I believe there are studies of crime that come to similar conclusions—i.e., criminality tends not to be profitable and it’s more about social networks. I think a lot of irrational behavior has similar explanations. We need to cast our net wider. Why do people become musicians? Why do they become artists and entertainers? In these cases there’s the complication of the audience but all of the activities are very strange indeed if you take a step back and look at them. Playing one of the many odd instruments available or putting paint to canvas are strange behaviors (putting aside talk of creativity, expression, etc, which offer little insight IMO and just serve to obscure what’s genuinely interesting about these activities). It’s all about niche building. A set of historically contingent social and technological factors have coalesced on the possibility of finding a place in society doing something as odd as playing the violin. Nobody just woke up one morning and thought “let’s blow into a hollowed out piece of wood” or “let’s get a group of people together and pretend to be other people while a larger group of people watch.” There’s a long, strange history to these things. The factors involved are super-personal.
Religion is another excellent example. Some people have managed to find a place in the world as celibate monks. It’s not a matter of personal irrationality but rather a society that, through a sequence of strange and historically contingent machinations, has settled on a state where one can indeed “have a living” as a celibate monk. Given this, it’s little wonder we find people who choose to be celibate monks in our society; such a choice is not irrational on the personal scale on which most people live their lives. Terrorism is the same; we have terrorists because society, for whatever reason, has coalesced on a situation where one can find satisfaction through being a member of a terrorist organization. One can have ones human needs satisfied; including social relationships, status and a sense of worth. Ideologies don’t physically exist. Groups have ideologies. To have an ideology there must first be a set of people, a tightly knit social group, to espouse it. Much like religion I doubt the content of the ideology matters much; the form of the ideology, indeed, probably has more to do with how it fits the daily activities of group members rather than as something outsiders can understand (as is probably the case with religion). The concepts probably form a social exchange for in-group cohesion and should be analyzed as such.
This, I think, is the correct level to study these things. Don’t look at the ideology; look at the actual material embodiment of that ideology, the group that espouses it, and ask yourself not “How do people believe this nonsense?” or “Why do people believe something so irrational?” but “How does this group of people sustain itself?” and “What role does this way of speaking and way of interpreting events play in sustaining in-group cohesion?”
I believe there are studies of crime that come to similar conclusions—i.e., criminality tends not to be profitable and it’s more about social networks. I think a lot of irrational behavior has similar explanations. We need to cast our net wider. Why do people become musicians? Why do they become artists and entertainers? In these cases there’s the complication of the audience but all of the activities are very strange indeed if you take a step back and look at them. Playing one of the many odd instruments available or putting paint to canvas are strange behaviors (putting aside talk of creativity, expression, etc, which offer little insight IMO and just serve to obscure what’s genuinely interesting about these activities). It’s all about niche building. A set of historically contingent social and technological factors have coalesced on the possibility of finding a place in society doing something as odd as playing the violin. Nobody just woke up one morning and thought “let’s blow into a hollowed out piece of wood” or “let’s get a group of people together and pretend to be other people while a larger group of people watch.” There’s a long, strange history to these things. The factors involved are super-personal.
Religion is another excellent example. Some people have managed to find a place in the world as celibate monks. It’s not a matter of personal irrationality but rather a society that, through a sequence of strange and historically contingent machinations, has settled on a state where one can indeed “have a living” as a celibate monk. Given this, it’s little wonder we find people who choose to be celibate monks in our society; such a choice is not irrational on the personal scale on which most people live their lives. Terrorism is the same; we have terrorists because society, for whatever reason, has coalesced on a situation where one can find satisfaction through being a member of a terrorist organization. One can have ones human needs satisfied; including social relationships, status and a sense of worth. Ideologies don’t physically exist. Groups have ideologies. To have an ideology there must first be a set of people, a tightly knit social group, to espouse it. Much like religion I doubt the content of the ideology matters much; the form of the ideology, indeed, probably has more to do with how it fits the daily activities of group members rather than as something outsiders can understand (as is probably the case with religion). The concepts probably form a social exchange for in-group cohesion and should be analyzed as such.
This, I think, is the correct level to study these things. Don’t look at the ideology; look at the actual material embodiment of that ideology, the group that espouses it, and ask yourself not “How do people believe this nonsense?” or “Why do people believe something so irrational?” but “How does this group of people sustain itself?” and “What role does this way of speaking and way of interpreting events play in sustaining in-group cohesion?”