[Today’s hint: Universal education for development and critical thinking are better ideas than Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs.]
by Alice LoCicero
If communities want to help youth to evolve into responsible, self-sufficient, and non-violent adults, they have a variety of scientifically supported programs to draw from. These do not have to be fancy, expensive programs. Big Brother/Big Sister programs have been shown to be effective.
Indeed, numerous programs and approaches oriented toward youth development and critical thinking are well-supported ways to assist youth in the transition to responsible adulthood. But: they must be available universally, not targeted to some community chosen on demographic, cultural, or religious grounds.
Perhaps most important, the application of these scientifically supported types of programs must be education-based, not enforcement-based.
Law enforcement at all levels has potential to help communities (although the record of law enforcement in relation to communities of color is abysmal). Unfortunately, even the best law enforcement professionals have only a few options at their disposal—all of them involving accusation, criminalization, and punishment, and thus all of them are useless for the purposes of promoting the developent of socially-responsible adults.
Students must have the opportunity to think a wide variety of thoughts—none can be criminalized—while coming to their own commitment to a point of view. Criticism of the status quo—long encouraged in adolescents–must not be criminalized or reported to the police. Rather, kids who make intelligent critiques of the status quo must be helped to find active, non-violent ways to effectively create change.
We cannot predict who will become a violent white supremacist, but we can, and should, help all kids to transition successfully to becoming thoughtful, responsible, effective, and non-violent adults.
*Chad Brown explains, ‘I came from a broken home…I ended up going down a bad path, I got involved with gangs.’ He credits a police officer from the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Program with putting him on the right path to college and service in the military. After his service concluded and his education was complete..the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) began to manifest themselves. Then, Brown said, a friend took him fishing. He was hooked [and]…got the idea to start a non-profit. Soul River Inc. was born—an organization that seeks to employ U.S. veterans as mentors to inner city youth and to connect them both with the outdoors.” Story & Photos by Larry Moore, BLM. From Wikimedia Commons.
Why do so many resources go into counter-terrorism programs that are bound to fail? Here it’s important to distinguish between research programs and community programs that are implemented to identify potential homegrown terrorists. While I think it’s unlikely, for many reasons, that researchers will be able to identify future terrorists anytime soon, well-intentioned people can reasonably disagree on that point. Research done ethically and openly (without deceit) may be justifiably funded.
But when it comes to implementing programs, such as the DHS sponsored Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs funded throughout the US and overseas, they
are not only based on deceit and junk science, they are also apt to be harmful
in several ways:
They increase bias.
They cause disruption
and harm in communities.
They blatantly
encourage providers such as teachers, doctors, and mental health professionals
to violate their professional ethics by spying on
their students, patients, and/or clients.
They target specific
communities based on demographic factors.
They encourage a
colonialist attitude, assuming that communities cannot help themselves, but
need mainstream professionals and authorities to design ways to assist them.
After reflecting on the deadly events in
Charlottesville, Christchurch, El Paso, Pittsburgh, and other places, many
Americans are starting to wonder why the government is spending so much of its
resources on spying on Muslim communities. They wonder if it would be better to
apply these funds to counter the rise of alt-right extremists. The answer is a
loud, “No” for all the reasons above.
The CVE type programs are in violation of
science, human rights, understanding of adolescent development, and the right
to explore thoughts and conversation without being criminalized.
It may come as unexpected bad news to many readers, but even “the experts” who propose what seem like logical programs to predict who will engage in violence against civilians for a political cause cannot do that. The idea has its appeal–predict who will become violent and intervene to prevent it before they get too close to acting. But, in fact, no one can predict, on an individual level, who will become violent in the future.
That is not to say that we don’t know anything—we know, for example, that men are more likely to engage in physical violence than women. But nothing we know can be relied upon to predict whether a specific individual—male or female—will act violently in the future.
There are multiple articles advocating programs (almost all of which reflect implicit or explicit bias against Muslim youth) intended to identify youth who are apt to become terrorists. Appropriately, these articles generally include a disclaimer saying there’s no consistent pattern to help us actually predict who might become a terrorist. That is, no one knows what the path to terrorism might look like; it’s impossible to predict, for any individuals, whether they will engage in violence against civilians for political purposes.
