Abstract
The case of Herostratus is well known: in the night of July 21, 356 BC, seeking notoriety, he burned down the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in ancient Greece, which was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Far from attempting to evade responsibility for his act of arson, Herostratus proudly claimed credit in an attempt to immortalize his name. To dissuade those of a similar mind, the Ephesian authorities not only executed him, but attempted to condemn him to a legacy of obscurity by forbidding mention of his name under penalty of death. However, this did not stop Herostratus from achieving his goal because the ancient historian Theopompus recorded the event and its perpetrator in his Hellenics. In the Albert Borowitz’s book titled: “Terrorism for Self-glorification: The Herostratus Syndrome” the study of Herostratus syndrome shows us some issues of this syndrome could heighten our sense when we appraise the odds in the human struggle against all forms of terrorism today. It is true that the impulse to commit terrorist acts in quest of fame is sometimes deeply imbedded in the human personality and especially these last years when terrorist use more and more spectacular methods. In our study we will try to show how the sociological characteristics of these crimes which could give a new typology of terrorism act. By using examples such as Al Qaeda organizations or the recent ISIS acts we could observe the social impact of their crimes is more than ephemeral, like Herostratus action 24 centuries ago. This sociological typology of terrorist acts could be useful into understanding that even terrorism could be a new form of war, the origins of this compulsion for glory remains difficult to probe and most of cases impossible for detectives to profile. But for us sociologists it is important to make a clear distinction between the hunters of simple negative fame and, even if our society cannot obliterate the name of the glory seeker, as the Ephesians unsuccessfully sought to do, make possible to resist the temptation to convert the criminal into a media star. Because in this case the social impact of terrorism could be bigger.
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Notes
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Anomie was popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897). Durkheim never uses the term normlessness; rather, he describes anomie as derangement, and an insatiable will.
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Tzu 2008.
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Montesquieu is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world.
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Generation X by broadest definition includes those individuals born between 1961 and 1981. The collective persona of Gen Xers is frequently debated and discussed among academicians and marketing experts worldwide. It traditionally applies to North Americans (U.S and Canada); Australia, and various European countries. There are well over 50 million members of Generation X. We are sometimes referred to as Baby Busters because our birth years follow the baby boom that began after World War II. That boom began to decline in 1957. Sometimes, you’ll hear about Generation Jones, a small subculture or subset of Generation X born between 1954 and 1965. The years for Generation X vary from one historian, government agency and marketing firm to the next. Neil Howe and the late William Strauss, defined the generation in the broadest terms I have come across: 1961 to 1981. The United States Social Security Administration defines Generation X as “those born roughly between 1964 and 1979, while another federal agency, the U.S. Department of Defense, sets the parameters at 1965 to 1977. But, I don’t see how a generation can only be 15 or 12 years in length. Childhood and youth comprise 18 years of our lives. Generations stem from shared experiences. Depending on your birth order and the area of the country you grew up in as well as other influences, you may identify with one generation more than another. That is perfectly fine. All of this is subjective. It’s worth noting the simple definition of a generation found at Dictionary.com.
• The entire body of individuals born and living at about the same time…
• The term of years, roughly 30 among human beings, accepted as the average period between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring.
• A group of individuals, most of whom are the same approximate age, having similar ideas, problems, attitudes, etc. (Compare Beat Generation, Lost Generation, etc.).
• A group of individuals belonging to a specific category at the same time.
The point is, opinions vary on when generations begin and end. It would be correct that people should lay claim to the generation whose collective persona most reflects their own life experiences.
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A bull market is a period of generally rising prices. The start of a bull market is marked by widespread pessimism. This point is when the “crowd” is the most “bearish”. The feeling of despondency changes to hope, “optimism”, and eventually euphoria. This is often leading the economic cycle, for example in a full recession, or earlier.
