A horrific scene circulated through youtube.com of a man with a British accent beheading a journalist. It frightened all people with an investment in our present pro-social, modern society to watch it. In a civilization based on individualization, helping others, and working hard to gain success, unfortunately, not all citizens can rise to the top of the ladder. Some remain at the bottom of the ladder of success and some are invested in destroying our pro-social way of life.
When a young person does not have the skills to be successful, he/she will often be marginalized in society. Never being quite as successful as his peers in pro-social society, he may join other marginalized young people or groups such as gangs or terrorist organizations or form his own group in which he thinks he can be successful fighting or harming the pro-social part of society. An example includes Charles Manson whose mother was a teenage alcoholic. She severely neglected him as a child and he grew up to form a ?family? of girls that would take his anger out on others by killing multiple people at his command. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the murders of 7 people.
There are recent news reports of Americans and British citizens raised in a modern democracy being radicalized and then drawn into fighting for ISIS, a brutal terrorist group in the Middle East with methods reaching back to the Middle Ages. Once radicalized and fighting for ISIS there is concern that they may return to the US or Britain and try to radicalize others and commit terroristic acts in their homelands. It is difficult to imagine how someone born in a land with many freedoms and opportunities would want to turn their country back to a civilization without freedoms, individuality and choice.
The reality is that they have not experienced success in a society with democracy and freedoms so they turn their backs on it or even turn against it completely. Once taught by a counter-society group that they can lay the blame of their personal failures on society and focus their hate on that, they need not accept responsibility for their own choices.
Additionally, in a gang or terrorist organization, the young person can be praised and rewarded for expressing his hate toward others and harming them, the more brutally he harms them, the greater the praise from the group and the condemnation from the democratic, free society that he hates. Charlie Manson?s ?family? was such a group. Americans and British citizens joining ISIS may be a similar phenomenon.
Preventing the draw of vulnerable persons to radicalization means ensuring that there are pro-social paths to success for all of society?s citizens. Leaving anyone disenfranchised by design, accident or laissez faire, leaves them vulnerable to recruitment by gangs, terrorist organizations, and families of their own creation. Gangs and terrorists cost pro-social societies huge numbers of dollars as well as pain and suffering for its citizens. They can only grow in the fertile ground of a county?s poor, disenfranchised, and ?have nots? with no or little hope for success.
In any society, there must be as much fertile ground on the road to success as there is on the road to destruction. The draw to the road of success must be as strong as the road to destruction, as well. The key is putting as much money into universal child care, Child Protective Services, parenting classes, high quality education, highly accessible behavioral health services, skill building for success, and vocational rehabilitation as we do prisons. If we care for our children, we will need fewer prisons. As a society, we should support people learning success skills while they are in jail to reduce the extremely high US recidivism rates. It is not about spending more money but spending it more effectively.