Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Terrorist attacks, whether by individuals or groups, are usually followed by attempts to explain the rationale and causes behind them. The core reasons, however, lie not in surface-level factors but in the deeper “machinery” of society: the values and worldviews that children absorb at home, in schools, and in their communities. This early socialization shapes the beliefs and perceptions that later guide adult behavior. Among the social mechanisms that can be changed to prevent such attacks in the future, education and community life are crucial.

The definition of terrorism provided by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights states that “As a minimum, terrorism involves the intimidation or coercion of populations or governments through the threat or perpetration of violence, causing death, serious injury, or the taking of hostages.”

However, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a deeper understanding of terrorists:

“All direct victims of terrorism are treated as objects to be used—indeed, used up—by the terrorist. But in being treated as an object, the innocent victim is worse off than the (alleged) guilty victim. Insofar as the latter is judged to have done a wrong, he is thought of as a human. … For the terrorist, the innocent victim is neither a human in this judgmental sense nor a human in the sense of simply having value as a human being. Of course, the terrorist needs to pick a human being as a victim… because [that] brings about more terror… But this does not involve treating them as humans. Rather, they are victimized and thereby treated as objects because they are humans.” (Nicholas Fotion, “The Burdens of Terrorism.” In Values in Conflict, Burton M. Leiser (ed.). Macmillan, 1981.)

Nicholas Fotion, in War and Ethics: A New Just War Theory (2007), describes the inherent ambivalence in the analysis of ethical decisions, including in the case of terrorism. However, most cultures adhere to the principles of not killing others, minimizing suffering, helping others, and treating people fairly. Fotion questions whether these principles permit exceptions. Should one, be it a country or a lone wolf, kill to save others, and if so, when? And how do we account for the difference in individual rationalization? Given the variance in justifications for shocking terrorist attacks—which seemingly disregard the cruel act of killing innocents for no reason—there is a need to look at what shapes the personal lives of terrorists and the cultures that influence them to prevent such attacks from taking place in the future.

Confronted with frequent headlines of terrorist attacks, the public tends to associate terrorism as a political act and not a sexually violent one, since these acts are more integrated into cultural norms. But, in actuality, the two forms of terrorism that are most harmful to society are political terrorism andsexual terrorism, whether perpetuated by a group or an individual. A comparison of these two acts reveals an interesting moral hypocrisy that is deeply ingrained in American culture.

Let us first consider political terrorism. A 2017 report by the Investigative Fund and Reveal analyzed “domestic terrorism” incidents that occurred in the U.S. between 2008 and 2016. The investigation found 115 far-right-inspired terrorist incidents. This trend has only accelerated with each passing year, with the far-right extremists being responsible for initiating approximately 66 percent of all attacks and plots in 2019 and 90 percent of such acts in 2020, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Meanwhile, terrorism by the far-left inspired 19 incidents, stated the 2017 report, which included acts relating to animal rights and violent environmental activism. Religious terrorism, post-9/11, led to 63 Islamist-inspired terrorist incidents.

For examining sexual terrorism cases, we look at the CNA Corporation’s “Domestic Terrorism Offender-Level Database (DTOLD): A Data-Driven Analysis of US Domestic Terrorists’ Life Histories,” and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s (2021) “Sexual Violence in Disasters.” Millions of people in the U.S. have experienced sexual violence during their lifetimes.

According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010, “More than half (51.1 percent) of female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner and 40.8 percent by an acquaintance; for male victims, more than half (52.4 percent) reported being raped by an acquaintance and 15.1 percent by a stranger.”

A 2023 study published in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics stated that 50 percent of intimate partner violence-related homicides in the U.S. involved guns. The possession of firearms in domestic violence situations increases the risk of homicide for women substantially. A 2019 study confirmed this and found that “a higher rate of firearm ownership is associated with a higher rate of domestic violence homicide in the United States, but that the same does not hold for other kinds of gun homicide,” stated the New York Times.

Yet the United States has not yet ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, granting equal rights to all sexes under the law. In the absence of federal law, the level of protective legislation for women across states varies widely.

Here is how political and sexual terrorism are often linked. A study published in the journal Terrorism and Political Violence concludes that “adherence to misogynistic belief systems presents a pertinent risk factor underpinning different types of private and public male violence. This suggests misogyny and its violent manifestations that target women serve as an ‘ideological’ justification that aims to uphold men’s power and dominant status, not just at home but equally within society.” The normalization of violence against women by accepting gender stereotypes and inequality ingrained in society builds acceptance for using violence in other situations, such as supporting political and religious ideologies. The connection is critical, but how did it form?

In the United States, the initial division of labor necessitated by the practical hardships of settling in a new country, and the division within the state college system between home skills for women and work skills for men, led to the establishment of a cultural gender divide, which became normalized over time. It was even considered by many to be biologically natural. As capitalism and its markets became economically dominant, those who worked outside the home began to gain disproportionate power in many professional and personal spheres. Women were restricted to household chores and child-rearing and had no means to earn income or gain power. Thus, sexual domination became integrated within society even more, supporting the hypocrisy of using sexual violence to retain control and power over women and political violence to maintain or gain political power. The former was deemed culturally acceptable, while the latter became punishable by law.

