I have spent a great deal of time on psychology. Fifteen years, in fact, through my former company and my work with people. In recent years, I have also spent time taking a closer look at a particular political movement in the West.
Not just its slogans, the flags, the demonstrations and the anger. But the human being behind it.
Because if you look long enough, some interesting patterns start to emerge.
It is one specific part of the movement that interests me. The part where the fight for Palestine seems to have been woven into a far larger fight against the West, capitalism, traditional institutions, Israel, gender norms, the family, the nation-state and more or less everything Western civilization has historically built its structures around.
So my question is this… What are we actually looking at?
Because this is not only about politics. It is about identity.
And that is crucial to understand. What we are up against is more than political disagreement. It is a personality structure wired directly into identity. And you can't argue a person out of something that holds up their sense of self.
Human beings need to belong. We need meaning, community, direction and recognition. We need to feel that our lives matter. And when you can't find that in your own life, a political movement can offer you something extremely attractive:
A group. An identity. A mission. An explanation.
And an enemy.
Suddenly you are no longer just a person trying to find your place in the world - something many in that group struggle with in the first place. Now you are part of the fight.
You fight oppression. The system. The patriarchy. Capitalism. Colonialism. The West. Israel.
And the stronger that identity becomes, the less you need to ask yourself a far more uncomfortable question… How is my own life actually going?
What have I built? What relationships have I created? What responsibility do I take for myself? What do I contribute? Why am I angry? Why do I feel like an outsider? Why are some areas of my life not working? And what could I do differently?
It is far more convenient to place the problem out there than to confront it within yourself. It is easier to try to revolutionize the world than to revolutionize yourself. And it is easier to tell the world what it is doing wrong than to ask where you yourself fall short.
This is exactly where the victim identity becomes so powerful.
Because if the system is the cause of your dissatisfaction, and everything is everyone else's fault, you are also relieved of part of the responsibility for changing yourself and your own life. You don't necessarily have to build anything. First and foremost, you have to find someone to hold accountable. And once you have found them, personal frustration turns into political outrage.
Powerlessness becomes activism. Anger becomes moral status. And a person who never felt significant alone can suddenly feel enormously significant as a member of a movement.
It is not even a particularly strange human mechanism. We all want to belong. The problem arises when belonging requires an enemy. Because then the enemy becomes necessary.
And that is why you sometimes see something I find deeply paradoxical… Progressive Western activists standing shoulder to shoulder with Islamist actors, even though their values are diametrically opposed on crucial issues.
Women's rights. Gay rights. Freedom of religion. Freedom of speech. The relationship between religion and state. Individual liberty.
The progressive activist and the Islamist don't need to want the same society. They only need to share the same opponent in that specific moment. And that changes the entire analysis. It is not love for the other's ideology that binds them together. Opposition to the common enemy is enough.
That is where something truly interesting happens. Because when what you are against becomes more important than what you are for, ideological consistency starts to disappear.
You can defend people who would never defend your values. You can march alongside people who want a fundamentally different society than you do. You can use Western free speech to attack the very society that protects your right to do so. And ultimately, you can help empower forces that - if they gained the political or religious power they seek - would restrict some of the very freedoms you take for granted.
And that is the paradox… What if you win?
What if the society you spend your life tearing down actually does weaken? What if the institutions, norms and freedoms you consider a given are no longer a given? What if the movement you saw as the oppressed turns out to have its own view of power, religion, women, sexuality and freedom?
Then what?
In our time, many people are willing to take that risk. Not necessarily because they have rationally thought through the consequences. But because the fight itself has become more important than the outcome. Once a political identity gives you community, meaning, moral status and a sense of significance, letting go of it becomes psychologically expensive.
Because what is left?
You. Your own life. Your own choices. Your own relationships - if you have any at all. Your own results. Your own responsibility.
No demonstration. No enemy. No revolution. Just the mirror.
That is one of the most uncomfortable things about this entire mechanism. The greatest battle is not fought between the oppressor and the oppressed. It is fought between the individual and their own responsibility.
So the question is not only what you are fighting for.
The question is what is left of you the day you no longer have anyone to fight against.
No enemy. No you.