Ömer Taşpınar has written a penetrating article for the Huffington Post entitled "You Can't Understand Why People Join ISIS Without Understanding Relative Deprivation." Taspinar is, according the Post, professor of National Security Strategy at the U.S. National War College and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. You can find the article at:
The article details the impact of "relative" deprivation on those whom join organizations such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. He acknowledges the impact of ideological, political and theological rationales. But he points further to the reality of heightened hopes and dashed expectations on the part of those who join such organizations.
Their involvement is not a product of "absolute" deprivation. That is, those who become radicalized are not from populations who are the poorest and least powerful. Instead, their deprivation is real in comparison with the access to resources and power experienced by other groups. Aspiring young people in the Middle East, for example, see that Europeans and Americans with similar education and other advantages attain far higher levels of affluence and influence.
It is by comparison that the potential radicals suffer. This is what Taspinar calls "relative deprivation."
We can see that value is best established by comparison. We humans are comparison engines. We have great difficulty establishing and experiencing "absolute" value. We are not typically moved by stories of absolute deprivation. We are more likely to be motivated by stories that compare how little one person has in comparison to how much another person has. You can see the comparison engine at work in any effort to raise money, for example, for homeless children. Look at how much you have, the appeal will say. Compare that to how little this child has. What are you going to do?
Most of us will reach for our checkbooks.
When we put relative deprivation alongside heightened expectations, we can have an explosive combination. Humans are rarely more irrational and aggressive than when they see themselves as the aggrieved and offended party. We can compare rewards and be disappointed that others have gotten a better deal than we have. But if we compare inputs--education, hard work, intelligence, risk-taking--and discover that we have still come off worse than others who generated the same inputs, then we will be fighting mad.
Taspinar notes that realities of global information have made the problem far worse. We have immediate access to huge batches of data for comparison and disappointment. Young people in the Middle East, for example, can compare themselves to European counterparts and develop a powerful grievance story. When the grievance story becomes strong enough, the bereaved will protest, sometimes violently.
So what is to be done? We could try to cut off the information base for comparison. But that is no longer possible. We could seek to assist the relatively deprived to learn how to be content with what they have. But that is foolish and unjust. If we wish to reduce the number and intensity of such future conflicts, we must be willing to address the inequalities of outcome that result in the sense of relative deprivation.
Reduce the hope (but let's not) or reduce the disappointment.
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