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Lacenaire was born in Lyon. Upon finishing his education with excellent results, he joined the army, eventually deserting in 1829 at the time of the expedition to the Morea. He became a crook and was in and out of prison, which was, as he called it, his “criminal university”. While in prison, Lacenaire recruited two henchmen, Victor Avril and François Martin, and wrote a song, “Petition of a Thief to a King his Neighbor”, as well as “The Prisons and the Penal Regime” for a journal. In the months between the beginning of his trial for a double murder and his execution, he wrote Memoirs, Revelations and Poems,[1] and during the trial he fiercely defended his crime as a valid protest against social injustices, turning the judicial proceedings into a theatrical event and his cell into a salon. He made a lasting impression on the age and on several writers such as Balzac and Dostoevsky. He was executed in Paris, at the age of 32. He is depicted in the French film Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis, 1945), directed by Marcel Carné from a script by Jacques Prévert. where his stance as a loner and a rebel is stressed. In the film, Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand) refers to himself as a bold criminal and a social rebel, but his actual criminal activities mostly stay outside the film’s narrative. Philosopher Michel Foucault believed Lacenaire's notoriety among Parisians marked the birth of a new kind of lionized outlaw (as opposed to the older folk hero), the bourgeois romantic criminal, and eventually to the detective and true crime genres of literature.There is a French film called Lacenaire (1990) starring Daniel Auteuil.
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Jihad is an Arabic word meaning “struggle.” According to the Qur’an (where jihad appears forty-one times), Muslims have the duty of fighting enemies and invading non-Muslim territories to spread Islam. The belief is that the violent elimination of apostate regimes, the slaughter of the People of the Book (monotheistic non-Muslims, mostly Jews and Christians), and the removal of kafir (those who disbelieve in Allah) are justified in the cause of jihad. This has driven non-state actors (e.g., Al Qaeda) to commit terrorism. The greater jihad is the struggle a person has within him- or she to fulfill what is right. On account of human pride, selfishness, and sinfulness, believers must continually wrestle with themselves and accomplish what is right and good. The lesser jihad refers to the external, physical effort to defend Islam (including terrorism) when the Muslim community is under attack. The key characteristics of modern jihad ideology include (1) hakimiyya (true sovereignty of Allah over nation-states or civil laws), (2) Islamic society and upholding hisba (praising good, forbidding evil) by following the sharia (i.e., “Islamic law”; the required implementation of virtuous vs. materialistic, status-driven behavior based on group interpretation), (3) the necessity for jihad, (4) occupation of Muslim lands (used as justification for jihad as individual duty), (5) martyrdom (i.e., “dying or suffering as a hero”; martyrdom is associated with jihad and praised through videos, poetry, songs, and web postings), and (6) takfir (i.e., “disbelief in Allah”; non-Muslim governments are viewed as infidels and unwilling to be subdued by Islamic law. Therefore, it is an object of jihad). Jihadists have near enemies and far enemies. Near enemies are Muslim governments and forms of Islamic law that do not embrace the jihadist view. If non-Islamic powers or countries outside the jurisdiction of Islam (i.e., the West, the U.S., and Israel) do not embrace the jihadist view, they are referred to as the far enemy.
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Theopompus’s work The Hellenics treated of the history of Greece, in twelve books, from 411 (where Thucydides breaks off) to 394 BC the date of the battle of Cnidus (cf. Diod. Sic., xiii. 42, with xiv. 84). Of this work only a few fragments were known up till 1907. The papyrus fragment of a Greek historian of the 4th century, discovered by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, and published by them in Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. v. (1908), has been recognized by Eduard Meyer, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Georg Busolt as a portion of the Hellenics. This identification has been disputed, however, by Friedrich Blass, J. B. Bury, E. M. Walker and others, most of whom attribute the fragment, which deals with the events of the year 395 BC and is of considerable extent, to Cratippus. In the Hellenics, Theopompus mentions Herostratus and his arson of the Temple of Artemis, thus helping Herostratus to his goal of achieving fame, despite the Ephesian authorities forbidding mention of his name under penalty of death.
- 9.
Kenan Malik (born 1960) is an Indian-born English writer, lecturer and broadcaster, trained in neurobiology and the history of science. As a scientific author, his focus is on the philosophy of biology, and contemporary theories of multiculturalism, pluralism and race. These topics are core concerns in The Meaning of Race (1996), Man, Beast and Zombie (2000) and Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides Are Wrong in the Race Debate (2008).
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Kaffes, G. (2018). Sociology of Terrorism. The Herostratus Syndrome. In: Caforio, G., Nuciari, M. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of the Military. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71602-2_27
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