Frustrated Young Men

Frustrated Young Men:

Today, National Review linked to this article by Ed Hussain, a British Muslim ex-Islamist and his experiences in Saudi Arabia. What struck me about it was his account of frustration, especially sexual frustration, in the Kingdom (it matched the view I read in Carmen bin Ladin's Inside the Kingdom, which gives a complementary view of great frustration among the young women). (One of the frustrations of reading about dictatorships with no free press, and so no reliable statistics, is in wondering how typical all the anecdotes are - am I getting a picture of a country or of one or two social circles?)

My mind turned somewhat to war, and the role frustration plays in inspiring young men to it. One of the classics I love to return to is Harry Holbert Turney-High's Primitive War, a very wide-ranging survey by a very interesting character (an anthropologist - his fieldwork was among American Indians, including the Flathead - who was also one of our last horse cavalry officers). In his chapter on "Socio-Psychological Motives" for war, he devotes five pages to the role of war in frustration and tension - in particular, grief, frustration, being jilted or cuckolded, were good recruiters for the Plains Indian no-retreat societies (among the Crow, there was no "society," but a frustrated young man might simply "vow his body to the enemy" and do his darnedest to get killed in a heroic way in the next fight). Interestingly (and with a forthright judgmentalism you don't find much these days) he billed the Plains tribes as poor Soldiers and likely to flee from anything except certain victory or certain death, but gave credit to these no-retreat warriors for being otherwise. I'd have to spend time with the primary sources to tell you whether there's much record of how often social and sexual frustration led young men into these groups (some would stake their clothes to the ground to make sure they couldn't leave) - but it was certainly a part. We know how Shaka Zulu used the same force. This also fits with what I remember of late childhood and early adulthood -- fantasies of being killed, preferably after performing some dreadfully violent exploit (in a good cause, of course), were quite an effective release for the endless frustrations that can come with that time, or so I found them.

I can't demonstrate that this frustration is connected with any particular events in recent history (I haven't even read McDermott's Perfect Soldiers and don't know the life histories of the 9/11 hijackers, or what role personal frustrations played in their decisions to sign up for what they did. Maybe someone who does know will have something to say in comments). It's still awful to contemplate.