Definition of Terms

[Oseleon]

We were having a debate that got off- tangent in Role Playing,  So I thought we could continue it here.

The Thought Police are going to be after me for my thoughtcrime. I know it! I must hide even though Big Brother is watching me. (This is more true then you could possibly know) Since newspeak is all I pretty much have to work with and anything that might contain oldspeak is long since gone from my household, I don't have much of a choice but use a reference that the author may have been politcal/religiously motivated to write about. Since the dictionary is something we can all find and see what better reference to use to in defence of our statement then a definition I decided to use that no one else will have access to. With that being said...

I sincerely apologize for stealing the thread's main topic of in game ethics, and going deeper into what exactly constitutes terrorism.  I can get carried away with a side topic and take it to the exterme. That said if we want to continue and decided what the definition of a terrorist is and a good term for a rebel that is fighting a curropt government, then we should start a new thread. Other than that, let's carry on! Cheers mates.

My point is that one should not feel constrained by the Dictionary deffinition as even Websters can be wrong.  (in matters of Political/belief definition)
A Cat is always a Cat
but The deffinition of Terroism is a definition that is politicaly charged, has plenty of disagreement, and is at the same time, VERY important.  

We need a word that defines the targeted and intentional murder of non-combatants for reasons of evoking an emotional impact that would lead to political change.  
I think that rather than invent a NEW word, we pull "Terroism" away from its Thersaurus brothers and make it a Unique word that means THIS ONE THING.  

Destrucition of Property, Gurellia Warfare, etc... All can be adressed by diffrent terms.  

Let us make "Terroism" a specific word that means a specific thing.  

and YES by wishing it we can make it so, because a guiding force in the shaping of things like definition, is USAGE.  Use the word "Terroism" as a specific term and eventualy that usage will be  recognised and applied

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I agree the term should have an agreed usage, but I disagree with the narrowness of your scope. I think Terrorism is the use of violence against persons, property, or other infrastructure, with the goal of promoting fear in order to receive a desired response to political demands.

What separates it from legitimate warmaking is this: you can legitimately attack infrastructure, for example, to disable the enemy's ability to fight. You can attack persons: but only if they're a military target with some sort of strategic value.

I can't think of a legitimate to take civilian hostages or kill civilian persons other than to promote terror, so that obviously puts it outside the realm of legitimate warmaking by my definition. But I think that the crime of terrorism need not specifically exclude military persons or property, because it can be done without warmaking and for the purpose of causing fear, rather than a strategic gain. Even guerilla warfare has strategic goals in mind rather than just scaring the enemy.


btw, Oseleon, I keep forgetting that I know you. Perhaps because your post in the "introduce yourself" thread says so little. You ever going to join us for a game day?s

[Captain Morgan]

Excellent. It may be the Nyquil talking here, but I completey agree with everything you said Oseleon. Your definition of Terrorism hits the mark and I personaly feel that is what the word should be used for. The word "Terrorism, terrorist, ect" is thrown around to much in today's society and the word is almost meaningless.

Therefore I suggest that the definition for terrorism is (and to quote Oseleon) - the targeted and intentional murder of non-combatants, public or private property, or other infrastructure for reasons of evoking an emotional impact (ie. invoking terror) that would lead to political change.

Now for the rest ... Nyquil is definitely taking my thought processes down here.

edit: the italics was added to the definition to include property and infrastructure.

[Skar]

I agree the term should have an agreed usage, but I disagree with the narrowness of your scope. I think Terrorism is the use of violence against persons, property, or other infrastructure, with the goal of promoting fear in order to receive a desired response to political demands.

What separates it from legitimate warmaking is this: you can legitimately attack infrastructure, for example, to disable the enemy's ability to fight. You can attack persons: but only if they're a military target with some sort of strategic value.

I can't think of a legitimate to take civilian hostages or kill civilian persons other than to promote terror, so that obviously puts it outside the realm of legitimate warmaking by my definition. But I think that the crime of terrorism need not specifically exclude military persons or property, because it can be done without warmaking and for the purpose of causing fear, rather than a strategic gain. Even guerilla warfare has strategic goals in mind rather than just scaring the enemy.

But SE, this fuzzy definition is exactly the problem we were discussing.  It's too broad and therefore loses meaning and generates confusion.

[Captain Morgan]

Still thinking about "Terrorism". It should really only apply in situations where the crime was commited to intentionally invoke terror in the general populace to bring about the politcal change.

To look at our founding fathers, what really seperates them from terrorist is that they didn't want to terrorize the people of this country to bring about political change. It may have happened, but there goal was not to invoke the terror for that change. If people were terrified during the revolution, it was an after effect from the war they (meaning the founding fathers) declared against England.  

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I don't think the answer is to create a new definition, though. The linguistic argument Oseleon made is in reverse: the accepted meanign includes property and military targets. That's what the word DOES MEAN now, by common consent. Better to come up with newer terms that describe a subset of that behavior. The important part of terrorism is not the target, but the result of the action. Ie, causing fear and terror.

This can be readily resolved by adding adjectives. But I don't think it's an issue requiring redefinition of a word that has an established, and useful, meaning.

Think about it, "violence" has a pretty darn broad meaning too. Some violence is legitimate: self defence, national defence, etc. But much of it is bad too. We have a large vocabulary describing subsets of violence, one of which is "terrorism." The only problem is that while terrorism describes a subset of violent behavior, it doesn't describe it in precise enough terms for every use we need. Thus, instead of limiting the term, I think we should create new terms with more limited application.

[House of Mustard]

You sad, silly fools.

Here's the FBI definition, which is the one I used in my senior thesis.

"Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

So the FBI agrees with me then.

[House of Mustard]

They're just a lot more concise.

[Captain Morgan]

Isn't that pretty much what we defined without all the pretty techno law jargon babble?

[Captain Morgan]

I'm telling you all Big Brother is watching me.

[House of Mustard]

Personally, I think the FBI definition is far superior to all the other definition attempts you guys made -- simply because it is simple and clear.  (And what words there are 'techno law jargon babble'?)

Wasn't the original complaint that the definition was unclear?  So we have a clear definition, but you like your own, rambling definitions better?

[Skar]

I don't think that most people in this country (and I admit that most people are not the FBI or any other government agency) think of terrorism with the broad definition the FBI assigns to it.  They think of guys in ski masks machine-gunning little kids when they hear the word.

In either case, whether we leave terrorism as the broad definition and come up with new words for the specific cases or make terrorism one of the specifics and come up with new ones for the other specific cases the effect is the same.

We here at TWG have the power to change the way people think about these issues by changing what words we use... Oh wait, no we don't.  Ha ha. (Skar looks sheepish and embarrassed by his pretension)

Someone ought to so something though.  Gemm.  Gemm! We need some new words here!

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

actually, my definition isn't any longer than theirs. I just have some explanation for why I think my definition is good.

Also, no, the complaint was that it's too broad (see Skar's first post on this thread) not that it was unclear.

[Skar]

Personally, I think the FBI definition is far superior to all the other definition attempts you guys made -- simply because it is simple and clear.  (And what words there are 'techno law jargon babble'?)

Wasn't the original complaint that the definition was unclear?  So we have a clear definition, but you like your own, rambling definitions better?

As a broad definition the one you gave is admirably concise, yes.  It still lumps together the guys in ski masks who dump old people in wheel chairs into the ocean, with the guys that dumped tea into Boston harbor.  Which problem is the crux of this whole discussion.