Extremism. what a concept! I think that most mudcatters, as would most westerners are assuming that people who blow themselves up for their cause are extremists(does one distinguish between those who only suicide say like the Vietnamese Buddhist monk who self immolated, those who take out their own families, and those who kill a stack of unknown people?) There appear to me to be categories of suicide 1 an inability of an individual to continue to bear whatever personal pain they are experiencing 2 to enhance a cause that they have identified with(of course if you share that cause you are going to glorify that suicider) Style 2 by definition asserts the relative insignificance of the individual. It is arguable that throughout history most societies functioned on this assumption, e.g. tribal, monarchies, fuedal, communist, Islamic, military, fascist, corporate (don't some of these words provoke some emotional responses eh?) but in the west, we're much more advanced, aren't we? a society based around the primacy of the individual! But wait, who is it that talks of treating every member of society as if they are just separate units all exercising free choice. Last time I looked it was the insane economic rationalists, who also give no value to a tree until after it has been chopped down. Maybe we're not as individual as we like to think, in my opinion Sep 11 is forcing many people to confront difficult questions they have previously avoided,(I hope that didn't sound insensitive)and in my case, i know some things I don't want to see happen, but am not actually sure what I do want to see happen in pracice. I see this thing in terms of Richards Dawkins memes, collectivist and individualist concepts clashing for dominance in the physical realm. I think we could do understand better this mindboggling fiasco if we desisted from thinking of the terrorists as extremists, but rather as members of a society that has all the attributes we find in the west, but in (to us) a staggeringly different configuration. in many senses, it is the west that are extremists, some of our civil assumptions would be beyond belief in most other times and places. whats worrying many people no doubt is the actual possibilty of losing them.me too of course. i hope that all makes sense