Terror, fundamentalism, and male adolescence

Abstract

Terror and fundamentalism have received considerable attention within the scientific community in the last decade. But what is missing is an interdisciplinary, mainly psycho-social study that links terror and fundamentalism with male adolescent developments. In this paper, it is argued that fundamentalism is a necessary, maybe even essential basis for terrorism, but that terror almost always is connected with young male actors and their pathological adolescent biographies. Exploring this connection between terror, fundamentalism and specific pathological developments in male adolescence opens up new perspectives of understanding terrorism. Adolescence in general has been considered a phase of severe identity crisis, extensively studied and investigated in psychoanalytic theory. It seems that specific psycho-social and religious conditions and individual dispositions can turn a young male adolescent into a terrorist. In this sense male adolescent identity crisis seems a risk factor for terrorism.