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Understanding Terrorism:
Building on the Sociological Imagination
Bernard Phillips, Editor
Contributors:
J. I. (Hans) Bakker
Bernard Phillips
Adam Rafalovich
Thomas J. Scheff
Sandro Segre
Jonathan H. Turner
Todd Powell-Williams
UNDERSTANDING TERRORISM:
BUILDING ON THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
PART ONE INTRODUCTION
Ch 1 The Web and Part/Whole Approach to Terrorism BERNARD PHILLIPS
PART TWO UNDERSTANDING TERRORISM
Ch 2 Terrorist Organizations and Agency: A Comparative-Historical Approach J. I. (HANS) BAKKER
Ch 3 Terrorism as an 'Ism': Toward an Interactive Versus a Stratified Metaphysics BERNARD PHILLIPS
Ch 4 Assessing the Fallout of the Terrorist Moment: Anomie and the Fractured American Weltanschauung ADAM RAFALOVICH
Ch 5 Runaway Nationalism: Alienation, Shame, and Anger THOMAS J. SCHEFF
Ch 6 The Social Psychology of Terrorism JONATHAN H. TURNER
Ch 7 Making Sense of the "Senseless": A Constructionist Application
of the Web and Part/Whole Approach TODD POWELL-WILLIAMS
PART THREE CONNECTING THE DOTS
Ch 8 On the Relationship of the Web Approach to Some Theoretical Perspectives SANDRO SEGRÉ
Response to Segre's Analysis BERNARD PHILLIPS
Ch 9 Conclusions and Recommendations BERNARD PHILLIPS
Chapter 9
Conclusions and Recommendations
Bernard Phillips
In the opening paragraphs to Chapter 1 of this volume I claimed the following:
This volume derives from our conviction that social scientists have largely failed to follow the ideals of the scientific method in their research efforts, granting both good intentions and hard work. Specialization among the social sciences and subspecialization within each of them have yielded bits and pieces of knowledge which do not address the complexity of human behavior. . . .The result of this unwillingness to confront human complexity by following scientific ideals is limited ability to understand threatening social problems like terrorism and provide the knowledge essential for making progress toward solving them. It is we social scientists who have not developed a platform of understanding which can become the basis for effective applied efforts--rather than the politicians who must work with available knowledge--who should take primary responsibility for what appear to be escalating social problems.
And in the closing paragraph of Chapter 1 I drew this conclusion:
Moving beyond this chapter to the volume as a whole, the authors hope to continue to illustrate what the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method can accomplish for the social scientist. . . . By so doing, we hope to penetrate ever more deeply into the complexity of human behavior. If indeed we authors are successful in our efforts, then we will be laying out a path which any reader can follow in exploring any substantive or applied problem whatsoever. If we are not successful, we hope that readers will be motivated to find an alternative path which will take them ever closer to penetrating human complexity. In either case, we are convinced that following such a path is not only essential for the further development of the social sciences. We believe it is essential for the very survival of modern society as we know it.
We are addressing this volume to three audiences: social scientists, governmental officials and others who are confronting the problem of terrorism, and the general public. For the social scientist, our approach to the scientific method can be applied to any substantive or applied problem whatsoever. That approach is outlined in Chapter 1, is illustrated in the chapters of Part Two, and is elaborated on the website of the Sociological Imagination Group: <www.uab.edu/philosophy/sig> it requires that we specialists assume the enormous complexity of human behavior. It also requires that we open up to more and more of that complexity by reaching out to knowledge from other specialized areas. It implies, for example, that no problem exists in isolation from any other problem. It also implies that we must see any given substantive or applied problem from a very long-term historical perspective without at the same time neglecting the depth of the momentary situation where the problem manifests itself. And in addition it implies that the investigator's own impact on the analysis of the problem must come to the surface, for it is an impact that shapes every stage of the research process, including the conclusions that are drawn.
As for those who are not professional social scientists--including governmental officials and the general public--this same focus on the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method can used by all of us in our everyday lives. For example, if the 9/11 Commission had employed it in their efforts even to a very limited extent, they would not have ignored the knowledge available within the social sciences as they proceeded to develop their Report. Neither would officials of the CIA have felt free to ignore knowledge relevant to the activities of terrorists that could have been uncovered by reaching out to the knowledge developed by the FBI, and vice-versa. Further, the rest of us could have demanded much higher standards for the use of scientific methods of investigation by these agencies, based on our own usage of those standards in our everyday lives. This is by no means meant to minimize the difficulties involved in following these ideas, given the fundamental assumptions of specialization, stratification and limited communication which are the basis for modern society. Yet the time is long overdue for us to question those assumptions if indeed they prevent us from coping with massive and apparently accelerating problems like terrorism. C. Wright Mills called for a very broad approach to the scientific method by all of us in his The Sociological Imagination, which he addressed not only to social scientists but also to the public at large. It would appear now that we no longer have the luxury of seeing this direction as simply a nice thing for academicians to accomplish as they go about their own business within the social sciences.