Terror hypocrisy in which sexual terrorism is accepted, while political terrorism is condemned, cloaked as ideology, grants permission to terrorize “for a perceived good cause,” and maintains the status quo and tradition by groups or individuals. For a nationally systemic example of this hypocrisy, consider that even though the 1994 Violence Against Women Act allows women to seek civil rights remedies for gender-related crimes, in 2000, the male-dominated Supreme Court invalidated parts of the law that permitted victims of rape, domestic violence, etc., to sue their attackers in federal court.

For another example, the 2020 Boston Review report states, “Forms of gender-specific violence are baked into the structure of law enforcement. … This violence is possible in part because of the extreme power disparity that exists between targeted women and police, which at once enables such violence and shields officers from consequences.”

Nonetheless, violent influences, whether at the national or personal level, or through a group, can move from sexual terrorism to political and vice versa. A 2024 Sage Journals report supports this, stating that exposure to political violence seems to shape male adult behavior toward domestic violence. “[E]xposure to political violence at almost any point in male individuals’ life increases their likelihood to perpetrate sexual violence on their wives… it is the exposure of men to political violence that matters, but not the exposure of their wives.” The report cited “that the critical age bracket is between four and six years of age.” Unfortunately, we are living in an era in which children are seeing incidents of political violence in the media and in communities with troops in the streets. We are also witnessing frequent deportations, protests, and irresponsible gun ownership.

The Beginnings of Terrorism

Terroristic motivations, culminating in group or individual acts, begin at the individual level. The “lone wolf” terrorist appears to be the most difficult to understand. Often, benign demographic statistics obscure personal issues, extreme beliefs, prejudices, slights, or fixations; however, these psychosocial factors are more difficult to quantify statistically.

The composite violent extremism (CoVE) model provides an organized framework for understanding the lone wolf terrorist. The model was developed from initial efforts by law enforcement in the United Kingdom and Australia to prevent emerging forms of terrorism. It was created by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and his team at Valens Global, in collaboration with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, to organize and expand those efforts into a framework for identifying the factors that prompt individuals to commit violent acts, thereby making it easier for more government agencies to recognize and prevent acts of terrorism.

The CoVE model shows that personal grievances are not merely isolated complaints, but ongoing narratives of unfairness that individuals replay and reinforce over time. They often involve three interlocking elements: the first two are perceived offense and blaming others for one’s pain, and then a grievance “story” organizes these feelings into a stable identity. Grievances, by themselves, do not automatically produce radicalization, but they create fertile psychological ground in which certain ideologies can take root. Ideology can then function as a cognitive and moral framework that organizes, amplifies, and legitimizes these underlying hurts. Exposure to grievance‑affirming narratives makes minor slights feel more significant, deepens alienation, and reframes ordinary frustrations as deliberate attacks by an out‑group. Terrorism begins to seem justified.

The CoVE model divides potential terrorists into four categories:

– Ambiguous: People with undefined or “coherent” ideologies.

– Mixed: Individuals with multiple extreme ideologies.

– Fused: Those who have a single core ideology but also convey viewpoints associated with other ideologies.

– Convergent: Individuals with different ideological beliefs who come together to follow “mutual interests.”

The CoVE model also divides the risk factors into four categories that have the potential to lead to grievance:

– Mental health issues,

– Individuals’ employment or educational prospects,

– Positive relationships with non-extremist and non-delinquent peers,

– Being a member of a marginalized group.

Beginning early in life, the model offers several personal risk factors that contribute to an individual’s developmental likelihood of engaging in terrorism:

Push Factors

– Marginalization: Feelings of exclusion from society.

– Social Inequality: Perceptions of unfair treatment or discrimination.

– Limited access to education: Lack of opportunities for personal and professional growth.

Pull Factors

– Material rewards: Incentives that attract individuals to extremist groups.

– Cultural disillusionment: A sense of loss regarding cultural identity or significance.

A National Institute of Justice (NIJ) overview of how lone-wolf radicalization occurs most often in the United States outlines a path that also begins with grievances: First, an individual forms connections with online sympathizers or extremist groups; the potential terrorist then connects with an enabler who, whether unwittingly or intentionally, assists them; then, they broadcast their intent to act; next, a triggering event occurs, which may be personal or political in nature, and they carry out their intent through a terrorist act.

The NIJ report points to ways in which families and friends of a person experiencing radicalization may intervene and prevent this movement toward terrorism by reducing ideological and personal problems and grievances before they escalate. For instance, “prevention and intervention efforts may benefit by addressing beliefs that justify violence and helping individuals to develop identities in which these beliefs are not central,” stated the report.

The preventive approach focuses on two interrelated initiatives: Education and community programs. These measures have positive long-term effects. Over time, they have the greatest potential to reach more people worldwide and deliver exponential generational benefits—they last longer, thereby preventing many recurring costs associated with violent acts. The question is: What educational and community initiatives undertaken earlier in life prevent the eventual emergence of terrorist behavior before it escalates?

The Historical Precedent for Educational Prevention

To answer that question, we examine a single program that integrates both education and community engagement. They are combined and delivered as a single program through an ongoing educational curriculum in local public schools—besides some colleges that offer it—which teaches students how society functions and how human needs, both physical and social, are met in ways that promote health, safety, and social assimilation. This personal education for a higher quality of life, rather than professional education for income, has been successfully delivered for centuries as a single program across many European countries since the late 18th century.

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