Evil as a Noun: Dichotomous Avoidance of Political Analysis

The ideologies associated with the history of modern terrorism, beginning with the Reign of Terror in Paris, includes such things as anarchism, nationalism, and fascism. When the Jacobins spread terror in 1790s France, no one had difficulty understanding terrorism as a political strategy. Their motivations included the desire to create a united republic, one capable of defeating both internal enemies and an array of hostile forces surrounding France. Jacobins used terror to consolidate their power and intimidate their enemies. After all, terrorism is a strategy, a policy of systematic and rational use of irrational violence to reach some particular end.