In this final chapter of the volume, I will begin with a section where I attempt to draw out key ideas from each of the foregoing chapters. By so doing I do not pretend to include much of the contributions of those chapters in Parts One and Two. Yet this will provide a basis for the second section of this chapter: conclusions. It is there that I will focus on the integration of the foregoing materials.around some central ideas. And in a final section I will put forward recommendations, bearing in mind the three audiences for this volume. Let me make it very clear that this volume by no means pulls together more than a tiny portion of knowledge within the social sciences that bears on terrorism. Yet if we see this volume as illustrating an approach to the scientific method that follows scientific ideals, then it may well be constructing a path leading to more and more integration of our understanding of terrorism as well as any other substantive or applied problem. At the risk of repeating myself, I must emphasize that in my view modern society now has its back to the wall. We are failing to understand any major social problem, yet we continue to conduct business as usual throughout the social sciences. Those problems will continue to escalate unless we learn how to address them with the most powerful tools that human beings have invented: language and the scientific method.
Some Contributions within Chapters 1-9
Chapter 1 The Web and Part/Whole Approach to Terrorism--Bernard Phillips
My own focus in Chapter 1 was to outline and illustrate the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method. That presentation outlined the background to this approach, which includes publications over a 15-year period. The approach emphasizes five elements: (1) definition of the problem, (2) high level of abstraction, (3) low level of abstraction, (4) integration of knowledge, and (5) reflexive analysis and interactive worldview. This is an effort not to present an alternative vision of the scientific method, but rather a set of procedures for moving toward scientific ideals on the assumption that presently social scientists by and large are failing in this respect. It is a failure illustrated by the very limited communication among social scientists in different specialized fields, on the assumption that the enormous complexity of human behavior requires such communication. As a result, no platform of integrated knowledge of human behavior is presented to the rest of us as a basis for making progress on solving world or personal problems. A sense of urgency attaches to this analysis, for problems will continue to escalate if this situation continues, and modern society may well be reaching a point of no return quite soon.
Although these five elements of the Web and Part/Whole approach may appear to be nothing more than standard methodology within the social sciences, in fact they point up procedures for going beyond the lip service given to those scientific ideals. The fifth element may be singled out for special attention because of its importance as well as the near-universal ignoring of it by social scientists. That element is the focus of my own Chapter 4, which summarizes the ideas within an in-press book, The Invisible Crisis of Modern Society (Phillips and Johnston, in press). It points toward the assumptions, almost invariably unconscious, that we all make about the fundamental nature of reality. If the scientific method has to do with epistemology or how we learn about reality, then this fifth element centers on an assumption about the nature of reality. My own analysis suggests that social scientists and the rest of us fail to follow scientific ideals largely because we have adopted a stratified worldview or metaphysical stance by contrast with an interactive worldview. As a result, unless we learn how to move toward an interactive worldview we will remain largely unable to follow scientific ideals.
In the last part of Chapter 1 I illustrated the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method by comparing it to the approach to understanding terrorism adopted by four recent articles appearing in a symposium on terrorism. Just as this chapter pulls together only a small proportion of the ideas within this volume as a whole, so did my analysis in Chapter 1 integrate only a small portion of the ideas within those four articles. I was able to note a series of significant conclusions in those papers: for example, there was attention to the history of terrorism instead of a focus limited to recent events, concern with physical structures that are involved in terrorist acts, interest in patterns of social stratification, attention to the complexity of the problem, concern with cultural values, attention to personality and social structures, and interest in conforming behavior. Yet for all of these contributions to analyzing many aspects of the complex phenomenon of terrorism, these studies failed to build on one another cumulatively. And I saw that failure as both epistemological and metaphysical: the lack of an approach to the scientific method sufficiently broad so as to follow the scientific ideal of opening up to all relevant phenomena, and a lack of attention to the limitations resulting from the investigator's own metaphysical stance or worldview.
Chapter 2 Terrorist Organization and Agency: A Comparative-Historical Approach--J. I. (Hans) Bakker
Bakker's very first line is a quote from a recent book by Andrew Silke: "[I]t is much easier to condemn terrorism than to understand it." Bakker points away from a simplistic contrast between good and evil and toward the enormous complexity of the phenomenon of terrorism. For example, Giddens' concept of "structuration" suggests a more complex approach than either a focus on "functionalism," "totalism," or "structuralism." A functionalist approach pays insufficient attention to fundamental conflicts; totalism is simplistic in its over-emphasis on culture; and structuralism tends to ignore the impact of the individual and the small group. Those approaches are not wrong, but they lead to partial truths. Giddens' approach, by contrast, yields a direction pointing to the complexity of any phenomenon, such as terrorism. Of course, condemning terrorism has its uses as well. Beyond an intellectual analysis of this phenomenon, it is useful for investigators to become committed to the importance of addressing effectively the problem of terrorism. For it is a problem that poses very serious threats to modern society.
Silke goes on to make this claim: "The activities of terrorist groups and the nature of their membership have by and large been studiously ignored by social scientists." We can well understand this if social scientists have opted for "functionalist," "totalist" and "structuralist" approaches, for the first two emphasize culture and the third stresses large-scale social structures. Bakker's alternative--a focus on the small group and the individuals within it--might well be applied to a wide range of social problems, and not just to terrorism. He illustrates his approach by referring to the work of Scheff and Retzinger on shame and rage in small groups, emotions which also are linked to the actions of large-scale social structures. Such analyses require the kind of situational detail which is rare in social science studies. The demands of such a focus are aided by limiting the analysis of the problem of terrorism to non-state terrorism. In that way we are in a better position to emerge with important findings.
