Good scientific theories have to make risky predictions. Whitehouse shows an admirable willingness to “sacrifice” his theory on the altar of empirical evidence, helpfully laying out two ways in which it can be falsified. I will argue for what he calls the “somewhat less disastrous” scenario: a reduction in explanatory scope. His theory of identity fusion offers support for one pathway toward extreme self-sacrifice, but it fails to account for the most important case on which he brings his theory to bear, namely, jihadi suicide terrorism.
According to Whitehouse, extreme self-sacrifice is motivated by identity fusion, in which people form such strong bonds with their groups that they become willing to lay down their lives for them. But how does this theory account for mass suicides, in which the whole group perishes? In 1997, the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult, Marshall Applewhite, persuaded 38 of his followers to commit collective suicide. After the destruction of their physical bodies, these people believed their souls would board a spacecraft trailing comet Hale–Bopp. In another example, on November 18, 1978, 918 members of the People's Temple in Jonestown, including cult leader Jim Jones, poisoned themselves in an act of “revolutionary suicide.”
In a heroic act on the battlefield, one soldier might jump on a grenade so that his comrades may be saved, but this logic breaks down for mass suicides. What is the point of sacrificing yourself for the sake of the group, when the objective of the mission is for the whole group to perish along with you? Can one explain the extreme self-sacrifice of the Heaven's Gate cult members without mentioning their professed beliefs about the spacecraft rescue?
Many jihadi terrorist plots, such as the 9/11 attacks, can also be seen as cases of mass suicide. The 9/11 terrorist cells were highly cohesive, and their members may well have achieved identity fusion, but they were in it to die together. Perhaps Whitehouse can retort that the hijackers also intensely loved the “brotherhood” of the Al Qaeda organization as a whole, which is certainly true. But as he himself writes, bonds with larger group categories are weaker than “local fusion” between people who know each other personally. Another, somewhat opposite problem is the recent phenomenon of “lone wolf” attacks. These are carried out by individuals who typically pledge allegiance to ISIS (e.g., in a video recording) before carrying out their suicide mission, but who have radicalized themselves online, having had little or no contact with the organization itself (Juergensmeyer Reference Juergensmeyer2005; Stern & Berger Reference Stern and Berger2015). Being relatively isolated, how could these loners have undergone the “collective experiences” required by Whitehouse's theory, such as painful initiation rites?
Is it possible that jihadist terrorists are motivated by specific ideological beliefs after all? One major incentive for extreme self-sacrifice is the belief, professed by many jihadists, that a martyr who dies in the righteous cause of jihad will be cleansed of all his sins and gain direct entrance to paradise (along with 70 family members, according to some). Strictly speaking, suicide is forbidden in Islam, but fundamentalist scholars have developed arguments to work around this problem. In effect, as long as the objective of the attack is to kill unbelievers, while the death of the attacker is merely incidental, the attacks do not qualify as suicide for these religious jurists (Cook Reference Cook2005, pp. 141–46). As Bernard Lewis summarizes, the “suicide bomber is … taking a considerable risk on a theological nicety” (Lewis Reference Lewis2004, p. 38). Do these theological justifications play a role in real life? In The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright recounts the story Mohamed Al-Owhali, one of the perpetrators of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. Al-Owhali's job was to force the guard to raise the drop bar so that the truck filled with explosives could be driven as close as possible to the embassy. However, when he threw a stun grenade into the courtyard, attracting potential victims, he suddenly faced a theological dilemma:
He had expected to be a martyr; his death in the operation would assure him his immediate place in Paradise. But he realized that his mission of setting off the stun grenade had already been accomplished. If he were to go forward to his own certain death, that would be suicide, he explained, not martyrdom. Damnation would be his fate, not salvation. Such is the narrow bridge between heaven and hell. (Wright Reference Wright2006, p. 271)
Many jihadi terrorists talk about afterlife rewards in their video testaments (Hafez Reference Hafez2007; Kruglanski at al. Reference Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne, Fishman and Orehek2009; Oliver & Steinberg Reference Oliver and Steinberg2006) and about of the joys and honor of martyrdom. Their families receive gifts when the martyr's mission is completed. Some mothers even encourage their sons to volunteer for suicide missions, and are overjoyed when they succeed (Barlow Reference Barlow2015). According to Pentagon intelligence documents, the 9/11 hijackers doused themselves with flower water in preparation for meeting the dark-eyed virgins in paradise (Sperry Reference Sperry2005). In one of his speeches, Osama bin Laden said: “[These youths] have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. An infidel, and enemy of God like you, cannot be in the same hell with his righteous executioner” (Greenberg Reference Greenberg2005, p. 182). During the Iran–Iraq war, thousands of Iranian children were sent to walk through minefields to die as martyrs. They had signed “Passports to Paradise” and were even given plastic keys to ensure entry into heaven (Kumar Reference Kumar2017, p. 170).
Hard though it may be for secular Westerners to accept, some people really believe that 72 dark-eyed virgins await them in paradise (Boudry & Coyne Reference Boudry and Coyne2016a; Reference Boudry and Coyne2016b; van Leeuwen Reference Van Leeuwen2014). Unfortunately, Whitehouse does not even mention afterlife rewards and rejects the role of belief out of hand: “willingness to fight and die is not motivated by doctrines and ideologies, religious or otherwise, but by a particularly intense love of the group” (sect. 2, para. 7). Of course, most people who intensely love their group (e.g., sports fans) don't commit suicide attacks. If Whitehouse wants to fulfill his ambition of offering a “single overarching theory” of extreme self-sacrifice, he will need to take seriously the power of belief.
