A CANADIANS FIRST RESPONSE TO THE MURDEROUS ASSAULT ON OUR WAY OF LIFE JUST YESTERDAY (ON OCTOBER 22 2014)
Yes its true this morning after yesterdays murderous attack on the Canadian Parliament -- a small modicum of hindsight suggests that yesterday was the metaphorical equivalent of Canadas 9/11": the realization that we have indeed lost our innocence (and complacency) and that we are no longer immune from the murder and mayhem that terrorists have inflicted on our European counterparts (like Britain & France) for so long.
Of course being a resident of Toronto Canada I know that we still have a lot to be thankful for this morning:
Thanks to the most courageous hero of the parliamentary security debacle yesterday -- 58-year-old Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers (who single handedly blocked the terrorist intruder and killed him with a single gun shot) we wake up knowing that the most morally principled & resolute enemy of radical Islamo-fascism in the Western world (along with Australias Prime Minister Greg Abbot) is still alive and well: Canadas Conservative Prime Minister Steven Harper.
Whether its a question of candidly uttering the T word (terrorism") or bringing economic prosperity to his nation (by renouncing socialism" and embracing a true free-enterprise model of capitalism as envisaged by Adam Smith) Steven Harper has unintentionally morphed into the Anti-Obama" -- potentially feared by such discredited American luminaries as Harry Reid Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Shultz Wasserman.
But unlike Barack Obama Harry Reid Nancy Pelosi or Ms. Wasserman you dont expect lies from Mr. Harper every time he moves his lips.
And most important unlike his leadership counterpart in the United States (Barack Obama) Steven Harper also lives sufficiently in the real word (and not a fantasy world of wishful thinking) so that he frequently utters the E" word: recognizing that todays radical Islamist jihadists are EVIL .
After all in response to the recent beheadings of two American journalists even Americas most politically-correct media outlets (for example CNN The NY Times" and even The Washington Post") have begun to use the biblical term evil" to describe Islamist jihadists actions.
And in terms of the psychological & socio-cultural underpinnings of this global jihadist movement how would I long ago educated as a sociologist define evil" in such contexts?
Well as revealed to me -- by the latest Hollywood box-office vampire-film hit (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn") -- teens in North America these days have become surprisingly (to me anyway) interested in vampires and zombies and other forms of the so-called Undead".
And believe it or not here is where I think we can get our first hint about the nature of good and evil:
I call this potential biblical-like" film inspiration: The New Hollywood Testament".
Thats because according to Wikipedia" vampires and zombies exist in some twilight indeterminate zone between life and death; and I suspect that the same can be said of those humans who are genuinely evil.
Such evil forces of darkness (particularly todays fanatical Islamist jihadists) can only manage to live what I choose to call a quasi inauthentic" life -- in which they derive life from their own sufferings (grievances) and from the sufferings they inflict on others (others who symbolically in their minds anyway represent those who inflicted wrongs against them).
THE THEORY:
And in such cases I would hypothesize these dark souls settle for an inner psychological experience of nothingness an inability to live authentically rather than risk the much more terrifying nothingness of having ceased to exist actually dying!
So only by spreading chaos and nihilism in the world are they able to fill the frightful vacuum at the center of their being.
And following this line of thinking perhaps some of those whom we recognize as evil" are individuals who simply cant abide the empty vacuum of nothingness at their core: the hollow empty humans that they are.
And hence to try to stifle this vacuum of inauthenticity" they create even more NOTHINGNESS around them in the form of murder destruction ethnic cleansing and even inhuman beheadings (in the case of todays Islamist jihadists).
Certainly if there is any truth to this analysis then that would explain why extreme jihadist groups which practice inhumane actions to intimidate their perceived enemies (or perceived heretics from their religion) find it so easy to recruit followers from abroad followers who finally find a setting in which their own murderous instincts are accepted and legitimized.
At last these sociopaths -- from far-off lands -- finally find a family" in which they feel comfortable (and are encouraged) to express their most heinous inclinations including to murder rape and even defile young girls behavior which would be condemned by the rule of law in the hated liberal democracies" of Europe & North America.
Of course todays fanatical jihadists frequently find their own version of evil in the world embodied in some alien figures outside themselves: Jews educated women gays (homosexuals") or imperialist American foreigners.
But acting violently against those who embody your perception of evil will not bring you any closer to murdering the non-being at the heart of yourself since that personal inauthenticy is the core of your empty self.
WISDOM FROM THE ANCIENT CLASSICS?
But once on the subject of hated Western civilization (by radical Islam) why not metaphorically journey to its cultural origins to continue our deconstruction" of the roots of evil in our world:
Am I now a man" Homers classical god hero (Oedipus) asks only when I am now no longer human?"
And from my perspective what Homer perhaps implies in his classic tale is that to be stripped of our culture and civilization is perhaps to cease to be human altogether because its this civilized instinct which constitutes authentic humanity.
Hence the moral" of Homers story may be that todays inhumans" (jihidists who fear the nothingness at the core of their being) may go to monstrous lengths to annihilate their sense of inauthentic self and consequently annihilate every (perceived) human obstacle in their path!
So take note President Obama in waging your military plan" of containment" against Americas newest enemies … What you dont know (about evil) may ultimately result in global Armageddon!
Nuff said I would think.
Murray Soupcoff was the editor and co-author of Good Buy Canada" and author of Canada 1984".
He was a founding member (and senior partner) of Ian Sone & Associates Ltd -- Canadas first independent social-research company specializing in the evaluations of federal provincial & municipal government projects in Canada.
He is also the publisher of the Soupcoff Report" investment newsletter whose distribution is partly subsidized by paid subscriptions from former research clients.
