The Control Factor and Islamic Terrorism

While watching the horror film, the audience understands that the suspense will be over within a few hours. Knowing there is a time limit to the tension and an eventual end to the film allows the audience to succumb more easily to it and become absorbed in the terrifying experiences.

Not so with a real threat to our security. In fact, it is extremely difficult for the American mind to remain in such a state of insecurity, danger, and terror that our Islamic Enemy poses. Instead, our minds are geared to eliminate as efficiently as possible any horrifying experience and re-establish the sense (or illusion) that control exists or is attainable. That part of the mind tasked with eradicating the experience of losing control is labeled here “the Control Factor.” …. When challenged, the Control Factor will seek to combat any obstacle and keep its perceptions and beliefs alive.

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Our minds are programmed to protect the perceptions and beliefs with which we navigate the world. We weave narratives, storylines, and “histories” to solidify these understandings and establish a sense of security. When these protective or defensive ideas are seriously threatened, the result is fear, alerting the system there is a challenge. And the human mind is capable of tolerating only a limited amount of fear.

Source: The Control Factor: Our Struggle to See the True Threat (2012) by Bill Siegel.

The Control Factor (CF) according to the author is always active and creating and independent of intelligence. An example of the CF is the narrative that the Islamists are committing acts of terrorism because America wronged them somehow, or because they don’t have jobs, etc. In other words, they are victims. All of which is wrong. People who think this think they can control the terrorism by appeasing the terrorists or changing their environments and the terrorists will stop being terrorists. Life doesn’t work this way. If you want to make the Islamists happy you and the whole world has to become fundamentalist Muslims. Period. Maybe, people who can’t realistically deal with the Islamists should ponder The Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

One other note, Mr. Siegel’s CF theory is similar to the cognitive dissonance theory and other “balance” theories.

H/T: Glenn Beck’s book It Is About Islam.