Why Are Nearly All Suicide Bombers Muslim?
Dave Price
That's one of the questions this book (via Glenn) asks — and their answer probably isn't something Robert Spencer would like any more than Muslims, or that the Christian religious Right would approve of.
The authors, who are evolutionary psychologists, assert that the correlation is actually the result of just two lines in the Koran — the one permitting polygamy and the one promising 72 virgins — while the rest is just a product of how our evolved psychology reacts to the situation of polygamy.
The authors find evidence that polygamy (at least, the many women for one man version) causes young men to be far more violent in all societies in which it occurs. Why? Because it forces so many men to be total reproductive losers by ensuring the high-status men monopolize the available wives (as opposed to monogamous societies, where there is generally one woman available for every man), beacuse the resulting competition is so violent, and because successful reproduction reduces men's tendency to be violent.
Interestingly, there is considerable evidence polygamy is man's natural state, and societies probably devised monogamy as a means to reduce violent competition.
The authors make the point that a man with even one real-world wife is unlikely to trade her for 72 in the afterlife, but in a situation where no women are available, it starts to sound a lot better. This makes sense to me. Guys, think about having 72 hot virgins — really think about it (you know what I mean). If you had little prospect of finding a real woman, that fantasy might quickly become obsession.
But are they right? I don't know for sure, but it seems persuasive. Anyways, it's a fun read, since evolutionary psychology is all about sex. Some of their conclusions seem overstated, but they draw a lot of sensible conclusions about why humans behave the way they do, based on who we are descended from (successful reproducers) and who we are not descended from (reproductive losers).
However, it is true that guys in the Muslim world are having trouble getting married. The reason, though, is the increasingly outrageous demands of the families of prospective brides. It's not uncommon for a girl's family to demand a huge dowry (in Islam a groom pays his bride a dowry, not the reverse), an ornate wedding and an apartment or house of a certain size in a fashionable neighborhood. Many men simply will never have that kind of money, and even those who do often have to save up until well into their thirties before they can afford to tie the knot.
The Muslim world has a disproportionately large number of frustrated, angry, jilted single men. This is one situation in which women are not passive victims but active participants in a serious social problem. Huge dowries are irresponsible and un-Islamic.
Yeah, very quickly they're going to beg for one of those real women because odds are she'll know what she's doing.
I'm guessing this'll happen around virgin 15.
But I wonder about Saudi Arabia, where so many suicide bombers seem to come from...
It's not just the rich Gulf Arabs who indulge in polygamy. It is also the very poor Gulf Arabs (and various African Muslims). The middle classes generally eschew multiple wives because they see both the economic and moral costs involved.
The rich can meet the moral requirements of providing equally to all wives; so can the poor (Nothing divided by four is the same as nothing divided by one). It only gets difficult when one is of moderate income. That's why the question of multiple wives rarely comes up for that class. Until somebody gets rich, quick, then it becomes a status symbol to have more than one wife.
On a different tangent, how do you factor in the Tamil suicide bombers? They're Hindu for the most part. Polygamous marriages aren't exactly unknown, but there's no 72 Virgins waiting in the wings.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Generalizations frequently are the enemy of clear thought.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Indeed, the One Child Policy has resulted in a sort of laboratory test for the hypothesis. There's a lot of selection based on the child's gender with a bias towards males resulting in significantly more 28 year old (and younger) males than 28 year old (and younger) females.
IMO this hypothesis is horse hockey. It ignores a few realities e.g. men don't always seek mates within their own age cohort and rising populations more than make up for the imbalance due to polygyny.
I'm afraid the reality is that the answer is much more complex than that and includes other factors. I've got a host of questions that I'd appreciate some answers to from someone more knowledgeable than I.
It is obvious that majority Muslim countries tend not to be economically prosperous. Why? Are they not prosperous because they're Muslim or Muslim because they're not prosperous? I suspect some of both.
There's a similar point to be made about remoteness and isolation. Are countries wild and remote because their populations are Muslim or Muslim because the countries are wild and remote?
Consider a chilling, but compelling recent paper by Efraim Benmelech of Harvard and Claude Berrebi of Rand. The two ask, in effect, what makes someone become a suicide bomber? Their answer: "Since there are returns to human capital in both the productive and the terror sectors, high-ability individuals will become suicide bombers if the expected payoff from suicide bombing is higher than their skill-adjusted expected lifetime earnings in the productive sector."