Bakker's commitment to a comparative and historical approach is well-illustrated by his analysis of six quite different examples of terrorist activities. In addition to the 9/11 Al Qaeda attack, he discusses the attacks on the King David Hotel and the village of Deir Yassin in April, 1948, just prior to the declaration of the State of Israel; the explosion of Cuybana Airlines Flight 455 on October 6th, 1976; the activities of the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s; the work of the Mujaheddin and Fedayeen in Iran in 1981-1982; and the activities of the Narodnaya Volya in Russia between 1878 and 1911. His approach illustrates his commitment to a comparative-historical approach to understanding human behavior, an approach that opens up to both generalizations about human behavior and also to the concrete nature of any given historical situation. It is an approach which he sees as meshing with the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method, for the latter provides procedures for analyzing the complex phenomena uncovered by a comparative-historical orientation.
Chapter 3 Terrorism as an "Ism": Toward an Interactive Versus a Stratified Metaphysics--Bernard Phillips
To see terrorism within a very broad context we must see it in relation to the wide range of social problems within the modern world. And we must also see it from a long-term historical perspective. This approach is much the same as the comparative-historical orientation adopted by Bakker in Chapter 2, especially since that breadth and historical orientation opens up not just to the United States but to the world as a whole. It is here that we can invoke the importance of the gap between expectations and their fulfillment, the same problem that was the focus of my own Beyond Sociology's Tower of Babel: Reconstructing the Scientific Method (2001). This problem invokes in turn a view of terrorism as an "ism" along with other isms like racism, sexism, ageism and nationalism. For isms emphasize patterns of social stratification, and those patterns are central to limiting the fulfillment of widespread expectations or cultural values like equality and the fundamental worth of the individual. Those expectations did not suddenly arise full-blown in the modern world but rather are the product of very long-term historical processes that include the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Greek cultural tradition and the Judeo-Christian tradition. And we can even move beyond Western culture to see elements of such values in Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Zen.
Granting the difficulties in doing research within such a broad framework, it is exactly here that we can introduce the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method. For that approach enables us to reach out very widely over the full range of cultural values or expectations which is to be found within any individual or group within any given society in any historical period. And that approach also enables us to reach out over the full range of forces that limit the fulfillment of those expectations, such as patterns of stratification and bureaucracy. The key to this breadth is the utilization of language's incredible potentials--with respect to dichotomy, gradation and metaphor--which have been only partially utilized within the social sciences. For example, by moving very far up and down language's ladder of abstraction we can move from a particular ism to the social stratification in general, and from a particular value like equality to cultural values in general. Unfortunately, however, no more than lip service is given to the basic procedures within the Web and Part/Whole approach, granting the acceptance of its emphasis on the ideals of the scientific method.
A key aspect of that approach is its focus on moving far up language's ladder of abstraction to the researcher's metaphysical stance or worldview. By so doing, we might contrast what appears to be our universal stratified worldview with an alternative interactive worldview. This chapter summarizes an in-press monograph--The Invisible Crisis of Modern Society: Reconstructing the Shattered Social Sciences--which finds substantial evidence on the impact of these worldviews on the gap between expectations and their fulfillment. Specifically, a stratified worldview tends to widen that gap whereas an interactive worldview tends to close that gap. This suggests that a stratified worldview encourages isms like terrorism, whereas an interactive worldview discourages such isms. In addition, a stratified worldview with its narrow orientation points away from the ideals of the scientific method. It appears, then, that movement from our stratified to an interactive worldview can help us in at least two ways: reducing a fundamental basis for terrorism, and enabling us to follow scientific ideals which would help us to understand terrorism along with the range of social problems linked to terrorism.
Chapter 4 Assessing the Fallout of the Terrorist Moment: Anomie and the Fractured American Weltanschauung--Adam Rafalovich
Rafalovich gives us a detailed illustration of the power of moving up and down language's ladder of abstraction as a basis for building bridges unifying diverse investigations. If we come to view "anomie" as an abstract concept, then we can come down language's ladder of abstraction to see relationships among research by Durkheim on the division of labor, by Merton on structural strain, and by Garfinkel on breaching experiments. And by so doing we are able to address macro, meso, and micro phenomena, respectively. The beauty of this approach is that an investigator can in this way locate bridges and move toward the integration of knowledge, whereas the body of work by Durkheim, Merton and Garfinkel point in diverse directions yielding isolated islands of knowledge. For example, Garfinkel's work points away from acknowledging the importance of large-scale social structures and, indeed, the importance of the scientific method itself. Rafalovich makes very clear the failure of the social sciences to engage in such building of bridges and the necessity--indeed, the urgency--of doing so. It is an urgency that has to do not only with the fate of the social sciences but also with the fate of modern society.
