Alec Balasescu writes:
In our global society, when political or ideological orientations radicalize themselves, they start to justify killing. This is not what Islam does, it is what every ideology does when pushed to the extreme.
What are the internal resorts that determine an individual to kill? What are the types of justifications used, when the act itself is not legal? In the current context, when the political agenda both in Europe and the US is easily redefined by terrorist acts, I think it is important to undertake an in-depth exploration of these questions.
Mass killing in public spaces are more and more common. One may distinguish two types of motives: individual and political. Mass shootings in US or the mass stabbing in Japan seem to be individually motivated.
Terrorism is a politically motivated (or rationalised) mass killing that frightens through its cruelty, its discretionary and rudimentary methods (that remind us of the frailty of life), and throughs its highly symbolic targets.
It is important to observe the similarity between the jihadist terrorism, other ideologically motivated terrorism such as the mass killing perpetrated by Brejivik, and those that appear to have purely individual motives. Individual is always political.
More here.