They test this proposition using a data base of 148 Palestinian suicide bombers from 2000-05. And they find that older and more educated suicide bombers are assigned to higher-profile targets, kill more people, and are less likely to fail or be caught. In short, there is a match between human capital, in this grossly distorted sense, and the desired goal.
And as for the bombers themselves, these authors argue that the bombers have made, what is for them, a rational choice: There is enough moral, psychological and sometimes financial payoff from the act of killing many people to offset the economic loss of their death. Therefore, the terrorist manager assigns the most deadly tasks to the highest-caliber people; otherwise, they will not bother. In an awful way, it makes sense, and it seems to be true. Caught and failed suicide bombers are conspicuously less educated than those who carry out their tasks.
The argument, with its "incentive-compatibility constraints" and various formulas, does not (and is not intended to) come to grips with a much more elemental question. What creates and sustains the hate to make mass killing over living an arguably rational choice?
One could [and I would] posit that there are broad similarities in methods between suicide bombers and the Western phenomenon of people 'going postal' then killing themselves or seeking suicide by cop. The end result is similar, its just stretched out over a slightly longer period.
One could ask, if there's a comparison to be had, what do both types of killer get out of his/her participation in their chosen atrocity, during it anyway?
Just because we tend to think of one as being 'for a cause' and the other to be 'merely psychotic' doesn't necessarily make it so.
They have crystal-clear ideas about how to right a wrong that personally aggrieves them. They are not interested so much in the target (any tangential connection to the grievance will do) as the fact that they are acting of their own free will to right the wrong. They are, in sum, heroes in their own eyes. That they may (posthumously) reap rewards is truly secondary to the self-fulfillment that comes through their taking direct action.
It just requires Islam to produce more suicide bombers than anyone else, and this seems to be the case.
I think its a cynical but effective means by which the Islam meme advances itself one disposable human tool at a time.
I think the "evolution" argument just means that evolution has made us, males in particular, susceptible to this particular exploitation. Japanese and Tamils also found themselves in cultures that use this tool. Islam seems to be taking it to the next level.
If you grew up in a place where GDP per capita had fallen 30% in 5 years, and didn't recover for 20 you'd be suicidal and angry, too. Even in the great depression, where US GDP fell farther faster, the recovery to pre-recession levels only took 11 years.
Maybe its just that certain spheres within Islamic cultures produce more, and the way they go about it is culturally-bound in the same way that school-shooters are.
As a thought experiment: Imagine if large sectors of the media promoted and glorified school-shooters? Would we get more? I tend to think so, if only to get on TV.
Who would shoot a school? ;) Islamic culture has produced some hyperviolent "spheres" within itself, and to the extent that a non-human agent can take responsibility, needs to take responsibility for those spheres.
Similarly, spheres of American culture are responsible for the fact that young American (usually white) boys are more likely to go on murder sprees than most other groups.
>> As a thought experiment: Imagine if large sectors of the media promoted and glorified school-shooters? Would we get more? I tend to think so, if only to get on TV.
I agree, and I think we're dangerously close to that state of affairs already. After Columbine, there were some rumblings to the effecte that these guys were victims of bullying, and were lashing out in rage and frustration, even taking a stand.
Where have we heard that before?
I think better explanations for frustration in countries with lousy economies are television and travel.
Good point. The agony of low income, cutlural backwardness, economic limitation, etc... is deepened by the constant reminder that other people are doing better.
There is also the "We dominated the world once - we don't deserve this!" element.
There is also oil, which God in His infinite wisdom put disproportionately underneath Islamic lands, so Islamo-extremists and money have a much easier time finding each other than otherwise would be the case. Thanks, God. Preciate it.
There is also technology, created mostly by the heathens, such as semtex, which, (along with the horrifying and intimidating imagery that ripples outward after an attack thanks to the media) which greatly enhances the amount of damage a victim of the Islam-meme can do with an easily concealed supply of explosives strapped to his sexually frustrated person.
If you grew up in a place where GDP per capita had fallen 30% in 5 years, and didn't recover for 20 you'd be suicidal and angry, too. Even in the great depression, where US GDP fell farther faster, the recovery to pre-recession levels only took 11 years.
Then where are all the Zimbabwean suicide bombers?
Income is probably a factor, but the correlation between polygyny and violence is very strong, according to the authors.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.