Disbelief in Mississippi at How Far ISIS’s Message Can Travel

Parent Cafe
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@Hunt:
You are dead spot on, and your analogy with communist recruiters is a good one, there were a lot of kids who went to some of the most elite schools in both the US and in places like England, who fell for the whole idea of communism as this panacea, this was especially true in the 1930’s when it looked like everything was going to hell in a handbasket, Russia as this panacea from the ills of the capitalist west, etc, was in some ways a glittering image to many who should have known better (and obviously was bs, given the real conditions in Russia at the time or any time).Lincoln Steffens, who as a progressive muckraker wrote of the reality of politics and corruption, famously said about the USSR that he had seen the future and it worked, which was weird, because his instincts should have told him that like reformist governments in the US, it was probably all smoke and mirrors, but he swallowed what he was shown; he was a bright man, but maybe he had grown bitter at the corruption and conditions in the US, and was willing to suspend disbelief (that is my take on it, anyway).

In my time in college, there were serious questions about one of the Buddhist groups that was aggressively recruiting on college campuses (NSA Buddism? It was like 30+ years ago…), and there were claims of cult like status, kids who joined it kind of isolated themselves from other students and families, hung out with themselves.

I think using the phenomenon of cults is a pretty good way to try and look at this, and it explains why otherwise smart, normal appearing kids would jump at stuff like ISIS or any other cult or whatnot. The problem is that joining ISIS or a cult has very little to do with reason, they work on the emotions, they appeal to something that is inherently irrational. So recruiters for ISIS, for example, put on a really strong dog and pony show about how in their society women would be treated with respect and dignity under Shariah law (their version of it), that there would be none of the materialism of decadent western society, that it would be about living into the will of Allah and having loving families and society, and if you find some kid feeling hollow inside, it will appeal to him/her, even though someone looking outside would say “you have to be kidding me”, they are searching for something and didn’t find it. There are a lot of kids at school, who are lonely, who might already be somewhat estranged from their families, who are on their own and now let’s say outside the strict structure of their family environment, are lost, there are various reasons why they feel the way they do. A lot of the kids who were drawn to groups like the SDS and the weather underground were from well off families, and they were drawn in by rebelling against the very system their parents embraced, the social status and materialism (and like with cults, many of these same kids became the yuppies of the 80’s, talk about reverting to type:).

As far as the parents being shocked, that might be a clue, too. Just based on my experience from my own time in college, the kids I saw drawn to certain, shall we say questionable groups, were often kids who felt ignored by their parents and families, felt like they somehow were overlooked, not appreciated, and if what the kids felt was in fact in some way true of how they were treated, then not shocking the families would not know, it could be they never really paid attention to the kid. Then again, kids also do stupid things, my S is a very responsible person about things, but over the past year or so at times has scared us, when he did things we were like “where the heck did that come from? That isn’t him”…which means even as much as we try to analyze them, think we know them, that point in kids lives are a very major crossroads, and like the emotions that drive this kind of stuff, may not be visible even to parents who think they know their kids.

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It may be less likely to be relevant in a case involving two people, but it should also be noted that early adulthood is a common time for the onset of mental illness.

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I do think mental illness may play a role for some of these students (although not necessarily the MSU couple).

My own mother, who suffered from lifelong mental illness, went through a major religious conversion that her parents tried very hard to reverse, including having her institutionalized for a period of time. The irrational hyper-religiosity that accompanied the illness remained throughout her lifetime. In “healthy” times she was just a (relatively) normal member of that faith; when she was unwell, she had all kinds of delusions and hallucinations.

In retrospect, I can see how even her attraction to my father (whom she married outside of her family’s faith) was likely a symptom of some underlying psychiatric issues. He was fairly domineering, and her parents did NOT care for him at all. He had his own issues, but he was as aghast at some of my mother’s behaviors in later life as her parents were.

It’s scary, especially when you worry you might pass those genes on to your own kids.

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I thought it was notable that Christian Taylor underwent an intense religious experience shortly before the strange behavior that culminated in his death. This is something that happens to people at this age.

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I agree with Hunt about the mentality of the “vulnerable” ISIS recruits. I am reminded of the Bill Maher incident in 2001 when Maher was fired from ABC TV and his talk show cancelled. Maher said that it was silly and wrong to call the 9/11 terrorists cowards and that calling them cowards was just ‘a feel good’ reaction. Of course he was right then. The 9/11 killers and the Muslim enemies of the U.S. today are not cowards and they are not dumb. They are evil men and women whom attack us with fervor. These are the kind of people who ISIS is looking to dupe into allegiance.

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While I thought Maher was given the bum’s rush and I think it is also a little too easy to call people who join ISIS or whatnot dumb, I also would be careful about using words like evil to describe people who might be tempted to join ISIS. If ISIS is ‘duping’ them into allegiance, for example, to use LakeWashington’s term, “These are the kind of people who ISIS is looking to dupe into allegiance.”. If they were truly evil, then they wouldn’t need to be duped, they would go in with their eyes wide open, as probably many of their recruits do, the sociopaths who for example cut off people’s heads and so forth,or the leaders. It isn’t excusing or condoning those who join this kind of things, but a lot of times people join something thinking it is something that it really isn’t, a lot of people in the 1930’s flirted with communism until they realized it was not what they thought it was, for example. Someone may well be naive, may be recruited into something and not understand necessarily what it really is, and while you can say they are screwed up, or naive or whatnot, are they really evil?

I realize that it can be hard to say that about someone willing to join ISIS at this point, with all the revelations about what they are doing, the killing of innocent people, the slavery of young girls as sex slaves, you name it, that they aren’t evil, but it is still possible to be duped, to allow yourself to believe something is better than it is, especially when you might be desperate for something to find meaning in. It is like saying all Germans of the WWII era were evil, full blown Nazis, many people fought that war, or even supported the Nazi rise to power, without comprehending what it meant, were they all evil. People who were otherwise good, decent people in the US supported leaders like Charles Coughlan and Huey Long, despite what those men stood for, were they evil or misguided? Again, I am not saying ISIS isn’t evil, or that many who join it know just what they are getting into, are going there because they like what ISIS is doing and represents, but not all who do so will be evil people, that’s all.