Instant post-9-11 blame explanations bypassed perpetrator psychology

Evidence

Before the dust of the former World Trade Center settled, many instant analysts offered “explanations” for the attacks. Jerry Falwell blamed homosexuals and the American Civil Liberties Union; Noam Chomsky attributed them to revenge for the U.S. 1998 missile strike on Khartoum; and Norman Finkelstein cited American support for Israel as the cause. These explanations do little to help us understand the complex nature of what motivated the actual perpetrators to go through with their mission, but preventing future atrocities of this kind will in part depend on develop­ ing an understanding of the psychological factors involved in the planning and execution of such massacres. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 10

Categorization

• CANDY: Falwell blaming homosexuals and the ACLU, Chomsky blaming Khartoum, Finkelstein blaming Israel — three rival scapegoat framings of one event, light and quotable.
• SEED: The instant post-attack blame game is a live microcosm of scapegoating: each analyst picked a different outgroup or grievance to blame, illustrating attribution error under shock.
• XREF: connects to: Popular psychology functions mainly to displace blame from evil actors onto prior causes; Causal attribution requires perceiving both power and intent in the blamed agent; Social psychologists explain genocidal behavior through situational pressure plus unexamined psychological processes — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 352 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Terrorism studies explains violence through individual psychology rather than politics #expands (0.85) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 121
• Social psychologists explain genocidal behavior through situational pressure plus unexamined psychological processes #exemplifies (0.82) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 352
• Universal-psychology accounts of racism substitute an alibi for explanation #expands (0.82) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 634
• Neoliberal crisis narratives redirect blame from structures onto individual psychology #exemplifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 433
• Popular psychology functions mainly to displace blame from evil actors onto prior causes #expands (0.78)
• Retrospective mental health diagnoses of perpetrators are often circular reasoning #corroborates (0.75) — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America, 134
• Blame shifting and victim disparagement routinely override moral principle in institutional self-defense #expands (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 508
• Causal attribution requires perceiving both power and intent in the blamed agent #qualifies (0.72)
• The ticking-time-bomb scenario legitimized torture through utilitarian reasoning #complicates (0.70) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2371