Islamic terrorism is a development that sits so squarely athwart the intersection of so many of today’s driving forces that it is almost emblematic of our age.

Feeling small and insignificant is just the beginning of its driving forces, as is a sense of devalued manhood struggling desperately to maintain its traditional place in relation to women.

There is also a particular way in which members of a fundamentally ascetic culture can be repelled by what they see of us.  For example, there are a large number of Muslims living in Las Vegas.  What must life be like for, say, a Muslim cabdriver there?  He sees us at our most self-indulgently idful, when we’re least worthy of respect, and yet he’s constantly being told by the basic socioeconomic status equation that he’s the one who’s inferior.

That message, in that context, cannot help but be anything other than mind-boggling to him.  People who don’t value much of anything that he values, and who therefore haven’t earned any of his respect, are constantly telling him, between the lines but powerfully nonetheless, that he’s an insignificant nobody.

In his position, who wouldn’t want to shout back, “NO!  This is crazy!  You’re the one who doesn’t matter—you and your whole degenerate society!”

He gives voice to precisely this shout when he goes beyond the traditional identity sub-group, the mosque, and into more militant fundamentalism.