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We also hear overwhelmingly from the radical media machine. I was told that in radical Islamic lectures, often organized privately in the outer suburbs, the role of the internet and media are usually the principal tools used by "clerics" to desensitize and exploit young believers. Unfortunately, there is a continuous influx of horrific footage pouring in from Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It's slick, incessant, and it gives everyone—and especially young kids—the impression that Muslims everywhere are being attacked and their only way to help is through violence.After reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in high school, or watching David Lynch's Elephant Man, I realized monsters can be human and humans can be monsters. Now, having spoken to my friends, and having thought about the backgrounds to these tragic events, the work of psychologist Albert Bandura seems most appropriate. As he explained, "It requires conducive social conditions, rather than monstrous people, to produce heinous deeds."Philip Zimbardo's infamous Stanford experiment reinforces this social argument through the eerie similarities that were replicated in the gross abuses of power at Abu Ghraib prison. The soldiers weren't solely responsible. Instead, it was their total social make-up, history, and their environment that sculpted their ideals and decisions. For any young aggressor, I believe it's our lives, not our beliefs, that make us monsters or humans.I believe it's our lives, not our beliefs, that make us monsters or humans.
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