There's a recurring theme that I've seen a lot lately, comparing the risk of dying in a terrorist attack to various other risks like being struck by lightning. I first encountered this idea in a George Carlin sketch in the 90s. Taken to its most absurd extreme, you might see a graph like this posted on twitter: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBghcZNUQAA6rJ9.jpg
There is truth to the idea, which is why it's seductive and why I am dedicating a threat to debunking it. Terrorism does garner an outsized emotional reaction to actual risk, but we should not be too quick to dismiss the entirety of the reaction as inappropriate. The picture above is idiotic because it ignores the simple fact that all people die eventually by some cause. If you list all of the causes of death, including deaths by chronic late-life diseases, then no fucking shit, terrorism is not the leading cause of death. To understand why terrorism matters more than heart disease or even murder, you have to look at it in the context of its threat to social order.
An act of terrorism is a flagrant violation of every social norm and an affront to society itself. Acts of terrorism are politically motivated. Terrorists seek to damage a polity by destroying trust in the social order. Thus, it is incumbent on the society to assess the threat realistically and respond appropriately, or else the social order will disintegrate.
All people, particularly people with western individualistic values, accept a level of personal responsibility and make decisions based on their tolerance for risk. Driving a car involves an explicit decision to assume the risk of dying in a random accident in order to accomplish more in life than you would otherwise. If you're caught in a thunderstorm, you can take explicit precautions to avoid being struck by lightning. Non-political crime often happens in the margins of society where the social order is already weak, and there's plenty of public resources already devoted to trying to solve that problem. It's not perfect, but it's the best we've got.
Terrorism, meanwhile, does not happen on the margins but instead targets well-ordered society. Terrorism kills people who trust the social order to protect them. Terrorism works by destroying this trust. There's no reasonable expectation that a resident of the UK should be at risk from being brutally murdered by a stranger on London Bridge or at an Ariana Grande Concert. This high social trust is why the UK can get away with such a restrictive policy on carrying weapons in public. Terrorists seek to use shocking carnage to demonstrate that this trust in the government is misplaced.
It's true that there's an ever-present risk that some drug-addled psychotic will go on a rampage at any time. That's also a shock to the social order. But there's a difference between a random one-time shock and deliberate, repeated shocks carried out over time. The former must be dealt with on a case by case basis. It's unclear whether we really gain anything by trying to solve for Columbine or Sandy Hook. Ignoring might work just as well as trying to fine-tune our system to account for every possible scenario. Systemic terrorism, however, can not simply be ignored, because that's just an invitation to engage in more terrorism. The government must recognize the threat to social trust and act in a manner that restores the broken trust. And the longer you wait to restore that trust in a moderate, measured, humane way, the harder it will be to deal with the consequences of social breakdown.
There is truth to the idea, which is why it's seductive and why I am dedicating a threat to debunking it. Terrorism does garner an outsized emotional reaction to actual risk, but we should not be too quick to dismiss the entirety of the reaction as inappropriate. The picture above is idiotic because it ignores the simple fact that all people die eventually by some cause. If you list all of the causes of death, including deaths by chronic late-life diseases, then no fucking shit, terrorism is not the leading cause of death. To understand why terrorism matters more than heart disease or even murder, you have to look at it in the context of its threat to social order.
An act of terrorism is a flagrant violation of every social norm and an affront to society itself. Acts of terrorism are politically motivated. Terrorists seek to damage a polity by destroying trust in the social order. Thus, it is incumbent on the society to assess the threat realistically and respond appropriately, or else the social order will disintegrate.
All people, particularly people with western individualistic values, accept a level of personal responsibility and make decisions based on their tolerance for risk. Driving a car involves an explicit decision to assume the risk of dying in a random accident in order to accomplish more in life than you would otherwise. If you're caught in a thunderstorm, you can take explicit precautions to avoid being struck by lightning. Non-political crime often happens in the margins of society where the social order is already weak, and there's plenty of public resources already devoted to trying to solve that problem. It's not perfect, but it's the best we've got.
Terrorism, meanwhile, does not happen on the margins but instead targets well-ordered society. Terrorism kills people who trust the social order to protect them. Terrorism works by destroying this trust. There's no reasonable expectation that a resident of the UK should be at risk from being brutally murdered by a stranger on London Bridge or at an Ariana Grande Concert. This high social trust is why the UK can get away with such a restrictive policy on carrying weapons in public. Terrorists seek to use shocking carnage to demonstrate that this trust in the government is misplaced.
It's true that there's an ever-present risk that some drug-addled psychotic will go on a rampage at any time. That's also a shock to the social order. But there's a difference between a random one-time shock and deliberate, repeated shocks carried out over time. The former must be dealt with on a case by case basis. It's unclear whether we really gain anything by trying to solve for Columbine or Sandy Hook. Ignoring might work just as well as trying to fine-tune our system to account for every possible scenario. Systemic terrorism, however, can not simply be ignored, because that's just an invitation to engage in more terrorism. The government must recognize the threat to social trust and act in a manner that restores the broken trust. And the longer you wait to restore that trust in a moderate, measured, humane way, the harder it will be to deal with the consequences of social breakdown.
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