Терроризм как социально-психологическое явление. Практикум на английском языке

of other users. The network is probably the most democratic medium of the mass media, which does not require any investment and is accessible to everyone.

Another advantage of information resources of the network is the possibility of feedback between the user and the information provider.

Thus, the user is given the opportunity to declare himself, to inform visitors of his or her resource the necessary information from his point of view, private, commercial, and public.

Many of these factors are not in themselves prerequisites for Internet addiction, but acting in conjunction with each other and, most importantly, with the user’s personality, they are capable of provoking the formation of Internet addiction.

On the one hand, ease of access to the Internet resources is a determining factor in the growth of Internet commerce and, as a result, its accessibility for a wide range of users.

This makes the Internet particularly attractive for young users, including adolescent users, providing, in the narrow sense of the word their socialization, and often professional, career and material growth. On the other hand, the limited scope of the network carries a negative load.

Like any field of activity, including professional and private interests, the Internet is a kind of environment for the functioning of a teenager who has his own laws of forming internal relations and his own unique set of factors affecting the personality.

At the present stage of development, it seems possible to talk about the formation of an Internet subculture that possesses an almost complete set of necessary features: its own slang, internal hierarchy, a set of well-established ideas that constitute the worldview position of members of the subculture, certain ethical norms, a sufficient number of formal and informal leaders forming around themselves sustainable user communities that carry out ideological leadership.

Like any subculture, the Internet unites large groups of adolescents, forms a circle of interests and communication, stimulates the development of interpersonal relations and has its positive and negative influences on the individual sphere of mental activity of its members.

Among the negative factors of the influence of Internet culture on personality, it is necessary to name first of all the depersonalizing and metapersonalizing influence, the transfer of the pole of communicative

51

TERRORISM AS A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON

activity from the real conditions of society to the network, autization. Apparently, these factors are the leading factors in the formation of the prerequisites for Internet addiction.

The creation of virtual images, often very far from the real image, is a compensatory mechanism that determines the expressed Internet dependence. The most powerful provocative factor in this case is the set of properties of the Internet as a means of communication. Anonymity and the factual impossibility of checking the information provided about yourself, the possibility of connecting in a virtual image of real, desired and entirely fictional characterological and other features stimulate the development of Internet addiction in the teenage age group.

n real communication with peers, the possibilities of identification with the ideal “I” are limited to direct contact, allowing situations that sharply manifest a discrepancy between the real and declared qualities. This circumstance is almost completely eliminated when communicating within the network. In most cases, communication within the network does not imply the subsequent transfer of relations to the physical world, which leaves users with complete freedom of action.

Network communication allows a teenager to live in the images of his dreams and to carry out within these images a much-desired (and impossible in the real world) communicative activity.

One form of Internet addiction is the possibility of implementing a pathological identification, which is essentially a mechanism very similar to the achievement of the ideal “I”, the difference of which is the pathological features for the adolescent identifying features inherent in the created image. The most common is pathological identification with the opposite sex. The low frequency of occurrence in the population of such disorders as transsexualism is in sharp contrast to a significant number of cases of pathological autoidentification on the basis of sex in the network.

Another form of Internet addiction is hacking. This is a whole movement, which seeks to demonopolize the distribution of software products and democratize access to Internet resources. The activities of hackers are mostly not commercial in nature and are not used to extract material benefits.

It should be noted that for the implementation of a full-fledged hacking activity requires a very high professional training programmer.

Hacking performs a number of very positive functions: by their activities hackers stimulate the creation of information security systems;

52

Identify and eliminate software defects by performing software testing; ensure the distribution of software products in the network, allowing users to copy them free of charge, significantly saving their funds (to the detriment of, of course, the commercial interest of manufacturers).

At the same time, hacking inflicts damage to intellectual property, it can interfere with the commercial interests of software producers (the damage caused by hackers is difficult to assess as very significant in the scale of manufacturing firms), hacker technologies can be used for criminal purposes.

The Internet addiction in the form of hacking is widespread in a teenage environment on a limited scale, which is primarily due to the lack of professional training. However, many teenagers potentially attract hacker activity, which leads to the formation of Internet addiction.

Catastrophic (including the consequences) scale has acquired the creation of malware (viruses). In Windows, creating time-consuming programs does not require serious training of the programmer and is fully available to adolescents. It reflects fully the destructiveness inherent in adolescents due to their age-specific features, as well as certain levels of psychopathology, in particular personality disorders, dysphoric states with organic CNS lesions. The majority of adolescents, getting into the network, find no other application for their potential opportunities for self-realization. In this, virus writing is akin to vandalism and inflicting obscene content on the walls of inscriptions.

