Terrorism and male pattern violence

[Collidascope]

Why is it that articles and comments on social media abound about our 'Islam Problem' but it's never pointed out that it is Muslim men who do this? That linked to this is the fact that 96% of worldwide homicides are committed by men?
Surely if we're serious about wanting to stop this, looking at how we're socialising little boys needs to be one of the big factors. It just seems to be completely glossed over! Until someone with authority points this out and addresses it, the violence and killing will just go on and on, and it's horrendous to think that the horror that happened on Monday night isn't even large-scale compared to what is going on every day.
Male violence almost seems to be seen as inevitable.

And also interesting that when there's a terrorist attack, people are encouraged to carry on living as they were, to be defiant. No one is expected to curb behaviour (e.g. not go out drinking in a mini skirt anymore) and 'be responsible for not putting themselves in a dangerous situarion', because that would be letting the terrorists (rapists) win.

I'm a little hesitant about posting this as I've seen other things which have gone beyond the 'How awful, poor victims' line shot down as 'too soon' but this just seems like the big elephant in the room to me.

I've been thinking of the illogical weirdness of the Paradise promise (1, Where do all these virgins who outnumber male martyrs come from? 2, Where do they go once they have been shagged 'impure'? 3 Who are the servants that were virtuous enough to get into Paradise but still remain in servitude? 4. Isn't wine, adultery, etc forbidden as part of a virtuous life? etc)... it all seems an odd addition to the Judao-Christian model... but it actually makes sense when you think of the military origins of Islam...
Essentially gathering an army to invade with the promise of the spoils of war - the raping, looting and enslavement of the population after battle on the other side.

GuardianLions, if you've ever read Michel Onfray's Atheist Manifesto, he says just that. In a time when Islam was a religion of the deserts, where food was scarce and it was hard to find water and life was uncomfortable and hot, these promises of every material delight you could want were a great way of persuading people to come and fight.

Just marking my place

Thanks Collida I haven't read it, but I'll take a peek.
The rapid expansion of Islam is pretty eye-opening when you see this: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests

It is clearly a religion of war, not peace. And I imagine the instability of the region during Islam's origins would have made recruitment to this restrictive and excessively disciplined ideology a hard sell. "Why should I join you and fight when followers of such and such get wine, women and treasure from their raids?".... "Ah, well if you die for this ideology you get a hundredfold of all that when you enter paradise"...
Gullible fuckwits.

I'm not trying to divert the thread to trans issues, I promise, but men who identify as women retain the male pattern of violence rather than changing to the female pattern, despite lower testosterone levels. Well, presumably, because with self identification, it would be hard to know who takes hormones.

Yes flavia. It also has issues with (for eg) "10% of murderers in the uk are women", as it affects the stats (I have seen this confirmed by the stats office)

Another interesting parallel is the similarities between transactivists and Islamic proselytisers/apologists is in the 'about' section of a link given up thread www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/site/about-site.aspx :

"Islam is the only ideology, religious or otherwise, in which critics are bullied into silence and told they have a "phobia."

Yet, where Islam dominates, there is systematic discrimination and oppression of those outside the faith. Where Muslims are a minority, there is a trend toward peevish self-interest and eventual violence when demands for special privilege and entitlements are not met."

In the UK, 10% of murderers are women (as opposed to the 4% statistic that applies to worldwide homicides). That's more in line with your female suicide bomber stat.

I am not sure what that shows.

But given there is clearly a trend of men committing the majority of the violence -no matter the religion -I still think that's the issue. From what I've seen the discrepancies between the murder rates of different countries and religions are generally just a few percent which is dwarfed by the similarities in men's violence stats.

but that's just not true. While it's true across countries most violence is committed by men, violence rates actually vary totally hugely. So, every country has about 50% men, with men committing most of the violence, but in some countries the rate of violence is orders of magnitude higher than other countries. Obviously, the presence of men can't explain that difference.

Obviously, the presence of men can't explain that difference

But the degree to which a culture's traditions and ideologies support or discourage toxic masculinity/heroic violence/male dominance/machismo/male entitlement probably has..
Eg- the USA supports the 'right' to bear arms, glorifies sports heros in armour like Roman Gladiators, normalises very macho behaviour and has a high murder rate to go with it.

While it's true across countries most violence is committed by men, violence rates actually vary totally hugely. So, every country has about 50% men, with men committing most of the violence, but in some countries the rate of violence is orders of magnitude higher than other countries. Obviously, the presence of men can't explain that difference.

I don’t quite understand what you’re saying.
Are you saying that, for example, with two countries of say 60 million people, one country might still have double the murder rates of the other? But whatever the differences between those two countries are that are causing one to have double the murders, they’re still wildly affecting the men in the country more than they are the women, surely? Therefore, say women commit 10%, if it were possible to socialise the men to react more like women, we’d cut out around 80% of murders. I wonder which other factor could be changed which would provide that level of decrease that aren’t linked in some way to patriarchy. Or am I misunderstanding you?

Saying "I wonder which other factor could be changed..." sounded snipey. It wasn't meant to. I'm genuinely interested in what other factors would play such a big role.

'but that's just not true. While it's true across countries most violence is committed by men, violence rates actually vary totally hugely. So, every country has about 50% men, with men committing most of the violence, but in some countries the rate of violence is orders of magnitude higher than other countries. Obviously, the presence of men can't explain that difference.'

