Introduction: Terrorists, Language, and the State

Summary

wir freuen uns über jeden bullen, der umgelegt wird, umgelegt worden ist und jeder im knast, der bullen reingelegt und umgelegt hat, ist unser bruder, schwester, genosse, freund, einer von uns.

[we delight in the death of every cop who gets killed or has ever been killed, and anyone in prison who has tricked and killed the pigs is our brother, sister, comrade, friend — one of us.]

— Ulrike Meinhof, August 1974

I propose to make use of a simple image … This image is of an imaginary circle that each person draws around him/herself. We shall call this “the circle of empathy.” On the inside of the circle are those things that are considered deserving of empathy and the corresponding respect, rights, and practical treatment as approximate equals. On the outside of the circle are those things that are considered less important, less alive, less deserving of rights.

— Jaron Lanier, November 2000

“IDENTITY” IS A SLIPPERY NOTION. Do we define ourselves (for example by constructing a “constitutive outside”: an idea of what we are not), or are we defined by our historical circumstances: the social and linguistic context in which we live? Suggesting that we define ourselves raises the difficulty of accounting for an “I” that preexists self-definition, but saying that circumstances are everything removes human agency from the equation in a way that is equally (not least morally) problematic. In this book I am going to suggest that identity derives both from what we do in language (who we say we are, or are not), and from what language does to, or says about, us — that is, from a discursive context that is socially and historically contingent and preexists the individual subject. I shall also suggest that identities are supported, even protected, by what Lanier calls the circle of empathy, and that when identity seems under threat, in times of crisis, there is an impulse to draw the bounds of our empathy circles ever more tightly (nationalism in times of war is one example; the closeness of a gang facing rival gangs, or of an extremist or illegal group, is another).