Well.. That was the first thing that crossed my mind when I read the article, Pinker vs Gladwell.

Looking forward to your next article!

I do enjoy my arguments with Tirta and am glad that you do too. Your Pinker-Gladwell comment was really flattering.

If I have never met you guys in person (although in separate different settings), I would surely think that the arguments above can only be settled by means of fist fight

Very tough indeed, I should say, as to who actually has the better and more solid arguments.

I thought that Rivan managed to clarify his stance by pointing out Tirta’s misrepresentation.

But, hey, Tirta came back and clarified that the misrepresentation was a false accusation and it made me read again Rivan’s original article.

In the final analysis, I should agree with Tirta that the issue can only be settled with empirical data. We could conduct a research to actually prove or disprove whether the cause of terrorism are poverty and/or lack of education.

But even if that research proves or disproves any of your arguments then a counter research can also be conducted to debunk the tested hypothesis. .. and so on and so forth…

Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the blog nevertheless. Somehow, it reminds me of Pinker vs Gladwell on Gladwell’s new book.

Well done

***

I appreciate Rivandra’s attempt to rebut my criticisms. Unfortunately, his effort falls short for two reasons. First, he accused me of misrepresentations I never made, and as such spent considerable space to discuss irrelevant issues I did not contend. Second, he failed (again) to proceed with care when making logical deductions and empirical inferences.

Rivandra started by clarifying that his original piece was not intended to replace the poor-and-uneducated hypothesis of terrorism with a set of new propositions. Rather, its purpose was to argue for a set of public policies that would very likely help combat terrorism in Indonesia.

I find this clarification baffling. First of all, I am not sure how the original piece did not attempt to get rid of the poor-and-uneducated hypothesis when its title clearly reads: “The Root Cause of Terrorism? It’s Not Poverty or Lack of Education.” (This is unlikely due to editorial matters, since the same title is used in Rivandra’s personal blog.) In fact, the first five paragraphs were spent to make the case that the poor-and-uneducated hypothesis is incorrect.

Moreover, the value of Rivandra’s suggested public policies hinges on his understanding of the causes of terrorism. It is this understanding that I previously criticised, because I believe it is impossible to put forward a set of good policies in the absence of good knowledge about the causes of the problem.

Turning to the rebuttal points, Rivandra began by arguing that I did not take into account the fact that the proportion of the poor and uneducated is roughly the same among JI terrorists and Indonesians at large. From this he concluded that poverty and lack of education are not correlated with being terrorists.

There is a logical slip here. The fact that the majority of Indonesians are poor and uneducated is irrelevant to the fact that the majority of JI terrorists and poor and uneducated. The correlation is still there: most JI terrorists are still poor and uneducated – and it is useful to know that they are not rich and educated. What cannot be concluded from the data is that poverty and lack of education are a cause of terrorism, a conclusion both of us never made (for different reasons).

(Rivandra argued that the poor-and-uneducated hypothesis is false because most of Al-Qaeda and Hamas members are well off and educated. I rebutted this interpretation in light of the JI data, and argued that the poor-and-uneducated hypothesis – which may or may not be correct – is still consistent in the Indonesian context. Hence my contention that eradicating poverty and expanding education may play a role in fighting terrorism in Indonesia.)

Rivandra then argued, contradicting his previous writing, that he did not say repressive governments make terrorism more viable. He instead stated: “…closing doors to legal dissent would significantly raise the propensity of dissenters to employ violence…” I welcome this change of view, and would like to emphasise again the very point I was making before: violence is not necessarily terrorism. Repressive governments produce all sorts of opposing and violent groups, so there must be something else that drives some groups to be terrorist.

Rivandra also seemed to concede the point that submissions to authority and peer pressure are not a common trait of terrorists. He clarified: “…the two [authority and peer pressure] are requirements to break the inhibition to commit extreme carnage on a large group of people.” He went on to argue for freethinking against submission to authority and peer pressure (for no apparent reasons these two psychological phenomena appear somewhat evil to him).