Rafalovich then proceeds to come much further down language's ladder of abstraction by linking anomie--emphasizing its macro aspects--to the Iran hostage crisis starting on November 4th, 1979, and continuing to January 20th, 1981, Reagan's inauguration day. President Carter had no policy which proved effective for obtaining the release of the hostages, provoking American resentment of his administration ultimately leading to his rejection at the polls. Carter's failures reflected an inability to understand what had been happening in the Middle East, including anti-American sentiment. That sentiment came to be revealed in a far more tragic manner by the events of September 11th, 2001. Macro, meso and micro elements of anomie all came to the fore, and we are continuing to experience those elements to this day. By using the concept of anomie in these ways, Rafalovich illustrates the potential of sociology for understanding fundamental problems within modern society. We should note the importance of his procedure linking work by Durkheim, Merton and Garfinkel as a basis for accomplishing this. For such linkage creates a broad platform of knowledge from which we can launch efforts to understand complex problems like terrorism. Without such linkage--based on the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method--we have little to offer policy-makers.
By moving further up language's ladder of abstraction from anomie to "Weltanschauung," Rafalovich reaches a phenomenon that is largely invisible, almost never investigated yet is extremely important for understanding our modern situation along with the range of contemporary social problems. By so doing he adds to my own analysis of worldviews or metaphysical stances in Chapter 4. He claims that our Weltanschauung is deeply fractured: "having bias against, or sympathy for, people of Arab descent, feeling grateful for, or resentful at, increased surveillance measures, supporting or opposing domestic and international anti-terrorist policies." By dipping into my own emphasis on the growing gap between expectations and fulfillment, we might come to see this fractured Weltanschauung as having developed over a very long period. One implication of Rafalovich's analysis, following my own analysis in Chapter 4, is that we must address our fractured Weltanschauung if indeed we wish to confront effectively the problem of terrorism along with other threatening problems in contemporary society.
Chapter 5 Runaway Nationalism: Alienation, Shame and Anger--Thomas J. Scheff
Nationalism is an ism in common with terrorism, sexism, ageism, ethnocentrism and racism. Not that every orientation to the importance of one's own country is jingoistic and invokes social stratification among nations, but the tendency toward such stratification and ethnocentrism is nevertheless there. From this perspective, Scheff's chapter sees nationalism--in common with my own Chapter 4 on terrorism as an ism--as working to widen the gap between expectations and fulfillment by preventing fulfillment from moving up toward expectations. Thus, it invokes fundamental social problems in addition to terrorism which in turn strengthen the basis for terrorism. It is that wide gap between expectations and their fulfillment which appears to be a major basis for the development of shame in modern society. It is also a gap which encourages us to repress or fail to acknowledge our shame, for otherwise it would make us aware of a problem we would have great difficulty in learning to resolve. For it appears to be a gap closely associated with the very process of modernizatioin. Further, let us recall Scheff's analysis of the shame and rage cycle, detailed in his earlier work along with that of Suzanne Retzinger, as a basis for Roseman's analysis of the emotions which terrorism stimulates and which our mass media extend, especially fear, shame and rage.
Scheff's contrast between scientific language such as "alienation" and everyday language such as "love" is most instructive. The vagueness and ambiguity of ordinary language is quite different from scientific language which follows scientific ideals, where it is clearly defined and enables us to link concepts in systematic ways. Of course, we should distinguish between the "potential" of scientific language to achieve such clear definitions and systematic usage and actuality, since alienation along with most other social science concepts have generally been so treated as to depart from these scientific ideals. As illustrated by Rafalovich's Chapter 5, we can come to see the links between three different approaches to anomie within the sociological literature along with the link between Weltanschauung or worldview and anomie. "Love" can be used so as to mean nothing more than "infatuation," which implies the engulfment of one individual by another or the engulfment of an individual by a jingoistic orientation, by contrast with an egalitarian social relationship or by respect for one's nation without implying its superiority over all other nations. For Scheff, the concept of alienation can clarify just what is going on versus hiding it within a vague concept. He sees alienation as bimodal, by invoking isolation between groups and engulfment of the individual within a group. Thus, alienation becomes a basis for the generation of violence at the collective level. Here, Scheff is showing that alienation fits into a stratified worldview just as Rafalovich showed anomie's links to that same worldview. And he carries his analysis further by invoking the "techniques of neutralization" developed within the literature of criminology to explain the lack of acknowledgement of the hatred implied by bimodal alienation. Such techniques, well illustrated by the Nazi regime in their campaign against the Jews and others, include denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of victim, condemning the condemner, appeal to higher loyalties, and denial of humanity.
Given the enormous complexity of human behavior, as illustrated by the vagueness and ambiguity of our everyday language, our commitments to high ideals coupled with stratified behavior pointing away from those ideals, and a stratified worldview which works to keep all of this in place, is there any way out of what appears to be increasing social problems like terrorism? Although Scheff does not give us a very general strategy--like how to move from a stratified to an interactive worldview--he does indeed give us a number of illustrations which might prove to be key elements of such a strategy, and he does mention in his introductory remarks the possible importance of the "stratified worldview." For example, there is the acknowledgement of shame and rage, as exemplified within the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and its spinoffs. On a cultural level this can be partially achieved when governments acknowledge their past misdeeds and proceed to pay compensation to victims and their families. A related idea is the organization of Truth and Reconciliation Committees, such as those which have helped to transform relationships in South Africa. Welfare programs can be so organized to reduce the shame that ordinarily would be involved. Films emphasizing sexism, violence, racism and xenophobia might be analyzed and shown to conflict with our humanistic ideals. And we might choose to elect far more women to high office, on the assumption that they would be less likely to initiate wars to satisfy any sense of hypermasculinity. Even if that were not the case, this would at least point us closer to the cultural value of equality and an interactive worldview.
