There is much discussion about the need for better clarity and connection in 'The World'. I'm sure that whatever future we have together will require more understanding and cohesion; however, I wonder, again, if we so much lack the ability to communicate or we have simply lost the capacity to be silent. On the news last night, after the arrests of several suspected terrorists in Belgium, an imam in the town they were from said, "I think, unfortunately, much of the radicalisation is taking place online now; it's certainly not happening here in the mosque." The problem may not be that people are isolated it's that they are too filled with an infected language—and the spirit can only bear so much filling before it overflows into violence. 

We've evolved in sparse small quiet groups. Now we are overwhelmed with sound. I've noted that some of the most socially desperate places I've been are also the most noisy—that the actual physical environment tends toward an unrelenting wash of sound (hard surfaces, crowded living and working spaces, etc.). This is not insignificant; I think it's actually a substantive issue. If you live in a place where, even to be heard, you have to constantly shout and strain your voice, this will form your perspective on how you interact with others. It will have some bearing on every kind of social interaction. Also those who are quiet won't be heard; it's only the loudest voices that can speak over the din. This is, metaphorically and physically, where much of the ideology of violence springs from—obviously not all; that's too much of a generalisation. However, I'm extending my generalisation into the online connections that seem to feed this phenomenon of radicalisation. People are caught up in little hard rooms with too much reverberation and it's driving them mad.

I wonder if these self-styled 'martyrs' are, instead of glory and acclaim through their own death and the death of others, deep down only trying to find a place of silence? That they, in their physical and spiritual lives, are so overwhelmed with the noise that they are driven to silence it all and would, ultimately, silence everyone. We continually hear from the families of 'good boys' who have 'suddenly and without warning' killed dozens of people that 'we never saw it coming; he was such a quiet young man.' Well, yes, he might have been a quiet young man beaten down with the noise of his school, his city, his broken society and then by the screaming preachers of hate he found online. If he was boisterous and outgoing, he might of found some outlet to vent his frustrations; he may have thought he could find work or interact with people different from himself (there is another discussion here about the loss of traditional shepherds and rights of passage for young men). But if one is in a world with no silence and no retreat, then that is going to break people eventually. Unfortunately, that brokenness, for some, leads to what we see in the evening news. That gets amplified, from news to reaction, reaction to further violence, violence to the sounds of war.