For fruitful creative work, which the Internet provides fully to all users, not only a stock of purely technical knowledge and skills is needed, but also a common spiritual and educational potential, which in many cases is insufficient. Figuratively speaking, when there was a real opportunity to loudly declare yourself to the world, it turned out that the modern teenager simply has nothing to say.

The Internet is an abundance of computer games that are freely available to the user. In addition to the versions implemented in the offline mode, there is a large number of network games – from chess and card games, realized in the online mode, to specific, exclusively computer games – strategies, quests, etc.

Gaming is the most common form of Internet addiction among teenagers. The predominance of this form is due to the lack of any skills in working with a personal computer (PC), the fascination of many games

53

TERRORISM AS A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON

and the provided game with the possibility of autoidentification with a variety of characters. PC games are much more popular than adventure and fantasy literature, which is due to the dynamic nature of them and, most importantly, the complex, plot-changing plot algorithm, interactivity of the plot.

Many games combine in their storyline several lines, allowing to show creative, destructive and search qualities of the user.

A significant problem of Internet gaming is the development of a network of gambling in the network, the creation of a broad (and unregulated) network of online casinos. In fact, this kind of activity differs little from the usual forms of gambling, except for its accessibility to a wide range of users.

The main signs of Internet crime have the same roots as crime in general, but they have a number of features that allow attributing its manifestations to a special type of “high-tech crimes”. Most of the crimes of this category can be formally assessed as fraud, illegal financial transactions, consumer fraud, etc.

The category of Internet crimes can be attributed with some measure of distribution of pornography, advertising of prohibited services (for example, prostitution), dissemination of information about the manufacture of drugs, weapons, etc. In this case, the Internet manifests its role more as a universal means of communication, rather than arenas and tools of illegal activity proper.

Investigation of Internet crimes is extremely difficult. In most cases, they remain undisclosed. However, it is very difficult for a criminal to take advantage of the results of his activities.

Unfortunately, at present, the issues of preventing Internet addiction are practically not developed. In a number of foreign works, the authors propose using online psychotherapy to prevent Internet addiction.

It is likely that the search for methods to correct Internet addiction will continue, in parallel causing numerous controversies due to the uncertainty of the very concept of “Internet addiction”.

List of references on the p. 90.

54

Unit 6. Socio-psychological factors of development and the modern terrorist personal characteristics. Psychological types of terrorists and the motivation of their behavior

The aim: to consider development factors and personal characteristics of a modern terrorist, to study the types and motivations of terrorists.

Competence acquired by the student as a result of mastering the topic of practical training or part of them: readiness to act in non-standard situations, to have social and ethical responsibility for the decisions made (GK-2).

Timeliness of the unit: terrorist activity is a complex, hierarchically constructed, multifunctional and dynamically developing system that has its own external psychological structure. Psychological analysis of activities involves the allocation in it of the main structural components and the establishment of the nature of the relationship between them. These include the motive, purpose, actions, methods, conditions, operations, means, the result of activity and feedback.

Theoretical part

In the vast majority of cases, terrorists are young people at the age of about 20, plus or minus five years, who have been educated in a patriarchal and highly religious culture.

In their minds there are usually stable ideas about the historical trauma of their nation and powerful emotional ties with the latter. Typical social feelings are sorrow and grief, combined with strangled national pride. Most often, terrorists are characterized by special (in many ways - distorted and mythologized) ideas about the “historical offender” and the need for punishment and retribution, which are set by stable patterns of behavior and evaluations actively cultivated in society. These representations, most likely, are supplemented by the actual mental trauma, connected with the real facts of the death of relatives, relatives or simply fellow tribesmen, quite often – directly in front of the future terrorist.

In the individual history, as a rule, there is an early deprivation of parental care and attention, as well as traumatogenic youth spent in deprivation and accompanied by numerous humiliations and losses (houses, relatives, property, social and material status, etc.).

The absence of emotional ties in childhood is subsequently compensated in their ideological or religious version, in particular, in fanatical devo-

55

TERRORISM AS A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON

tion to certain leaders or ideas (up to the ideas of God’s election) and reli- gious-utopian dreams of a perfect world (with very simplistic notions of it).

