according to Norman Geras, I was engaging in "oh-so-complicated obfuscation" in order "not to have to recognise something perfectly obvious about one brand of modern terrorism". Oh dear. Please indulge me while I briefly try to outline why I still don't think we should be satisfied with "it was a violent brand of Islamism" as a full and final explanation.A narrative is quickly congealing to explain last week's bombings in Boston: religious extremism was to blame; the killings were motivated, in short, by faith alone. On Tuesday I argued that this is too easy a conclusion, relying on a glib notion of "explanation" that deserves more scrutiny. According to various people in the comments to that post and elsewhere, this was a squirming liberal's effort to ignore what was self-evident; according to Norman Geras, I was engaging in "oh-so-complicated obfuscation" in order "not to have to recognise something perfectly obvious about one brand of modern terrorism". Oh dear. Please indulge me while I briefly try to outline why I still don't think we should be satisfied with "it was a violent brand of Islamism" as a full and final explanation.
Although the media rarely treats it as such, "explanation" is actually a pretty fraught idea. In the sense in which we usually deploy the word, it's unclear how you can ever get to a ground-floor, bottom-level, ultimate explanation of anything at all. The kinds of explanations of which liberals are fond are no exception to this. Once you've explained some violent act in terms of alienation or poverty or outrage at US foreign policy, you can still legitimately ask what explains the alienation, or the poverty, or the outrage, or the foreign policy, and so on – backwards, presumably, to the Big Bang.Although the media rarely treats it as such, "explanation" is actually a pretty fraught idea. In the sense in which we usually deploy the word, it's unclear how you can ever get to a ground-floor, bottom-level, ultimate explanation of anything at all. The kinds of explanations of which liberals are fond are no exception to this. Once you've explained some violent act in terms of alienation or poverty or outrage at US foreign policy, you can still legitimately ask what explains the alienation, or the poverty, or the outrage, or the foreign policy, and so on – backwards, presumably, to the Big Bang.
This isn't a terribly useful observation, since it applies to absolutely everything. I mention it only to counter the widespread sense – especially, this week, on the right – that when you've attributed an act (the bombings) to a cause (religious extremism), you're entitled to declare the matter closed, and then sneer at anyone who seeks to add complexity to the picture. But there is always more complexity; there are always antecedent causes, and we won't prevent future terrorism more effectively by pretending that there aren't.This isn't a terribly useful observation, since it applies to absolutely everything. I mention it only to counter the widespread sense – especially, this week, on the right – that when you've attributed an act (the bombings) to a cause (religious extremism), you're entitled to declare the matter closed, and then sneer at anyone who seeks to add complexity to the picture. But there is always more complexity; there are always antecedent causes, and we won't prevent future terrorism more effectively by pretending that there aren't.
One stricter alternative is to define explanation as nothing but the discovery of correlations that successfully predict future events. If it's the case that adherence to a certain extremist ideology is a good predictor of engaging in terrorist acts, then it's probably good policy to (say) have your intelligence agencies pay close attention to people who adhere to that ideology. If that's all anyone meant by "explanation", things would indeed be simple. But it isn't: in the response to events like last week's, debates about explanation are always really debates about where to put the blame.One stricter alternative is to define explanation as nothing but the discovery of correlations that successfully predict future events. If it's the case that adherence to a certain extremist ideology is a good predictor of engaging in terrorist acts, then it's probably good policy to (say) have your intelligence agencies pay close attention to people who adhere to that ideology. If that's all anyone meant by "explanation", things would indeed be simple. But it isn't: in the response to events like last week's, debates about explanation are always really debates about where to put the blame.
I wish this weren't the case. I agree with this post at the Third Estate – which takes issue with some of my original argument – that the moral question of blameworthiness ought to be kept completely distinct from the empirical one of explanation. Even if you could explain a particular terrorist act as being wholly caused by the terrorist's childhood experiences, it wouldn't automatically follow that the act was less worthy of blame. I suppose some of the proponents of complexity may harbour a secret desire to excuse the Boston bombings, or to suggest that they weren't worthy of total condemnation. If they do, they're awful people. But that ought to be an entirely separate point.I wish this weren't the case. I agree with this post at the Third Estate – which takes issue with some of my original argument – that the moral question of blameworthiness ought to be kept completely distinct from the empirical one of explanation. Even if you could explain a particular terrorist act as being wholly caused by the terrorist's childhood experiences, it wouldn't automatically follow that the act was less worthy of blame. I suppose some of the proponents of complexity may harbour a secret desire to excuse the Boston bombings, or to suggest that they weren't worthy of total condemnation. If they do, they're awful people. But that ought to be an entirely separate point.
In reality, however, explanation and justification get conflated all the time. The psychological payoff from attributing the Boston bombings to religious extremism and stopping there is that you get to blame something clear and distinct and alien, and then move on. In the face of horrific events, this urge to find some stable ground is understandable. And it's true that we mustn't become paralysed by an appreciation of complexity: we shouldn't keep asking questions at the expense of taking necessary action. But we shouldn't stop asking the questions, either.In reality, however, explanation and justification get conflated all the time. The psychological payoff from attributing the Boston bombings to religious extremism and stopping there is that you get to blame something clear and distinct and alien, and then move on. In the face of horrific events, this urge to find some stable ground is understandable. And it's true that we mustn't become paralysed by an appreciation of complexity: we shouldn't keep asking questions at the expense of taking necessary action. But we shouldn't stop asking the questions, either.
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