We see far too direct a correspondence between others’ actions and their inherent dispositions. We see unusual dispositions that exactly match the unusual behavior, rather than asking after real situations or imagined situations that could explain the behavior. We hypothesize mutants.
When someone actually offends us—commits an action of which we (rightly or wrongly) disapprove—then, I observe, the correspondence bias redoubles. There seems to be a very strong tendency to blame evil deeds on the Enemy’s mutant, evil disposition. Not as a moral point, but as a strict question of prior probability, we should ask what the Enemy might believe about their situation that would reduce the seeming bizarrity of their behavior. This would allow us to hypothesize a less exceptional disposition, and thereby shoulder a lesser burden of improbability.
On September 11th, 2001, nineteen Muslim males hijacked four jet airliners in a deliberately suicidal effort to hurt the United States of America. Now why do you suppose they might have done that? Because they saw the USA as a beacon of freedom to the world, but were born with a mutant disposition that made them hate freedom?
Realistically, most people don’t construct their life stories with themselves as the villains. Everyone is the hero of their own story. The Enemy’s story, as seen by the Enemy, is not going to make the Enemy look bad. If you try to construe motivations that would make the Enemy look bad, you’ll end up flat wrong about what actually goes on in the Enemy’s mind.
But politics is the mind-killer. Debate is war; arguments are soldiers. If the Enemy did have an evil disposition, that would be an argument in favor of your side. And any argument that favors your side must be supported, no matter how silly—otherwise you’re letting up the pressure somewhere on the battlefront. Everyone strives to outshine their neighbor in patriotic denunciation, and no one dares to contradict. Soon the Enemy has horns, bat wings, flaming breath, and fangs that drip corrosive venom. If you deny any aspect of this on merely factual grounds, you are arguing the Enemy’s side; you are a traitor. Very few people will understand that you aren’t defending the Enemy, just defending the truth.
If it took a mutant to do monstrous things, the history of the human species would look very different. Mutants would be rare.
Or maybe the fear is that understanding will lead to forgiveness. It’s easier to shoot down evil mutants. It is a more inspiring battle cry to scream, “Die, vicious scum!” instead of “Die, people who could have been just like me but grew up in a different environment!” You might feel guilty killing people who weren’t pure darkness.
This looks to me like the deep-seated yearning for a one-sided policy debate in which the best policy has no drawbacks. If an army is crossing the border or a lunatic is coming at you with a knife, the policy alternatives are (a) defend yourself or (b) lie down and die. If you defend yourself, you may have to kill. If you kill someone who could, in another world, have been your friend, that is a tragedy. And it is a tragedy. The other option, lying down and dying, is also a tragedy. Why must there be a non-tragic option? Who says that the best policy available must have no downside? If someone has to die, it may as well be the initiator of force, to discourage future violence and thereby minimize the total sum of death.
If the Enemy has an average disposition, and is acting from beliefs about their situation that would make violence a typically human response, then that doesn’t mean their beliefs are factually accurate. It doesn’t mean they’re justified. It means you’ll have to shoot down someone who is the hero of their own story, and in their novel the protagonist will die on page 80. That is a tragedy, but it is better than the alternative tragedy. It is the choice that every police officer makes, every day, to keep our neat little worlds from dissolving into chaos.
When you accurately estimate the Enemy’s psychology—when you know what is really in the Enemy’s mind—that knowledge won’t feel like landing a delicious punch on the opposing side. It won’t give you a warm feeling of righteous indignation. It won’t make you feel good about yourself. If your estimate makes you feel unbearably sad, you may be seeing the world as it really is. More rarely, an accurate estimate may send shivers of serious horror down your spine, as when dealing with true psychopaths, or neurologically intact people with beliefs that have utterly destroyed their sanity (Scientologists or Jesus Campers).
So let’s come right out and say it—the 9/11 hijackers weren’t evil mutants. They did not hate freedom. They, too, were the heroes of their own stories, and they died for what they believed was right—truth, justice, and the Islamic way. If the hijackers saw themselves that way, it doesn’t mean their beliefs were true. If the hijackers saw themselves that way, it doesn’t mean that we have to agree that what they did was justified. If the hijackers saw themselves that way, it doesn’t mean that the passengers of United Flight 93 should have stood aside and let it happen. It does mean that in another world, if they had been raised in a different environment, those hijackers might have been police officers. And that is indeed a tragedy. Welcome to Earth.
To me, it simply comes down to one thing: belief.
If you absolutely believe something, then no matter how implausible it may seem to others with other beliefs, to you, in your mind, it is evident truth, and that therefore is your reality, and anyone who thinks otherwise will often be irritatingly stupid to you.
People with absolute beliefs that just require faith can pretty much rationalise anything to fit them, and are amazingly good at ignoring obvious flaws in their beliefs, and at seeing any, even tiny, counter argument, as being 'evil' and taking the other side, they can seem, and often are, a bit of a threat to those of us with a little more rational.
That's actually OK if that's as far as it goes, or if the 'war' is fought with words or posturing, but when people with absolute beliefs decide to make others conform to those beliefs through force, that's when you start getting the problems that lead to wars and terrorism.
As a general world view of when differing people try to 'police' the others (and not counting direct threat and the need to defend yourself), I believe those who try to enforce their belief upon others through force and threat we can call the bad guys, and those who try to do it through wordy persuasion and their own example that it works, without feeling the need to try to directly enforce it upon others, essentially presenting a counter choice and giving them it as a choice, we can call the good guys, because THAT really works, just a really persuasive argument or excellent proposition or compromise can completely change your perception of others and your particular reality in relation to them, and as such, everyones behaviour, forever! Thinking 'they're too stupid/corrupted to think like us so we'll just have to use force to get what we want' is when you lose (think of the whole IRA terrorist affair as a good example).
Think of it as the difference between teaching your dog to behave because he wants to because he likes you and believes in you as a good and respectable alpha, or teaching it to behave by pure punishment, like taking away it's food then smacking him on the nose with a newspaper whenever he jumps up on the kitchen table looking for scraps, the latter may work while you're about, but the moment you stop directly enforcing these punishments for misbehaviour, that dog will jump on the table anyway, probably with unbridled joy that he now has the freedom to!
I personally can't see that anyone in the whole 'War Against Terror' are particularly blame free, and I include pretty much all that got involved in it in that statement, and I think there was and is too much stereotyping and meddling in others affairs in the world by the super powers, using too much stick and not enough carrot, and using threat and force to try and make other far away people conform to your personal reality rarely ends well, and frankly, it p*sses people off, and all your really doing is creating the 'they'll only behave for as long as you can control them' scenario as set out above, eventually something bad is going to happen when your back is turned, or one day you get too weak to keep a firm grip on that newspaper!
As an aside, on the subject of 'evil wrongdoers' in history and how we decide who was really 'the bad guys' when we review it through our contemporary eyes, I can't help but notice they very often carry a 'good book' and an agenda to use it to qualify their actions, though...