The religious “framing” of the ideas of struggle, revenge or retribution creates not so much a special code of conduct as it determines a specific social connection between members of a particular national or social group, which reflects the universal need to merge with something larger (filled with high meaning) than simply merging with specific group. One of the most important factors of this ideological fusion is the notion of death and the afterlife.

In the culture of societies, from which the ranks of terrorists are replenished, their death is considered a heroic and noble victim, a feat of martyrdom, and almost always evokes approval and support, which are projected onto the family and the entire terrorist family, surrounded by care and respect. This does not mean that families encourage suicide bombers or feel no grief, but families, and the terrorists themselves know that along with sorrow and the pain of loss, there will be the acceptance of the victim, and understanding, and approval and even pride. Such death is not considered a suicide, but a martyrdom, in which a specific person forever merges with the history of society or the nation, with its past, present and future.

Death at a young age is not generally perceived as a finite (irreversible) phenomenon, and even ordinary suicides (with an atheistic attitude) in some cases have fantasies about how they will see what will be after their death. Religious ideas of eternal bliss, of course, are more powerful and are accompanied by ideas about going to another level of being and merging with God or, at any rate, sensations of identification with a great idea or purpose.

A special place is occupied by the concept of sense formation - that is, the need to feel that my existence has a special meaning that goes far beyond the gray, miserable and hopeless everyday life (therefore, the more economically, socially and politically the situation in the environment is, the more likely the terrorist type perception of the world).

In view of the aforesaid, the terrorist practically does not lend himself to rational dissuasion. He is almost ignorant of fear and repentance in the committed or the perfect. The attempt to portray a terrorist as a mentally ill person is incorrect in nature and does not lead anywhere. Equally incorrect are the ideas of a terrorist, as a primitive uneducated person.

56

There is a huge difference between a man who decided to commit suicide due to intolerable mental suffering, and a suicide bomber who loves life, is full of strength, inner energy and confident in his special mission. The behavior, activities and statements of the terrorist are not amenable to rational analysis and require special approaches from the position of the irrational.

One of the leading elements of any antiterrorist operation is the negotiation process, the effectiveness of which is determined by the availability of highly qualified negotiators (usually psychologists) with special (multi-year) additional training.

Terrorists often look older than their years. Men, as a rule, are clean-shaven (preparing for a burial ceremony), in impeccably clean shoes. A suicide bomber may have a detached or, on the contrary, a focused look, to remain wary, apart from others. For the purpose of camouflage, persons with various injuries can be used. The terrorist usually presses things to himself and periodically feels them involuntarily. Dressed, as a rule, in clothes, appropriate to local conditions, style, weather. But clothing may not match the weather to conceal an explosive device on the body. The drive of the detonator of an explosive device is usually a cord or wire, clamped in the hand or seen from under the folds of clothing (sleeves). A characteristic feature of the behavior of suicide bombers is a noticeable unmotivated excitement, accompanied by abundant sweating, and sometimes saliva, increased attention to the environment and people. Some of them say prayers with a whisper when other people approach.

In psychology there is the concept “I am a concept” – this is the level of a person’s mission, the core of the personality (who am I for what do I live?). On the basis of this, it also costs to interact with society. Undoubtedly, the question arises about the terrorists: are they just crazy? Psychological studies of the personality of the terrorist lead to the conclusion that this contingent of people has disrupted the process of adaptation and socialization of the person, as well as deviations in behavior. These violations in psychology and in psychiatry are called “borderline states” or psychopathic pathologies of nature, in which the subject has an irreversible severity of properties that prevent his adequate adaptation in the social environment. These are such anomalies of character that determine the behavior of the individual and do not change during life. Pathologies can arise as a consequence of:

57

TERRORISM AS A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON

1)diseases (brain trauma, infection, intoxication, psychotrauma);

2)congenital inferiority of the nervous system caused by factors of heredity, birth trauma).

Under the influence of a stressful situation, the psychopathic manifestations of the personality can be more pronounced and manifest in protracted reactions and neuropathic states, depression. But it should be noted that in general this is not crazy people. Manifestations of psychopathy are quite diverse, in the simplest form, individual traits can be sharpened or accentuated. Of course, not all psychopaths become criminals and terrorists and terrorists, but the presence of this symptomatology includes these individuals at risk. Under the influence of certain circumstances, they will rather take the path of offenses than individuals without psychopathological inclinations.

Terrorists are a special type of people whose emotional components predominate to such an extent that they become affective. In this regard, the psyche of terrorists is approaching the psyche of the human crowd.

