Marshall McLuhan suggests an alternative theory as to the primary motivation of violence. He claims that violence is a quest for identity: >"All forms of viole

Marshall McLuhan suggests an alternative theory as to the primary motivation of violence. He claims that violence is a quest for identity: >"All forms of violence are a quest for identity. When you live out on the frontier you have no identity, you're a nobody. Therefore you get very tough. You have to prove that you are somebody. And so you become very violent. And so identity is always accompanied by violence. Ordinary people find the need for violence as they lose their identities. And so it is only the threat to peoples identities that makes them violent. Terrorists, hijackers, these are people minus identity. They are determined to make it somehow. To get coverage, to get noticed." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvATW2nfYZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvATW2nfYZg McLuhan defines violence very broadly, in the sense that violence means to violate boundaries. Thus he describes giving birth as violence in which the original identity is given to the individual. Whether it is a political party, nation-state, or terrorist who uses violence, in some way or another they are seeking to establish or defend their identity. The electric media being a catalyst in all of this: >"Any loss of identity prompts people to seek reassurance and rediscovery of themselves by testing, and even by violence. Today, the electric revolution, the wired planet, and the information environment involve everybody in everybody to the point of individual extinction." -Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. So, the nation-state that has a nostalgia for the "old days" and "standing for freedom" (implying a lack thereof) seeks identity through violence by invading countries "for freedom" and commits other acts of violence to "make country x great again". Likewise the terrorist who feels their identity threatened, be it religious or sociopolitical, may seek to reestablish their identity through violence. McLuhan also notes the major role mass media outlets play in awarding terrorists and mass murders the identity they so desperately seek via 24/7 coverage and rumination. >"Terrorism is an invention in which any two-armed people can take over an entire industry, namely television, with the eager cooperation of its owners. Moral indignation is a standard strategy for endowing the idiot with dignity." -Marshall McLuhan, as quoted by Tom Wolfe