J.M. Berger, a fellow with the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague who wrote the report, says social media give extremists some powerful tools for growth: anonymity and an easy way to seek out people with similar interests.
“That’s the real danger,” he said in a recent interview. “If you were a radical Druid in 1950 living in Peoria, Illinois, you could go your whole life without ever meeting anybody who shared your views. Now if you’re that same person, you get online, and within an hour you can be following a hundred other radical Druids. And in two or three weeks, you can all be getting together to plant trees.”
In an essay titled “The Social Apocalypse: A Forecast,” Berger notes that ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, has become a globally disruptive force even though its members number only in the tens of thousands. He warns that a network of 1 million, a tiny sliver of the world’s population, could “wreak unimaginable havoc.”
“Without meaningful controls,” he adds, “we will see millions of people organize themselves according to racial, class, or religious identity in defiance of a generation of progress toward pluralism.”
It strikes me that people naturally organize themselves according to racial, class or religious identity. The only widespread exception to that was in dominantly Anglo countries. By destroying WASP dominance, Jews and company made organization along racial and religious identity inevitable.
