Heroism, Terrorism and Social Violence: Notes in Political Psychology

Behavioral and psychological difference between the terrorists of the 1990– 2010s and the ones of the 1950–1980s reflects a worldwide trend towards increasingly primitive political thinking. The structure and logic of religious motivations and the literal faith in afterlife rewards make terrorists' activities more cruel and destructive compared to the ones of the secular ‘revolutionary romanticists’. The author's conclusions are based not only on the literary sources but also on his personal multi-year observations and practical experience working with politicians from different parts of the political spectrum.

The dangerous psychological trend is accompanied by blurring lines be-tween war and peace conditions as well as between military, production and home technologies: modern weapons become cheaper and more easily avail-able every day. The paper shows that the regress in humanitarian intelli-gence coupled with the accelerating technological development is fraught with fatal effects for the global civilization. Independent calculations made by the scientists in Australia, Russia and USA have shown that the current century is expected to be crucial not only for human history but also for the whole planetary evolution; this puts special responsibility on the present-day generations.

Throughout millennia, group solidarity has been supported by the image of common enemy (‘them – us’), which at the same time has facilitated the meaning formation. Actually, the key conditions for the Earth civilization's sustainability are formation and mass assimilation of new strategic meanings free from intergroup confrontations. Modern cross-disciplinary science provides basic points for panhuman meanings; yet, real political attitudes are currently drifting into a dangerous direction.

Keywords: heroism, terrorism, violence, Verkko Law, techno-humanitarian balance, religion, ideology, confrontation, civilization, future.