Okay, I threw it a life preserver. Begin, Dee Squition. 1) So I'm not going to pick this whole thing apart like that because that's lame but I will say that anecdotal studies (such as It's Complicated by danah boyd, who uses no caps in her name) aren't really evidence-based, they're narrative-based and that narrative tends to emphasize the point that the researcher wants to make. "Dozens of interviews" makes you a journalist, not a statistician. 2) I've noticed a lot more press recently explaining the appeal of ISIS, the ideology of ISIS, the history of ISIS, the material support of ISIS. I think it's unfair to say "there is little recognition of its genuine appeal, and even less of the joy it engenders. " More accurately, I'd say that the world is currently going "huh, holy shit. People are still joining ISIS. What the fuck is going on?" 3) 80 years ago all the Kool Kidz were running off to join the Spanish Civil War. Prior to that, people were fuckin' in love with the Bolsheviks. It's not at all unusual for disaffected youth to fall in with counterculture. I can't be the only dude who remembers how many kidz went Fundie when they went off to college? There's this big "who the fuck am I" period between 15 and 30 that cults feed on. Religion welcomes it. Shit, all those tables at Freshman Orientation live for it. And hey - 4) waywardsamurai - drop a beat about all the bullshit associated with being a black muslim in Boulder so we can pepper that on top of growing up in the ghetto in Paris. It's bullshit being muslim right now. Somehow you became the bad guy. Funny thing - nobody held "christians" to account when David Koresh went batshit. 1.6 billion muslims in the world and about 1.6 billion of them have no interest in joining ISIS. Stupid thing is a lot of them are bodily running from ISIS but we've decided they're terrorists. You think that's disaffecting? 5) But that doesn't make it potent. That doesn't make it successful. That doesn't make it strategically advantageous. Why is it that clever people will talk about holy shit ISIS but they aren't even vaguely holy shit Boko Haram? - Bernard Fucking Lewis, whipping-boy of every Islamic writer Look - we give the Saudis shit-tons of money for shit-tons of oil so they can buy shit-tons of guns with it. And they chop the hands off people who steal and stone adulterers to death and shit. Oh, but they don't have terrorists! Except, you know, 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers and shit. But fuckadoodledoo! ISIS! World-changing! 6) So sure. Preamble with Robspierre. Whip out Hobbes, follow up with Darwin, pull Terence The Slave out of your ass then flip in a little bit about pressure cookers, even though the Boston Bombers were Chechnynan and didn't give the first fuck about ISIS. Then wander into Burke and Hitler (?) (!). It won't change the fact that a bunch of angry dudes in the wasteland with Premiere and a sociopathic streak are a geopolitical tragedy, not a "world-altering revolution." Muthafuckin' followers of ibn Taymiyyah have wanted the goddamn Caliphate since the Ottomans fell. Wanting something doesn't make it any more or less likely. something something Sumer. Sweet jesus christ, this is Argument By the Tome.To understand the revolution, my research team has conducted dozens of structured interviews and behavioural experiments with youth in Paris, London and Barcelona, as well as with captured ISIS fighters in Iraq and members of Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria).
“Imagine if the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nation obtained total control of Texas and had at its disposal all the oil revenues, and used this money to establish a network of well-endowed schools and colleges all over Christendom peddling their particular brand of Christianity. This is what the Saudis have done with Wahhabism. The oil money has enabled them to spread this fanatical, destructive form of Islam all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the west. Without oil and the creation of the Saudi kingdom, Wahhabism would have remained a lunatic fringe in a marginal country.”