Low level of culture and understanding of the world around, that only violence and threats are the most effective ways of transforming the world, make the personality of the terrorist a special socio-cultural phenomenon.

In terms of the severity of emotions, there are two types of terrorists:

The first type is characterized by extreme coolness. “Absence of very strong emotions, stressed composure is considered a quality that increases the effectiveness of terrorist activities and reduces the risk for terrorists,” notes D. V. Olshansky.

The second type of terrorists has a deep emotional life. Increased temperament leads to hyperactivity and overemotionality. As a rule, when carrying out terrorist acts such a person is collected and reserved, but in everyday life he is not able to restrain his emotions, impulses, affects, aggression.

D. V. Olshansky singled out for the majority of terrorists also primitive syndromes that hamper the resolution of complex ethical and moral problems and that underlie their terrorist actions are the driving motives of terrorist activity:

“Zombie Syndrome” manifests itself in a constant natural su- per-alertness, active hostility towards a real or virtual enemy, aspiration for complex combat operations. This is a “fighter syndrome”. Such people

58

constantly live in the conditions of war, they avoid the situations of peace and rest in every possible way, they have a brilliant weapon skills.

“Rimbaud’s syndrome” is expressed in the neurotic structure of the personality, torn apart by the conflict between the desire for acute sensations and anxiety experiences, guilt, shame, disgust for their participation in them. For such people is characterized by the recognition of a “mission” for the salvation of the world voluntarily entrusted to itself, the thought of noble altruistic duties enabling the realization of aggressive aspirations. This is the “missionary syndrome”.

The Kamikaze-Shahid Syndrome is characteristic of suicide bombers who destroy themselves along with their victims during the terrorist act. The main psychological characteristics of such people include extreme readiness for self-sacrifice.

Describing the motivation of terrorist activity, the scientist-psycholo- gist D. V. Olshansky distinguishes seven (7) types of motives:

1.Mercantile motives. For a certain number of people, engaging in terror is a way to make money.

2.Ideological motives. Such a motive arises as a result of a person entering into a kind of community that has an ideological and political orientation.

3.Motives for transforming and actively changing the world. These motives are connected with the experience of injustice in the existing structure of the world and the desire to transform it on the basis of a subjective understanding of justice.

4.The motive of power over people. Through violence, a terrorist claims himself and his personality. By instilling fear in people, he strengthens his power.

5.Motive of interest and terror attractiveness as a sphere of activity. Terrorists can involve the risk associated with terrorism, the development of plans, the specificity of the implementation of terrorist acts.

6.Companionable motives of emotional attachment in a terrorist group. Such motives can be: the motive for revenge for the dead comrades, the motives for traditional participation in terror, because one of the relatives was engaged in it.

7.The motive of self-realization. This is a paradoxical motive. On the one hand, such self-realization is the lot of people who are strong

59

TERRORISM AS A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON

in spirit. On the other hand, such self-realization is a recognition of the limited possibilities, a statement of the insolvency of a person who does not find other ways of influencing the world, except violence. The level of general training of a suicide bomber is of no fundamental importance. All special training is reduced to achieving unquestioning obedience to mentors and readiness for self-sacrifice. As an additional element of the ideological training of young suicide bombers, the following can be used:

–opposition of youth and parents and people of the older generation;

–propagation of ideology among Muslim youth towards work, physical work, social justice;

–inculcating a sense of special Wahhabi dignity and superiority over persons professing Islam of another kind;

–promoting the simplified execution of Muslim rites (combining several prayers, denying the requirements of the traditional school of Islam) in Wahhabi communities and jamaats;

–imposing (including by methods of physical pressure) thoughts of quitting the national custom and moving to the position of “pure Islam”;

–calling for the manifestation of “jihad” with the use of weapons, explosives, poisons;

–agitation to drive out the Slavs from the North Caucasus and seize their property by force;

As elements of the ideological training of young girls (“brides of Allah”) can be used:

–the upcoming marriage;

–sexual violence, which is shot on video;

–prevention of the victim and parents, one hundredth note can become known to all friends and relatives;

–powerful ideological and psychotropic pressure, the purpose of which is to show that the only way out is “death in the name of Allah”.

As elements of the ideological training of middle-aged women (“black widows”), the following can be used:

–separation of these women from the family and maximum submission to jamaatu (Wahhabi community);

–powerful ideological processing and training to psychotropic drugs;

–programming actions under the scenario of the organizers of the terrorist act.

60