Chapter 6 The Social Psychology of Terrorism--Jonathan H. Turner
Turner carries forward the focus on non-state terrorism emphasized by Bakker (Chapter 2) and most of the other authors. And he also carries forward the focus on emotions by Roseman (Chapter 6) and Scheff (Chapter 7) in his highly systematic chapter linking diverse elements of the forces producing terrorism Metaphorically, he links "heart" and "head" when he ties together the literature on the process of attribution with positive and negative emotions. And within that linkage, he ties together external sanctions and internal success or failure to fulfill individual expectations . Further, he systematizes Freudian analyses of the role of defense mechanisms like repression, projection and displacement. But he does not remain at this general level. He presents a systematic analysis of relationships among specific emotions which is quite comprehensive and breaks new ground. In addition to primary emotions having to do with satisfaction, disappointment, fear and anger, he provides no less than 60 everyday concepts describing these emotions at different levels of intensity (e.g., serenity, friendly, bliss). He also proceeds to describe "first-order emotions" which combine two primary emotions, and he even goes so far as to describe some secondary emotions, involving the combinatioin of three primary emotions. His analysis also opens up to the importance of biological forces fostering emotions. As a result of this far-reaching analysis, he constructs a basis for understanding the genesis of the intense negative and positive emotions involved in acts of terror.
This approach to emotions, which emphasizes a "micro" level of analysis face-to-face interaction) is in turn tied to the "meso" level (e.g., groups, organizations, communities, age, sex, class, ethnicity) and "macro" levels (e.g., stratification systems, institutional domains, whole societies, and systems of societies). Micro units are embedded in meso units, and meso units are embedded in macro units, an approach which is similar to Giddens' analysis of structuration, as presented by Bakker. In this way, although Turner emphasizes emotional dynamics within this chapter, he also develops paths for the investigation of meso and macro phenomena in addition to giving illustrations oif such behavior that bear on terrorism. We have, then, nothing less than a general outline of the dynamics of human behavior, filled in to an extent by an analysis of the emotional dynamics revolving around acts of terrorism. Implicitly, Turner is raising the question of whether this outline would prove useful in efforts to pull the many literatures within the social sciences into this outline.
In the last part of the chapter Turner proceeds to apply his conceptual framework to understanding the forces producing terrorism. Overall, he focuses on the question he poses in the very first sentence of his chapter: "Why would individuals be willing to kill citizens of another society and, if necessary, themselves in the name of a cause?" From this question, we can note the importance of attribution. As for emotions, Scheff's analysis of the link between shame and rage also illustrates Turner's conclusions. Although Turner does not emphasize procedures that might be employed to reduce terrorism, his analysis implies a number of possibilities. For example, distorted attributions by Middle Eastern governments that they are not to blame for unemployment, poverty, poor education and inadequate health care might well be countered by accurate information. Beyond this, efforts to aid such governments in confronting such problems effectively, with clear attribution of the sources of successes achieved, might be initiated. In addition to such applied efforts, one implication of Turner's analysis is the importance of more and more comprehensive and systematic analyses of problems like terrorism throughout the social sciences as a basis for penetrating the complexity of such phenomena. Further, there is the importance of testing such broad analyses against the full range of literatures within the social sciences.
Chapter 7 Making Sense of the "Senseless": A Constructionist Application of the Web and Part/Whole Approach--Todd Powell-Williams
Powell-Williams proceeds from a social constructionist approach in his analysis of the claims made by the Bush administration in response to 9/11. This approach builds on several earlier developments within sociology, such as Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality along with the extensive literature on the social construction of social problems, and even earlier the work on labeling theory by Scheff and others. This invokes the process of problem definition not only outside of the academic world but inside of it as well. By looking inside of that world, we come to grips with the sociology of knowledge, looking to the diverse forces involved in the definition of any scientific problem. This approach is an essential aspect of the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method, where the investigator's own impact on the entire research process is taken very seriously. And moving outside of the academic world, which is what Powell-Williams emphasizes, this approach to the definition of social problems opens the investigation up to a world of complexity. This is much like the complexity involved in trials within the legal system. By the ability of prosecutors and defense attorneys to cross-examine witnesses, they open up a Pandora's box of possibilities. What is the credibility of a witness? What is the witness' motivatioin to lie or tell the truth? What opportunities did the witness have to have the experiences which could yield the basis for valid statements? Was the witness coached by the prosecutor or defense attorney?
Powell-Williams' analysis digs deeply into the ability of Bush and his administration to shape how the media came to define the problem of the 9/11 attacks, and by so doing gave impetus to a polemical style which has come to dominate political discourse more and more inside and outside of the mass media. It is a style that constitutes an excellent illustration of what I have called a stratified worldview (Chapters 1 and 4), what Rafalovich has referred to as a Weltanschauung (Chapter 5), what Scheff has found in his analysis of nationalism (Chapter 7), and what Roseman has found within the media's response to terrorism (Chapter 6). Powell-Williams' detailed analysis of all press releases on terrorism in the ten days following the attacks includes statements by George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Art Fleisher, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Dobald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft. The uniformity of their claims, as frequently illustrated by usage of exactly the same language, is most apparent. For example, there is a focus on the dehumanization of the enemy ("Today our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature). There is also the invocation of fear ("This enemy hides in shadows and has no regard for human life"). And there is a focus on the denigration of the fundamental cultural values within American society ("They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other").
