XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, alt.usage.english, alt.english.usage
From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net
On Sun, 15 Oct 2017 16:02:53 -0600, Jerry Friedman
wrote:
>On 10/15/17 11:51 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Sun, 15 Oct 2017 09:48:04 -0700, Paul S. Person
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:06:53 -0600, Jerry Friedman
>>> wrote:
>>>> By the way, I think the people who are calling it terrorism may have a
>>>> different definition from yours. I think they use "terrorism" for any
>>>> atrocity that causes terror. But I don't have any evidence.
>>>
>>> I tend to extend "act of terror" to "anything that terrorizes",
>>> although I would agree that that should be "possibly an act of terror"
>>> and that certain intent to terrorize is needed to reach "act of
>>> terror" itself.
>>>
>>> I would also aware that "terrorism" is usually connected with a cause
>>> of some sort. This means that I can recognize an "act of terror" (one
>>> that is intended to terrorize) that is not terrorism (because it has
>>> no cause associated with it).
>>
>> As I pointed out, people may be terrified by armed robbers, who may
>> also try to terrorise them into revealing information like the
>> whereabouts of stuff they want to steal, or the PIN of a bank card.
>> But they are not normally described as terrorists, but as armed
>> robbers.
>
>That probably wouldn't be called an atrocity, just a garden-variety crime.
>
>However, if your definition is based on "normally described", then if
>enough people call the recent murderer in Las Vegas a terrorist, he is one.
By that definition, the National Party regime in South Africa were
right, and people who opposed apartheid *were* terrorists. I don't buy
it.
>> The airline pilot who committed suicide by crashing his plane no doubt
>> terrified the passengers and fellow crew members, but he was not a
>> terrorist.
>
>That's a good example, though. I'd say it shows that my suggested
>definition was incomplete.
>
>> On the other hand the guy who poisons bars of choclolate in a
>> supermarket with the aim of terrorising people into not buying that
>> brand of chocolate probably is a terrorist.
>
>I think most people would agree with you there. But what about the guy
>who poisons chocolate bars to try to destabilize capitalism and hasten
>the day when it's replaced by his preferred ism? Or the one who does it
>for revenge against the country where they're sold, without any hope
>that it will coerce the country into anything?
What about them? They's all instances of "pour encourager les autres"
-- to frighten people off buying chocolate.
> Or the guys who hijack
>planes hoping to bring publicity, and oddly enough, sympathy to thier
>cause? (That's what the PFLP is often said to have done in the late
>'60s and early '70s, though I'm not turning up a statement from them on
>their reasons.)
Again, what about them? In most cases that I recall they threatened to
kill hostages unless prisoners held by various governments were freed.
I would think that's terrorism by any definition, and not an example
of bolverism.
I picked the social media response to the Las Vegas shooting as an
example of bolverism because it was fairly recent, and so would be
fresh in many people's minds. The statement "America, this is what a
TERRORIST looks like" seemed to me very similar to the "Because you're
a man" in Lewis's own example, because I had not (and still have not)
seen any evidence that he *was* a terrorist, and so the statement does
not refute the argument (that all terrorists are Muslims) but just
muddies the waters. And that muddying of the waters is what I see as
the essence of bolverism.
--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://www.goodreads.com/hayesstw
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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