Thats true, and it shouldn't be seen as mitigating those terrible actions. I doubt members of IS or the PIRA were notably mentally ill. Such people don't tend to function well as part of a group. Like that Brevik guy in Norway, he had been involved with any number of far right groups, but also failed to fit in there, as he did in society in general.

But I suspect if you poke around loyalist violence and republican violence, you'll find people who claimed to be acting for the IRA or UVF / in their name, who weren't part of either organisation. Typically anti-social people like psychotics, don't even fit in well with extremists (in fact probably less so, because of the rules they tend to have).

'Lone wolfs' as they say, tend to not fit in anywhere. Like the kid from Exeter (early Muslim Extremist attempted suicide bombing) or the guy who shot up the US gay club. These aren't really 'terrorists' other than by convenience of description. They lack the political agenda, patience, social structure and coherence of being part of something 'greater' than themselves.

They're just likely as not people who's mental health issues have become focused by the bigger issues of the world around them.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

I think we can say that, but we can also see that in an expanded sense, in that they also tend to promote certain values and ideas. Its interesting how many American Action Movies revolve around a single, lone man, often an ordinary joe, resolving a problem through fairly indiscriminate violence, typically with a firearm (and that this is portrayed as being just and right).

Then we have all those US gun deaths, spree shootings etc, and how the NRA etc and Congress talk in terms of good guys, bad guys and guns. Arguably paralleling those kind of action flicks, where in the good guy with the gun kills the baddies etc...

Society and its art are very entwined, and reflect each other. Groups like IS are unforgivable in the material they produce, and the influence it has. But we also have a nasty tendency to assume that we ourselves are blameless in our own cultural output.

And in terms of terrorism, the numbers killed by terrorist propaganda in the UK probably is easily eclipsed by the passive absorption of 'good harmless action flicks'....

Thats not a defence of terrorism, but about how easily we abdicate our own responsibility for violence within society.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Absolutely true, but to compare the effects of exposure to the values portrayed in films and the spread of Islamic extremism is rather facile.

All stimulus effects behaviour and it is the deliberate intent of that stimulus, if any, that is the issue.
Certainly propaganda has been spread through film and news but one could hardly compare Dirty Harry to the motives of a real film of the beheading of a Westerner or a call to murder as many people as possible in a theatre.

Do we even know who the bloke was?

Clearly more mental in this untargeted knife rampage than the average Jihadi, who are arguably on par with Thomas Mair in their misguided but planned attacks.

While not squeaky clean, blaming the media and these labels is everything that's wrong with modern politics. I mean which papers do ISIS read? And why not commit an abhorrent act if people will jump to your defense when The Mail paint you as a religious fundamentalist.

Edited by johnfirewall (16 Dec 2016 5.52pm)

Who is jumping to the defence of a religious fundamentalist?

Meanwhile, Muslims are being slaughtered in the Middle East as this argument rages on.

By Muslims by the way, not black Islamophobes or right wing Nazi's...

How about looking at the *really* big picture?

Systematically dragged down by the lawmakers