Tiffany Le
ASA02 A02
Blog #6
24 October 2015
Reading: Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots
Puar and Rai discuss how the idea of patriotism, the American Dream, and the default person are perpetuated within terrorist discourse. Counter-terrorism attempts to instill freedom, democracy, and humanity in countries that do not ascribe to America’s values. Although counter-terrorist ideals are clear to me, never before have I equated terrorism with heteronormativity and sexual deviancy. The authors’ analysis of terrorist personality types (anarchic-ideologue and nationalist-secessionist) reminds me of Freud’s Oedipal complex and Jung’s Electra complex in that the child identifies with the parent(s)/authority figures and childhood experiences, which affects the child’s actions. Path dependence forms, and the child will rebel against society either because they themselves were hurt by or their parents were hurt by society. Actually, I find it digestible that the reasons for terrorism may boil down to a child’s negative experiences with their parents because many serial killers had abusive parents, which cause them to lash out in violent ways. At the same time, anti-terrorist propaganda probably exploits the discourse surrounding terrorism to demonstrate the need to discipline and quarantine the “other” and force society to assimilate to the dominant group's’ values of heterosexuality, masculinity, democracy, etc. Again, the US government wishes to change the collective memory surrounding terrorism in order to wage war on its people (domestically), change policies, and become involved in other countries. Why does the US seek to dismantle and dethrone terrorist institutions and leaders (e.g. Osama bin Laden) that they voluntarily fund, arm, and aid?
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