Implicitly, Powell-Williams is posing a basic question for academicians as well as those outside of academia: Is it indeed possible to employ the scientific method in such a way as to make transparent the role of the individual attempting to define a problem? Or are we doomed to the kinds of polemical and non-transparent arguments which now dominate the mass media, and which have also found their way to an extent inside of the academic world? The great achievement of many postmodernists, granting their failures in other ways, is to raise the same question for academic research that prosecutors and defense attorneys raise for witnesses. And more generally, they raise the question of whether it is indeed possible to follow the ideals of the scientific method. From my own perspective--illustrated by the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method--it is indeed possible to move toward ever greater transparency within the scientific method, provided that we proceed to reconstruct that method in accordance with scientific ideals. Following the work or Karl Mannheim and others on the sociology of knowledge, and of Alvin Gouldner on the importance of reflexivity, we can indeed learn to open up to the phenomenon of investigator effect. By so doing, we also open up to a Pandora's Box of complexity, just as is achieved in any trial. Yet this appears to be essential if we are to develop the opportunity to fulfill the ideals of the scientific method.
Conclusions
These conclusions stem not from considerations as to what is or is not practical or what social scientists and others might be willing to consider doing. Rather, they stem from what I believe to be the nature of the problem of terrorism and what I believe is actually required if indeed this problem is to be addressed effectively. Pragmatic considerations are of course most important, and they will enter into the next section on recommendations. But conclusions must derive from the materials in Parts One and Two and not from practical considerations. I will begin with conclusions on the nature of the problem of terrorism. And I will continue with three kinds of approaches to confronting this problem: theory, methodology or epistemology, and metaphysical assumptions. By so doing we shall be climbing language's ladder of abstraction, moving from the concrete to the ab stract.
The Problem of Terrorism. What has been presented in the above chapters are efforts to understand a problem that is fundamental, highly threatening and most complex. It is also a problem that will continue to become ever more threatening in the years ahead, given (1) continuing failures to make much progress in an overall understanding of the forces producing terrorism coupled with effective efforts to change those forces, (2) the ever-increasing effectiveness of weapons--along with the means to gain access to them and deliver them--that can terrorize and destroy populations and physical structures, and (3) the development of relatively independent groups that can engage in acts of terrorism with minimal contact and support from others. The 9/11 Commission Report (2004) yielded some understanding of the problem of terrorism, focusing on immediate threats. Yet the problem appears to be substantially more complex than the analyses in that Report suggests, especially the long-range problem along with the links between terrorism and other fundamental problems in modern society. To get at that complexity we shall proceed to examine ideas or theoretical perspectives on the causes of terrorism, methods for doing research on terrorism or epistemological considerations, and (3) fundamental assumptions which shape both methods and theory, or metaphysical considerations.
Causes of Terrorism, Ideas as to the causes of terrorism range very widely within the foregoing chapters. Without pretending to summarize the many ideas on those causes which are contained in those chapters, I might mention the major concepts from the social science literature that were invoked, for it is those concepts which build on previous research. Vernacular language was emphasized in those papers, but it is best to translate that language into social science concepts in order to build on past research efforts. Key concepts stated or implied within the four papers I reviewed in Chapter 1 are social stratification, cultural values (including lack of value fulfillment), subcultural values, language, group, interaction, deviant behavior, social movement, stratified worldview, international stratification, cultural change, personality structures, social structures, organization, religion, technology, physical structures, situation and conforming behavior. It is these concepts which are the basis for the many propositions about the causes of terrorism to be found in those papers.
For example, Oberschall in his "Explaining Terrorism" employs largely vernacular language. He cites: "(1) discontent, (2) ideology-feeding grievances, (3) capacity to organize, and (4) political opportunity." With the aid of the above social science concepts deriving from all four papers, we can transform that argument to point toward: (1) lack of cultural and subcultural value fulfillment, based largely on patterns of social stratification; (2) cultural and subcultural values linked to a stratified worldview-- and often linked as well to religion--which legitimate a social movement pointing toward cultural and subcultural change that includes violence and deviant behavior; (3) the use of language, interaction, social structures, personality structures, groups and conforming behavior to develop that social movement; and (4) seizing upon situations where the goals of that movement can be advanced with the aid of technology and taking into account physical structures. It is those social science concepts that have been developed from research on human behavior in general which we can learn to build on as we proceed to focus on any particular problem such as that of terrorism. It is this approach which appears to be fundamental to the employment of a scientific method that reaches deeply into the complexities of human behavior through integrating knowledge from more and more of the full range of social science knowledge. Tilly in his "Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists," points up the limitations of using vernacular or everyday concepts like those in his title in any attempt to understand the violence that is involved, suggesting instead a much more scientific approach.