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Good scientific theories have to make risky predictions. Whitehouse shows an admirable willingness to “sacrifice” his theory on the altar of empirical evidence, helpfully laying out two ways in which it can be falsified. I will argue for what he calls the “somewhat less disastrous” scenario: a reduction in explanatory scope. His theory of identity fusion offers support for one pathway toward extreme self-sacrifice, but it fails to account for the most important case on which he brings his theory to bear, namely, jihadi suicide terrorism.
According to Whitehouse, extreme self-sacrifice is motivated by identity fusion, in which people form such strong bonds with their groups that they become willing to lay down their lives for them. But how does this theory account for mass suicides, in which the whole group perishes? In 1997, the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult, Marshall Applewhite, persuaded 38 of his followers to commit collective suicide. After the destruction of their physical bodies, these people believed their souls would board a spacecraft trailing comet Hale–Bopp. In another example, on November 18, 1978, 918 members of the People's Temple in Jonestown, including cult leader Jim Jones, poisoned themselves in an act of “revolutionary suicide.”
In a heroic act on the battlefield, one soldier might jump on a grenade so that his comrades may be saved, but this logic breaks down for mass suicides. What is the point of sacrificing yourself for the sake of the group, when the objective of the mission is for the whole group to perish along with you? Can one explain the extreme self-sacrifice of the Heaven's Gate cult members without mentioning their professed beliefs about the spacecraft rescue?
Many jihadi terrorist plots, such as the 9/11 attacks, can also be seen as cases of mass suicide. The 9/11 terrorist cells were highly cohesive, and their members may well have achieved identity fusion, but they were in it to die together. Perhaps Whitehouse can retort that the hijackers also intensely loved the “brotherhood” of the Al Qaeda organization as a whole, which is certainly true. But as he himself writes, bonds with larger group categories are weaker than “local fusion” between people who know each other personally. Another, somewhat opposite problem is the recent phenomenon of “lone wolf” attacks. These are carried out by individuals who typically pledge allegiance to ISIS (e.g., in a video recording) before carrying out their suicide mission, but who have radicalized themselves online, having had little or no contact with the organization itself (Juergensmeyer Reference Juergensmeyer2005; Stern & Berger Reference Stern and Berger2015). Being relatively isolated, how could these loners have undergone the “collective experiences” required by Whitehouse's theory, such as painful initiation rites?
Is it possible that jihadist terrorists are motivated by specific ideological beliefs after all? One major incentive for extreme self-sacrifice is the belief, professed by many jihadists, that a martyr who dies in the righteous cause of jihad will be cleansed of all his sins and gain direct entrance to paradise (along with 70 family members, according to some). Strictly speaking, suicide is forbidden in Islam, but fundamentalist scholars have developed arguments to work around this problem. In effect, as long as the objective of the attack is to kill unbelievers, while the death of the attacker is merely incidental, the attacks do not qualify as suicide for these religious jurists (Cook Reference Cook2005, pp. 141–46). As Bernard Lewis summarizes, the “suicide bomber is … taking a considerable risk on a theological nicety” (Lewis Reference Lewis2004, p. 38). Do these theological justifications play a role in real life? In The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright recounts the story Mohamed Al-Owhali, one of the perpetrators of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. Al-Owhali's job was to force the guard to raise the drop bar so that the truck filled with explosives could be driven as close as possible to the embassy. However, when he threw a stun grenade into the courtyard, attracting potential victims, he suddenly faced a theological dilemma:
He had expected to be a martyr; his death in the operation would assure him his immediate place in Paradise. But he realized that his mission of setting off the stun grenade had already been accomplished. If he were to go forward to his own certain death, that would be suicide, he explained, not martyrdom. Damnation would be his fate, not salvation. Such is the narrow bridge between heaven and hell. (Wright Reference Wright2006, p. 271)
Many jihadi terrorists talk about afterlife rewards in their video testaments (Hafez Reference Hafez2007; Kruglanski at al. Reference Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne, Fishman and Orehek2009; Oliver & Steinberg Reference Oliver and Steinberg2006) and about of the joys and honor of martyrdom. Their families receive gifts when the martyr's mission is completed. Some mothers even encourage their sons to volunteer for suicide missions, and are overjoyed when they succeed (Barlow Reference Barlow2015). According to Pentagon intelligence documents, the 9/11 hijackers doused themselves with flower water in preparation for meeting the dark-eyed virgins in paradise (Sperry Reference Sperry2005). In one of his speeches, Osama bin Laden said: “[These youths] have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. An infidel, and enemy of God like you, cannot be in the same hell with his righteous executioner” (Greenberg Reference Greenberg2005, p. 182). During the Iran–Iraq war, thousands of Iranian children were sent to walk through minefields to die as martyrs. They had signed “Passports to Paradise” and were even given plastic keys to ensure entry into heaven (Kumar Reference Kumar2017, p. 170).
Hard though it may be for secular Westerners to accept, some people really believe that 72 dark-eyed virgins await them in paradise (Boudry & Coyne Reference Boudry and Coyne2016a; Reference Boudry and Coyne2016b; van Leeuwen Reference Van Leeuwen2014). Unfortunately, Whitehouse does not even mention afterlife rewards and rejects the role of belief out of hand: “willingness to fight and die is not motivated by doctrines and ideologies, religious or otherwise, but by a particularly intense love of the group” (sect. 2, para. 7). Of course, most people who intensely love their group (e.g., sports fans) don't commit suicide attacks. If Whitehouse wants to fulfill his ambition of offering a “single overarching theory” of extreme self-sacrifice, he will need to take seriously the power of belief.