Resistance to terrorism is always also an affirmation of humanism

There is a connection which I’m afraid many people do not make in this quote, from an Adam Kirsch review of the new DeLillo book in the New York Sun. It strikes me as powerful and true, and deserves to be a bumper sticker.

Kirsch quotes a 1985 interview in which De Lillio said “There is a deep narrative structure to terrorist acts, and they infiltrate and alter consciousness in ways that writers used to aspire to.” and goes on to expand on that idea:

“This insight, which once might have seemed paradoxical or frivolous, now looks like a simple statement of fact. Terror, we have learned during the last five years, regards individual bodies as a medium through which to affect the collective imagination. That is why the terrorist can so savagely disregard his victims’ suffering, and why resistance to terrorism is always also an affirmation of humanism.”

Now, some people will regard critical reflection on terrorism by novelists as at best irrelevant, and at worst a distraction from the ‘war on terror’. Understanding political violence is central to protecting a world in which ordinary people can be free to lead their lives and enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
From Afghanistan to the White House, most terrorists subscribe to a world view in which human life is not important. Whatever version of the beardy old testament god they follow, most terrorists regard this world as less important than the next, seeing humanity as some sort of worthless sinners who can only be saved by some external diety. Not only do they not care about people, but creating some sort of mini-Apocalypse in Manhattan or Baghdad is, in their view, a good thing.

The humanist world view is entirely different. You do not have to be an atheist to be a humanist, but it helps. You do have to believe that this life is important, and that every human being is entitled to a shot at being all they can be. For the humanist, life is not a prelude to an afterlife, but a worthwhile endeavor in itself. For the humanist, both the means and aims of the terrorist are profoundly wrong.

The terrorist is quite willing to make unreasonable demands, insist that you go along with their worldview, and use the threat of violent death to enforce compliance with their agenda. To the terrorist, their abstract ideology is more important than your life. People who use force seek compliance, not understanding.

For the humanist, life is a quest for meaning and understanding, an adventure, not a punishment.
For the humanist, the blind faith of both sides in the ‘war on terror’ in the value of force is wrong – force can never be a long term solution. Warfare is a means to an end, but if your end is in the next life, then blowing people up in this life won’t hold you any ground in the next one. It is unfortunate that in the age of the soundbite, it is easier to gain airtime for a simplistic solution based on destruction, on the idea that your problems are someone else’s fault and if you kill enough of them, things will be better, than for a worldview which requires people to accept responsibility for their own problems, understand their own human condition and work to reasonable solutions.