Here Rivandra failed to capture the essence of my criticism, that authority and peer pressure are neutral in terms of values. They are part and parcel of any group dynamics. Without solid evidence that terrorists exploit these phenomena to a greater degree than others (soldiers, athletes, boy scouts, etc), Rivandra’s admirable project of advancing freethinking is not going to be helpful in fighting terrorism. I am sure, for example, that Rivandra would not mind the effectiveness of military groups in responding to disasters, and would not encourage trained soldiers to question their leaders and their peers in those circumstances.

Finally, Rivandra conceded that his idea of humanities education being relevant to terrorism is victim to the self-selection problem. But he was again careless when he argued: “One thing for sure, it [the unidentified factor that simultaneously drives individuals to study humanities and to avoid violent acts] won’t be level of education or economic background.”

We do not know this. For instance, the fact that most Al-Qaeda and Hamas members who studied science and engineering came from middle- or upper-class families and had college degrees does not necessarily rule out the possibility that those who studied humanities came from even more affluent families and had more degrees. Only empirical data – not armchair logic – can settle the issue.

Tirta Susilo’s rebuttal on the arguments I presented on these pages (Root Cause of Terrorism, 25 Sept) provides me with a good venue to further strengthen my proposition of ensuring civil liberties, encouraging free and critical thinking, and promoting cross-cultural learning, even if it’s solely to address terrorism.

First and foremost, it should be noted that the article—unlike Tirta implied—did not attempt to replace a popular hypothesis on the cause of terrorism with a new one. Rather, it attempted to put forward a set of public policies and community attitude that would very likely lower the possibility of Indonesia producing terrorists; something that simply eradicating poverty and expanding education would not be able to achieve.

Tirta pointed out that 78 percent of the 180 people implicated in JI-related attacks worked as unskilled laborers, 77 percent had at most a high school education, and thus hastily concluded that education and economic background played a role. He forgot to mention, however, that as a whole, about 80 percent of Indonesian workers are unskilled and more than 82 percent of Indonesians do not have a college degree (Directorate General of High Education, 2008). When the proportion of the poor and uneducated in the terrorist population is almost the same—even lower—that the proportion of that in the general population, we can safely conclude that poverty and education cannot be correlated with the propensity of an individual getting involved in terrorist activities. This conclusion is consistent with international studies, which Tirta seemed to concede as valid.

Meanwhile, economist Alan Krueger and his colleague Jitka Maleckova conducted a cross country analysis in 2003 using regression models and discovered that “at a given level of income, countries with greater civil liberties…are less likely to be a wellspring of international terrorists.” I never claimed that ensuring civil liberties would automatically lead to zero terrorist activities. I also never said—as Tirta misrepresented—that countries restricting legal dissent would automatically and exclusively produced terrorists. What I am saying is that closing doors to legal dissent would significantly raise the propensity of dissenters to employ violence, as supported by Krueger and Maleckova’s finding.

Another of Tirta’s misrepresentation is on my argument concerning authority and peer pressure. I never made a claim that authority and peer pressure would automatically and exclusively lead to individuals committing violence. My contention is that the two are requirements to break the inhibition to commit extreme carnage on a large group of people. Encouraging our youths to think independently and not be afraid to be different would make it that more difficult for an authority or peers to accustom them to violence. This is not to say that freethinkers can’t be terrorists; but they will always be an overwhelming minority in the terrorist population.

Lastly, even if there was an unidentified variable that simultaneously lead individuals to choose to study humanities and have a low propensity towards violence, then it is within our interest to identify it. One thing for sure, it won’t be level of education or economic background.

In the end, claiming that lack of civil liberties, conditioning individuals to easily succumb to authority and peer pressure, and lack of cross-cultural learning are the root causes of terrorism would be quite as reckless as—although significantly less misguided than—claiming that poverty and lack of education are. From the perspective of public policy, however, the poverty and lack of education hypothesis is not only contrary to existing facts, it also carries no added value, since poverty eradication and education improvement will almost certainly be some of the most prevailing public policies, regardless of their link to the cause of terrorism. On the other hand, we have absolutely nothing to lose, and so much to gain, from ensuring civil liberties, encouraging our people to think critically and not be afraid to have their own opinion, and promoting understanding of different cultures and values—policies that are sadly more difficult to sell.