Metaphysics of Terrorism

Terrorism as the calculated use of violence or the threat to violence through the employment of intimidation and violence in order to attain goals that are political, religious or ideological in nature has taken a global dimension and at alarming frequency such that any curious mind cannot afford to over look. Its persistence despite global condemnation and effort at curbing it naturally evokes curiosity regarding its root cause(s). Scholars have tried to dig out its root causes ranging from poverty, lack of education, religious fanaticism, psychological malady and political reasons and so on. Solutions however differ based on its perceived causes. The question is why terrorism has continued unabated. This paper believes that since human actions are elicited by the idea of the good then terrorism as a human act is based on a disoriented perception of the good. This disoriented perception is premised on a more primordial cause, an ontological lacuna that can be tagged a “search for meaning” which the terrorist tries to fill by his terroristic act. This gives the terrorist a sense of fulfilment and relevance. The panacea, the paper submits, is in a metaphysical deconstruction and construction of the terrorist mind-set based on an ontology called affective humanism.