Without going into the details of each of the chapters in Part Two, we may note the use of these same social science concepts, explicitly or implicitly, along with a number of additional ones: anomie, macro, meso and micro patterns of social structure, emotions like fear, revenge, guilt, anger, love, terror, forgiveness, shame and rage, emotional repression, consciousness or awareness, alienation, mass media, nationalism, racism, ethnocentrism, ageism, sexism, biological structures, symbols, primary, first-order and second-order emotions, positive and negative sanctions, attribution, positive and negative emotional experiences, proximal bias, distal bias, self-image, ingroup and outgroup, symbols, expectations, social construction of reality, ecology, social conflict, norms, power, institutionalization, goals, relative deprivation, addiction, social change, affectual, instrumental and value rationality, social problem, definition of a problem, narratives, framing, worldview or Weltanschauung, labeling, and other concepts as well. This wealth of social science concepts implies--to me at least--the importance of integrating all of the knowledge on which they are based and focusing that knowledge on specific problems like terrorism. Granting the importance of bringing that knowledge to the surface with the aid of those concepts, that scientific process must be followed up so as to achieve such focus. It is exactly here that we must move to follow the ideals of the scientific method that call for the integration of knowledge. Failing that, efforts to confront the problem of terrorism or any other social problem will remain limited.
The Scientific Method: Epistemology. The Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method has been the basis for this volume. Granting discussions of it in earlier publications, my presentation in Part One, the initial efforts to employ it throughout Part Two, and also the dialogue centering on its nature in Chapter 10 of Part Three, it remains an approach which all of us in this volume have only begun to explore. Most relevant here is Peirce's advice: "Do not block the way to inquiry." Just as Segre claimed in Chapter 10, the approach "is an epistemological viewpoint, the fruitfulness of which should not be taken for granted, for it is contingent on the amount and quality of theoretical and (thereby) practical knowledge it yields." In other words, this volume is no more than a small beginning in the effort that Segre and I call for.
Yet the potential of a scientific method which can in fact build on the vast knowledge developed throughout the social sciences and thus penetrate the complexity of human behavior is nothing less than humongous. We might assess the difficulties that are involved by both the successes and the failures of this volume, and this can help us to understand the nature of the road ahead. On the one hand there is general commitment to the importance of using the Web and Part/Whole approach to the scientific method, as defined by earlier publications. That method has enabled us to build on a substantial range of concepts from the social sciences which, in turn, build on a much greater range of knowledge deriving from past research. And that method has also helped us to focus those concepts and that knowledge on one general problem: that of terrorism. By so doing, participants in this volume have developed a basis for critiques of the fruitfulness of the Web and Part/Whole approach. Such criticism is illustrated by the dialogue in Chapter 8l.
However, we can see from an examination of this volume that these efforts are no more than a beginning in attempting to focus the range of social science knowledge on the problem of terrorism. Each of us authors has no more than a very limited range of such knowledge by comparison with what exists throughout the vast literature of the social sciences, provided that we open up to the full complexity of terrorism so as to include its many links with phenomena. And our ability to integrate even that knowledge is limited, as we might see from the many largely unintegrated concepts throughout Part Two and the lack of focusing them jointly on terrorism. It is here that the Web and Part/Whole approach can succeed or fail in demonstrating its potential: Does it in fact provide a road that social scientists can travel to develop such integration with respect to terrorism? This is a question that can be answered only by the efforts of many social scientists to travel that road. If that direction proves to work for the problem of terrorism, then there is good reason to believe that it can work as well for any other social problem, given the breadth of the Web and Part/whole approach to the scientific method.
Metaphysical Stance. Yet the literature on the Web and Part/Whole approach suggests the existence of a fundamental barrier to our ability to travel that road, namely, a stratified metaphysical stance or worldview. Recent research (Phillips and Louis Johnston, The Invisible Crisis of Modern Society: Reconstructing the Shattered Social Sciences, in press, Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO) suggests the widespread existence of this metaphysical stance as well as its powerful impact on all of us from one moment to the next. From this perspective, we can begin to understand both the failures of social scientists to follow the scientific ideal of opening up to the range of phenomena relevant to a given defined problem as well as the limitations of this volume. This situation is illustrated by the limited communication across the relatively invisible barriers set up by the 43 Sections of the American Sociological Association. What appears to be required if we social scientists are indeed to travel the road envisioned by the Web and Part/Whole approach is nothing less than widening that road so that it includes a change to a metaphysical stance or worldview which facilitates rather than creates barriers to such travel.
If we pay attention to Kuhn's argument in his The Structrue of Scientific Revolutions as to the difficulties involved in changing a scientific paradigm, then we can understand the enormous difficulties that would be involved in changing a cultural paradigm or worldview. For that would have to do with our every thought, feeling and action from one moment to the next. From a practical perspective this appears to be a most unrealistic possibility. Yet I refuse to be guided by pragmatic considerations in this section on conclusions: such a metaphysical shift appears to be most important and most urgent, given the enormous impact of one's worldview on one's ability to follow scientific idealsWe have available the two most powerful tools developed by the human race: language and the scientific method. We have only begun to learn how to utilize language's full potential, and the same is also true for the scientific method, which nevertheless has succeeded--with the help of other forces--in dramatically shaping our world. Further, if world problems like terrorism continue to escalate with no solutions in sight, that should motivate more and more of us to re-examine our most fundamental assumptions and search for alternatives. For what will come to be seen as at stake is not just the adequacy of our theoretical, epistemological and metaphysical stances but also our very survival.
