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Terrorism in History: Its Politics and Mentality
| Article
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16588 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1989 |
5,877 Words |
| Author
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Wayne Allen
Wayne Allen is assistant professor of political science with
specialization in political philosophy and legal theory at
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. |
It is paradoxical that political terrorism extends from the absence of politics. Indeed, terrorism, like its more organized (and accepted) counterpart, war, takes place when political means have broken down. Politics is the reconciliation of conflict, the movement toward some agreement between people or persons who have identified a commonality, some mutual interest. It is the beginning of the civilizing process. Political decay begins when conciliation breaks down. When this happens one possible consequence is terrorism by a people who lack the formal military capacity to uphold their interests. The reason terrorism is called political is because it remains an effort by a people to express their will against others. But even in aggregate, this will is prostrate before recognized bodies politic and stands outside normal political channels. Terrorism thus defies the civilizing process.
Since the classical epoch of Western political thought, political ties among people have been based on some vision of the public good. Following Plato and Aristotle, political association often entailed some strain toward consensus about what constitutes the best possible regime for all. This was most notable in fifth-century B.C. Athens. The means used to reach this consensus were discourse, opinion-getting, and dialogue among the participants who composed the public realm.
Of course this vision was not always shared, and single individuals often usurped the consensus-building process by superimposing one will on the aggregate. This was tyranny to the ancient Greeks, not because there was no vision, but because the public was excluded from forming it. The process of politics was circumvented; the dialogue of participation was replaced by the monologue of the tyrant.
As conceived by Plato and Aristotle, tyranny is hostile to politics for three reasons: the personalization of authority; a lawlessness that obliterates standards against which subjects might measure their conduct; and a reciprocity of fear that destabilizes the relationship between ruler and ruled. But the essence of tyranny is the systematic exclusion of citizenry from public life.
With no access to the public realm, individuals are consigned to private life. To the Greeks, this meant a life of necessity, a condition where one satisfies biological needs. What men do out of need is not free; it is coercive, a command from the body.
The Greeks held private life in such
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