Telling it like it is, here’s a quote from a 2017 article in the American Psychologist, by terrorism researcher John Horgan: “Though terrorist profiles exist in a broad sense, no meaningful (i.e., having predictive validity) psychological profile has been found either within or across groups.”
Given the lack of a solid scientific foundation for predicting the development of terrorists, many scientific and professional articles on the “terrorist threat” suggest that more research is needed–a reasonable suggestion. However, terrifyingly, others recommend programs and interventions based on conjectures, hypotheses, and theories about 1) who in the community might be helpful in predicting potential terrorists, and 2) how we might get them to inform the authorities of their suspicions about their friends, neighbors, and/or family members.
Just think about this: Here we have “professionals” making the outrageous assertion that, since neither researchers nor clinicians know who will become violent, we should get members of the community to inform on other members of the community, and assume that they’re correct.*
Ask yourself: What are the implications of getting family, friends, and community members to inform police if they think someone may be on the path to committing terrorist acts? Some authors even suggest that teachers and/or care providers should report if they have some reason to think someone is at risk for developing into a terrorist. Some even have lists of risk factors. But the lists do not stand up to scientific inquiry.
It’s a House of Cards, and an expensive one at that.
*Readers might wonder about the “duty to warn”—i.e., clinicians’ legal duty to inform potential victims and law enforcement if a patient threatens imminent harm to an identifiable person or persons. The differences here are: duty to warn involves 1) Imminent harm and 2) patient report. That is, if a patient–or anyone– tells a clinician that they’re about to do harm, the obligation is to believe them. But the programs proposed for predicting future terrorists are not oriented to self-reported imminent actions, but to scrutinizing kids to guess which ones are likely to become terrorists in the future.
Reprinted, lightly edited, from an article
published Aug 30, 2019, on the Psychology Today website.
Let’s move to the third core concern manipulated by the war profiteers: distrust. We tend to divide the world into those we find trustworthy and those we don’t. Where we draw that line matters a lot. When we get it right, we avoid harm from those who have hostile intentions, and we’re able to enjoy the rewards of collaborative relationships. But we often make these judgments with only limited information of uncertain reliability. As a result, our conclusions about the trustworthiness of particular people, groups, and sources of information are frequently flawed and problematic, especially when others with ulterior motives—warmongers immediately come to mind—have influenced our thinking.
For instance, “They’re Different from Us” is
one distrust mind game that war profiteers rely on when trying to win over
the public’s support. They use it to encourage our suspicions of other groups
by arguing that they don’t share our values, our priorities, or our
principles. We see this regularly, including in the highly lucrative business
of promoting Islamophobia, and also when other nations are repeatedly
characterized as primitive and barbaric. This mind game works because,
psychologically, when we don’t perceive someone as part of our
ingroup, we tend to view them as less trustworthy, we hold them
in lower regard, and we’re less willing to share scarce
resources with them. So, convincing the American public that a group is truly
different or deviant is a significant step toward diminishing our concern for
their welfare.
At the same time, representatives of the war machine turn to a
second distrust appeal—the “They’re Misguided and Misinformed” mind game—to
smear anti-war opponents. They spur distrust toward these critics by arguing
that they lack sufficient knowledge, or suffer from unrecognized biases, or are
the victims of others’ intentional misinformation—and that, as a result, their
dissenting views are unworthy of serious consideration. So, for example, the
war profiteers disparage and try to discredit anti-war groups like World Beyond
War, Code Pink, and Veterans for Peace with demonstrably false claims that the
activists don’t understand the real causes of the problems they seek to fix,
and that their proposed remedies will only make matters worse for everyone. In
fact, the actual evidence rarely supports the positions of endless war
enthusiasts. When this mind game is successful, the public disregards important
voices of dissent. And when that happens, crucial opportunities for tackling
out-of-control militarism and advancing the common good are lost.