That kind of blows the whole 'testosterone' argument out of the water doesn't it? Unless men in different parts of the world have different levels of testosterone?

"It is clearly a religion of war, not peace........"
And so is Christianity, if you look at the large number of wars and atrocities committed historically that used christianity as an excuse or a justification -- it isn't just the crusades (which also did the fight for us and get free entry to paradise/forgiveness of sins line), but the Inquisition, various wars of religion, anti-semitism, slavery, imperialist expansion, and also current right-wing christian extremists in the US. The problem isn't Islam per se, it's that a religious belief and the whole afterlife thing does offer a greater incentive to the whole suicide and mass murder scenario if you believe the twisted version of whichever religion is being used to 'justify' it.

Patriarchal religions, as a product of patriarchal society, are all much of a muchness as regards the potential for perversion to other ends.

As regards testosterone, I'm still reading Cordelia Fine 'Testosterone Rex', and the simplistic but oft-repeated 'it's testosterone, boys will be boys' stuff seems to be almost total bollocks....................

Levels of violence don't have any bearing on whether it was still mostly men committing it. I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make.

Many countries in the developing world have high rates of violence and murder. It just means they are more violent societies as a whole, for a variety of reasons.

humans are creatures of war not peace, religion is just one way of justifying it. I think there has been some research showing terrorists are basically suicidal men anyway. Isis/"jihad" just gives them a justification.

I don't see how you can dismiss the religious motivation. You can say the interpretation of the religion is wrong and extreme but I don't see what what good denying the motivation exists does.
Agree.

nymag.com/selectall/2017/05/the-online-radicalization-were-not-talking-about.html?mid=facebook_nymag

'I don't see how you can dismiss the religious motivation. You can say the interpretation of the religion is wrong and extreme but I don't see what what good denying the motivation exists does.'

Say a man murders his family and his motivation is that he believed his wife was cheating on him. There is no proof for that belief, but he held it strongly and it was the motivation he gave for the killing. Is there any point in discussing that motivation, or even acknowledging it? There's never a valid reason for killing someone.

Now what is worth discussing is why, when a man believes his wife has cheated on him or believes that he will get 70 virgins in heaven or whatever, why that is enough for him to go and murder people. What is about men's psyche/culture/belief systems that mean that they this is the conclusion they come to? The putative motivation they give for the killing is irrelevant really - it's just an excuse.

The form of Christianity in the Inquisition /holy wars was Roman Catholicism - distanced from population by being communicated in Latin, and was/is a sort of Christianised paganism existing to uphold the power of the Vatican and the obedience of the masses - the grassroots Christianity predating that was many different sects and had revolutionary ideas about equality and human rights etc inherent in it - which is why the Reformation was such a game-changer when people could actually read the bible for themselves. The Quakers played a key role in ending slavery because their fundemental belief in human equality and rights.
So it isnt true to call Christianity a 'religion of war' in the way Islam is, however, it has been used as a political tool. For example the Nazis said their fight was a Christian fight.

Also, if Islam is such a war-like religion that causes men to kill, why isn't it having the same effect on female muslims?

What is about men's psyche/culture/belief systems that mean that they this is the conclusion they come to? The putative motivation they give for the killing is irrelevant really - it's just an excuse

It is odd to ask the question "What is about men's psyche/culture/belief systems that mean that they this is the conclusion they come to?" but to dismiss the evidence of psyche/culture/belief systems that are written into religious texts as irrelevant.

The idea of shagging untold virgins/glutting/pissing it up/being treated like princes who are served all day and do no work/knowing that they are better than the rest of the losers, clearly motivates them to join a raiding army....
It is an answer somedyke, sitting right there in an Islamic text.

'It is odd to ask the question "What is about men's psyche/culture/belief systems that mean that they this is the conclusion they come to?" but to dismiss the evidence of psyche/culture/belief systems that are written into religious texts as irrelevant.'

So if it's the religious text that's causing them to kill, why is it almost entirely men that are doing the killing and not women?

If Islam is such a war-like religion that causes men to kill, why isn't it having the same effect on female muslims?

That is an odd thing to say. Toxic masculinuty/female oppression exist in pretty much all cultures. But some ideologies support and encourage this more than others. Islam grew out of warring Arab tribes and expansive militarism. Christianity was a freedom movement from the oppression of Rome, Judaism was a belief in a God that watched over a particular wandering tribe.

So if it's the religious text that's causing them to kill, why is it almost entirely men that are doing the killing and not women?

I feel like my intelligence is being insulted here.
Of course a text doesn't make people kill. A book locked in some attic doesn't magically programme minds in the vacinity.

However, if a person is already of a certain disposition, they are more likely to go out and behave in certain ways (including violence) if they read texts that support their inner motivations than they are if they read texts that discourage them.

If Islam is such a war-like religion that causes men to kill, why isn't it having the same effect on female Muslims?

Well part of this could be explained by the fact that Islam mandates very separate proscribed (prescribed?) roles for men and women, so they're not being indoctrinated in the same way.

I think another aspect to consider is the age of the men - they nearly all fit into the 15 - 29 "peak group" that many philosophers from history have considered the dangerous years of a man's life. There hasn't been a consensus about WHY this happens, but there have been lots of attempts to either control this "rage" by ensuring men have solid ties to society (e.g. through work, marriage etc) or use it (e.g. wars).