2. Another strategy of magical thinking is “say a magical word, like ‘abracadabra!’ or ‘open sesame!’, and the big bad boo-boo will go away.”
We can see this strategy play out in the invocations to politicians to say the words “radical Islam” as if the act of saying the words could change reality.
3. The third strategy is “I can manipulate the situation to my benefit because I have secret knowledge of everybody’s true motivations.”
This strategy manifests itself in narratives like “Terrorists killed because they want us to hate refugees, so let’s resist and, instead, embrace refugees to thwart terrorists.”
The only adult alternative to these childish manifestations is to find a way to accept the disturbing fact that bad shit happens to good people and bad shit can happen to us at any time. Finding a way to be at peace with this knowledge and not let it destroy one psychologically is a sign of psychological maturity.
I sincerely hope that people understand that I’m not asking anybody to avoid the words “radical Islam” or to do any harm to refugees. I like the expression “radical Islam” and I think it’s insane to blame refugees for the Paris attacks. The post is about magical thinking that is revealed in all aspects of people’s lives, not just in discussions about terrorism.
Clarissa's Blog 
Here’s a link to an interesting article published in the Arabic internet daily Raialyoum.com by Kurdish-Iraqi columnist Anas Mahmoud Al-Sheikh Mazhar about the failure of Islamic clerics to condemn the Islamic State as non-Islamic. Iraqi Columnist: Why Aren’t Muslim Clerics Calling For Jihad Against ISIS?</a?
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I think it’s all three reasons combined. Clerics, when did they ever do anything useful?
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This is an interesting way of looking at it, children think this way but ought to grow out of it. It’s something I understand because I feel that way myself, I have a hard shell and come off as an asshole but I have a soft inside, I hate to hear about shitty things happening to good people. But what I do is channel that feeling into writing fantasy fiction about a Dr. Who-like group of people, instead of whining or acting like a big baby.
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EXPLAIN
EXPLAIN
EXPLAIN
[it is in fact possible that I could be a “good” Dalek …] 🙂
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“I don’t have to work to attempt to solve any of these geo-political problems; all I need to do is to manipulate the endgame in a way where I still retain access and influence.”
You wanted a post-nation state position, so here’s the most baldfaced one I can provide at the moment. 🙂
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