A lot of heated rhetoric surrounding the Austin bomber--who thankfully won't be hurting anyone anymore--and whether or not he was a terrorist. I teach classes on terrorism, and here's a thread why it's unclear (based on what we know now) and why the classification matters. 1/x
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Terrorism is political. Criminal violence is personal, motivated by profit, revenge, enjoyment, etc. The motives of gangsters, conventional murderers, serial killers. Terrorists, by contrast, believe themselves to be altruists, aiming to improve society or defend their people 2/x
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Replying to @NGrossman81
great thread! But, serial killers can also be altruists, as there is a class of "mission oriented" killers who believe they're doing the world a favor by killing a certain kind of person. Lotsa issues in the classification of killers for sure.
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Replying to @theyoungjoo
That's a fair point. But with that form of serial killer, it's still personal, rather than political. Basically "the world would be better off without this person" rather than "this will send a message that my people will defend themselves against aggression" or something similar
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Replying to @NGrossman81
but, thanks for sharing this thread. Very informative and the class sound really interesting. Lotsa themes overlap with my teaching on serial killers & mass shooters. Would love to chop it up some day about overlapping interests.
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Replying to @theyoungjoo
That'd be really interesting for me too. I know much more about terrorists than I do about serial killers.
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Replying to @NGrossman81
ditto--i know more about gangs, mass shooters, serial killers than terrorists. Maybe a collabo some day! =)
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Sounds good to me.
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