Doomed Antiheros: Intimate Killers and Home-grown Jihadis

Abstract

In this chapter I argue that intimate massacre and home-grown jihadi terrorism can be explained similarly through the concept of the Doomed Antihero. In both forms of public mass killing the perpetrator has subjectively experienced a long period of humiliation; he has slowly converted humiliation into rage; he has adopted an antiheroic style from a culturally available catalog to channel his rage; he has identified a symbol of his humiliation for attack; he has become determined to permanently destroy the symbol by killing people inhabiting it; and he sees “his” attack as a final act that will erase his past and reify his future.

Citation

Kaplan, P. (2020), "Doomed Antiheros: Intimate Killers and Home-grown Jihadis ", Polizzi, D. (Ed.) Jack Katz, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 73-90. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-072-720201007