Turning now to the fourth core
concern, superiority, we’re quick to compare ourselves to others, often in
an effort to demonstrate that we’re worthy of respect. Sometimes this desire is
even stronger: we want confirmation that we’re better in some
important way—perhaps in our accomplishments, or in our values, or in our
contributions to society. But in these efforts to bolster our own positive
self-appraisals, we’re sometimes encouraged to perceive and portray others in
as negative a light as possible, even to the point of dehumanizing them. And
since the judgments we make about our own worth—and the qualities of others—are
often quite subjective, these impressions are also susceptible to manipulation
by the war machine.
For example, the “Pursuing A Higher Purpose”
mind game is one way that war profiteers appeal to superiority in order to
build public support for endless war. Here, they present their actions as an
affirmation of American exceptionalism, insisting that their policies have deep
moral underpinnings and reflect the cherished principles that lift this country
above others—even when what they’re defending is the pardoning of war
criminals; or the torturing of terrorism suspects; or the internment of
Japanese-Americans; or the violent overthrow of elected leaders in other
countries, to name just a few instances. When this mind game succeeds, contrary
indicators—of which there are a lot—are disingenuously explained away as
the mere, small imperfections that always come with the pursuit of collective
greatness. Too often, the public is fooled when greed is disguised in ways that
tap into our sense of pride in our country’s accomplishments and its influence
in the world.
Representatives of the war machine
simultaneously aim to marginalize their critics with a second superiority
appeal: the “They’re Un-American” mind game. Here, they portray those who
oppose them as disgruntled and unappreciative of the United States and the
values and traditions that “real Americans” hold dear. In doing so, they take
particular advantage of the public’s entrenched respect and deference toward
all things military. In this way, they prey on the allure of what psychologists
call “blind patriotism.” This ideological stance involves the staunch
conviction that one’s country is never wrong in its actions or
policies, that allegiance to the country must be unquestioning and absolute,
and that criticism of the country cannot be tolerated. When this mind
game is successful, anti-war forces are further isolated and dissent is ignored
or suppressed.
Finally, in regard to our fifth core concern,
real or perceived helplessness can sink any undertaking. That’s
because believing we can’t control important outcomes in our lives leads to
resignation, which wrecks our motivation to work toward valuable personal or
collective objectives. Social change efforts are severely hampered when people
feel that working together won’t improve their circumstances. The belief that
adversity can’t be overcome is something we fight hard to resist. But if we
reach that demoralizing conclusion anyway, its effects can be paralyzing and
difficult to reverse, and warmongers use this to their advantage.
For instance, the “We’ll All Be Helpless” mind game is one way
that war profiteers appeal to helplessness in order to win over to the public’s
support. They warn us that if we fail to follow their guidance on purported
national security matters, the result will be dire circumstances from which the
country may be unable to ever escape. In short, we’ll be much worse off, and
without the capacity to undo the damage. The threat that so upsets advocates of
endless war may be a proposal to restrict domestic surveillance; or an effort to
intensify diplomatic overtures rather than military interventions; or a plan to
place limits on runaway Pentagon spending; or calls to reduce our nuclear
arsenal—all reasonable paths to protecting human rights and encouraging peace.
Unfortunately, prospects of future helplessness are often frightening enough
that even deeply flawed arguments against worthwhile recommendations can seem
persuasive to an apprehensive public.
At the same time, the war machine works to disempower its critics with a second helplessness appeal: the “Resistance Is Futile” mind game. The message here is simple. We’re in charge and that’s not going to change. Innumerable lobbyists, high-tech displays of “shock and awe” weaponry, and not-so-subtle carrots and sticks with our elected officials are used to create an aura of invincibility against anti-war efforts that aim to moderate the military-industrial complex’s outsized footprints and profits. They work to demoralize, sideline, ostracize, threaten, and intimidate those who seek to restrain them. This ploy works if we’re convinced that we can’t succeed against the war profiteers, because then our change efforts quickly grind to a halt or never get off the ground.
Note from Kathie MM: Visit Engaging Peace Friday for the final post in Dr. Eidelson’s current series. And think activism.