Recommendations
I might specify recommendations for three audiences: social scientists, individuals who are now directly confronting the problem of terrorism and who work primarily in governmental agencies, and the general public. These recommendations are not simply directives for changes within governmental agencies or the establishment of new agencies--such as those made by the 9/11 Commission--granting the importance of such organizational changes. Rather, they have to do with fundamental changes in individuals and groups or social structures, changes involving shifts in basic assumptions along with values and beliefs. For these are the kinds of changes that are called for by the above conclusions. This approach is by no means meant to belittle either the work of the 9/11 Commission or the efforts of all those presently working so hard to confront the problem of terrorism. Rather, these recommendations are designed to enable those efforts to become increasingly effective, largely through the integration of social science knowledge bearing on terrorism and through much closer interaction between those individuals confronting terrorism and social scientists.
As for social scientists, I believe that we must take into account our limited resources extended over a very wide range of basic and applied problems, thus encompassing a great many areas of knowledge. Our human and material resources are stretched very far, yielding very little coverage of any specific problem. Yet given the complexity of problems such as terrorism, such a diffusion of our efforts cannot carry us very far. Instead, my recommendation is for a convergence of as much of our resources as possible around one particular problem, such as terrorism. What is also required if we are to gain genuine convergence around a given problem--by contrast with the lack of such convergence to be found throughout the social sciences--is a theoretical, epistemological and metaphysical approach which calls for convergence, such as the Web and Part/Whole approach. One way for social scientists to move in this direction is to establish communication with those individuals presently confronting the problem of terrorism. For they will tend to demand the most effective tools that social scientists can develop, and this will work to broaden the perspectives of social scientists. The ivory tower serves many useful purposes through its encouragement of dedicated research that builds on previous research. Yet social scientists must also leave that tower and, by so doing, can become motivated to develop broader perspectives as a result of interaction with non-academics working to solve fundamental problems. By so doing, social scientists should both learn to contribute to the efforts of those in the trenches, and they also can learn to develop a much broader approach to the scientific method.
It takes two to tango, and governmental officials along with others working on the problem of terrorism--my second recommendation--should be eager to learn whatever social scientists have to offer and also be eager to communicate with social scientists. Of course, their primary responsibility must remain with their applied efforts, just as the primary responsibility of social scientists must remain with their research and educational tasks. What I'm recommending is the development of a secondary responsibility for both groups, and in this way both groups can become educated to a wider and--I submit-an increasingly effective perspective. This is not at all a question of using social scientists more frequently as consultants to governmental organizations. For that generally leads to limited changes on the part of the consultants as well as the applied individuals. And it generally sets up a hierarchy, where the consultant is telling the applied person what to do and learning very little about his or her own limitations. Instead, there should be genuine collaboration among equals and genuine learning by both social scientists and applied individuals. And the learning by applied individuals should not be limited to what is gained through such interaction. In addition, they should be devouring the integrated knowledge that social scientists will be deeveloping on the basis of the first recommendation above. To the extent that this process proves to be successful on the problem of terrorism, it can then be applied to the full range of other threatening problems in modern society as well as to theoretical or substantive problems throughout the social sciences.
With respect to my third recommendation, this has to do with the general public, yet it also involves both social scientists and applied individuals. Fundamental problems like terrorism are far too threatening to be left solely in the hands of specialists, yet at the same time the work of specialists is most important. Following the above conclusions, a change of worldview is necessary to achieve the convergence of knowledge required to address effectively the problem of terrorism or any other fundamental problem in modern society. Social scientists who follow the above recommendations will be in a position to help others see the way to move toward a changed worldview, granting the very long-term nature of that process. Nothing less than a widespread change of worldview is required to support the efforts of social scientists along with applied individuals to understand and effectively address modern problems. This calls for yet another role for social scientists: that of public intellectuals, that is, people who communicate widely outside of the academic world. Once again, what is required is not the hierarchical role of know-it-all consultants, but rather egalitarian relationships with the general public, assuming that social scientists have much to learn from the public, and vice-versa. As for the public, integrated social science knowledge need not be difficult to learn, especially when social scientists learn to communicate effectively. And as a result--taking into account the epistemological and metaphysical bases behind this interaction--the general public, social scientists as well as applied individuals can all learn to apply a very broad scientific method within their own everyday lives. By so doing, they will all be learning to shift, one step at a time, from a stratified to an interactive metaphysical stance. It is by no means enough, in our efforts to learn about and combat terrorism, to look outward to the terrorists. We must also learn to look inward at ourselves. Following cartoonist Walt Kelly's Pogo--a take-off on the words of Commodore Oliver Perry reporting his victory over the British in the battle of Lake Erie--"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo was helping to celebrate Earth Day when he came across litter under a tree. Yet we are also our own enemy to the extent that we fail to see how our own actions and inactions contribute to terrorism.
It is, then, we social scientists who are in the best position to show the way for everyone else. The immediate responsibility for confronting the problem of terrorism rests on others, but the longer-range responsibility for confronting that problem effectively--along with all other social problems--rests on our own shoulders, given our potential for developing the understanding that is required. Can we learn to develop theories that are up to this task of penetrating the complexity of these problems? Can we learn to develop methods--following our scientific ideals--which enable us to achieve the necessary integration of knowledge? And can we learn to change our very metaphysical stance so that it supports these efforts? It is we more than any other group who carry an incredible weight of responsibility not only for the future of social science but also for the future of society.