Psychological and biological extremism

Psychological and biological extremismRecently extremism in the North Caucasus has been finding less and less support, but this does not mean that the topic of radicalism has ceased to be relevant. This is the conclusion of the round table "Extremism in society: causes and methods of struggle."Military psychologist, director of special programs of the Moscow center for stress prevention, Alexei Zakharov, who often had to deal with former terrorists, has come to the conclusion that many of them are young men who had been quite socially secure at the time they decided to move into the bandit underground or extremist organizations. However, most of these people were seriously uprooted from their traditional cultural environment, which defined the system of communication and life. "These are the people who have lost something on which their predecessors relied, but they did not aquire anything new in return. Very few could tell you about the national and religious customs of their people and their families. They were not interested in that, they did not understand what they wanted. They wanted something new, something different, could not determine what exactly," says Zakharov.Another characteristic feature of the young people embarked on the path of war is, according to Zakharov, addiction to gambling. And the majority of them played not on the computer but on the phone. "When you play the phone, you use two fingers - thumb and index. The reflex system formed in the course of the game (and they usually played in aggressive games like Counter-Strike) provoked a system of making decisions about someone's life. You can apply your thumb and index finger on the keyboard and do the same thing by pressing on the trigger gun. This is about the isolation of these people from the consciousness of the value of life, from understanding of the values of life which are cultivated in the North Caucasus. These values are taught in a special way. because in this land, unfortunately, there has been a lot of fighting, so the value of life is well known," says the psychologist.According to him, the social tools for the preservation of life and building relationships so as to postpone the war as much as possible have been elaborated for centuries in the Caucasus."The system of extremism is based upon people who lost their ethno-cultural identity, their national identity. It is difficult to perceive people who happen to get into certain substrata as humans, unfortunately. Extremism is not only a social and political factor, but also psychological and biological. Extremism, quite clearly, leads to the destruction of personality. Those extremists and terrorists who existed for a long time in this environment, and who are tied to these principles, after time become insane, to put it mildly. That is, these people require medical or psychological intervention, because it is impossible to socialize them or return to normal social relations in a usual way."

By "Vestnik Kavkaza"

Recently extremism in the North Caucasus has been finding less and less support, but this does not mean that the topic of radicalism has ceased to be relevant. This is the conclusion of the round table "Extremism in society: causes and methods of struggle."
Military psychologist, director of special programs of the Moscow center for stress prevention, Alexei Zakharov, who often had to deal with former terrorists, has come to the conclusion that many of them are young men who had been quite socially secure at the time they decided to move into the bandit underground or extremist organizations. However, most of these people were seriously uprooted from their traditional cultural environment, which defined the system of communication and life. "These are the people who have lost something on which their predecessors relied, but they did not aquire anything new in return. Very few could tell you about the national and religious customs of their people and their families. They were not interested in that, they did not understand what they wanted. They wanted something new, something different, could not determine what exactly," says Zakharov.
Another characteristic feature of the young people embarked on the path of war is, according to Zakharov, addiction to gambling. And the majority of them played not on the computer but on the phone. "When you play the phone, you use two fingers - thumb and index. The reflex system formed in the course of the game (and they usually played in aggressive games like Counter-Strike) provoked a system of making decisions about someone's life. You can apply your thumb and index finger on the keyboard and do the same thing by pressing on the trigger gun. This is about the isolation of these people from the consciousness of the value of life, from understanding of the values of life which are cultivated in the North Caucasus. These values are taught in a special way. because in this land, unfortunately, there has been a lot of fighting, so the value of life is well known," says the psychologist.
According to him, the social tools for the preservation of life and building relationships so as to postpone the war as much as possible have been elaborated for centuries in the Caucasus.
"The system of extremism is based upon people who lost their ethno-cultural identity, their national identity. It is difficult to perceive people who happen to get into certain substrata as humans, unfortunately. Extremism is not only a social and political factor, but also psychological and biological. Extremism, quite clearly, leads to the destruction of personality. Those extremists and terrorists who existed for a long time in this environment, and who are tied to these principles, after time become insane, to put it mildly. That is, these people require medical or psychological intervention, because it is impossible to socialize them or return to normal social relations in a usual way."