The official site of bestselling author Michael Shermer The official site of bestselling author Michael Shermer

Tag Results

Murdercide

Science unravels the myth of suicide bombers
magazine cover

“You should be very proud of me. It’s an honor, and you will see the results, and everybody will be happy. I want you to remain very strong as I knew you, but whatever you do, head high, with a goal, never be without a goal, always have [a] goal in front of you and always think, ‘what for.’”

—Final letter to his wife by Ziad Jarrah, September 11 terrorist who crashed Flight 93 into a Pennsylvania field

Police have an expression for people who put themselves into circumstances that force officers to shoot them: “suicide by cop.” Following this lingo, suicide bombers commit “suicide by murder,” so I propose we call such acts “murdercide”: the killing of a human or humans with malice aforethought by means of self-murder.

The reason we need semantic precision is that suicide has drawn the attention of scientists, who understand it to be the product of two conditions quite unrelated to murdercide: ineffectiveness and disconnectedness. According to Florida State University psychologist Thomas Joiner, in his remarkably revealing scientific treatise Why People Die by Suicide (Harvard University Press, 2006): “People desire death when two fundamental needs are frustrated to the point of extinction; namely, the need to belong with or connect to others, and the need to feel effective with or to influence others.” (continue reading…)

Comments Off on Murdercide