The War on Islamic Terror: Four Key Concepts By Mark Goldblatt

1. The Philosophy of Radical Islam

The political scientist Michael Thompson has observed that the cognitive blind spot of the Left is its belief that pathological behavior is always the result of privation. If only people were rescued from poverty, ignorance and hopelessness, they would cease doing bad things. But in the case of Islamic terrorism, which is a pathological behavior, such an analysis falls short — at least according to Thompson, who edited the academic anthology Islam and the West: Critical Perspectives on Modernity. On the contrary, Thompson argues, the psychic justifications for Islamic terrorism can be found in an intellectually accessible and, in its own way, profoundly moving philosophy that stands in direct opposition to the liberal democratic institutions of the West.

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