The Ideology of Terror: Why We Will Never Win the 'War'

Winner of the Best Graduate Student Paper Award at the 2005 American Culture Association Conference A few days after the criminal attacks on the World Trade Center, President George W. Bush declared a metaphorical war on terror. The word war was once again applied to a nebulous concept in hopes of rallying support to Bush's plans. President Johnson's war on poverty and the war on drugs of Presidents Nixon and Reagan served the same rhetorical purpose. However, Bush's word choice possesses further significance. Bush declared war on an emotion-"intense fear"-that has always and will always exist ("Terror"). Bush could have named a martial act (i.e., Terrorism) as the theater of his war, but he did not. Perhaps "War on Terror" sounded better. Catchy as it may be, the phrase makes no sense, even to those who find wars-against concepts feasible. Significantly, had Bush declared war on terrorism, a noun that denotes physical acts of violence, then the war would have remained attached to the material world. By declaring war on terror, America's enemy became ephemeral and eternal. The terror ideological apparatus was born. Terror was not only the most significant topic of debate in the 2004 presidential election, but it was also the biggest influence on the swing voter. The candidate who most effectively employed the terror ideological apparatus won the election. The "war" against terror is no longer a political endeavor; terror has become a national figure, a celebrity, an autonomous reality beyond any person's control. Instead, terror controls. In this article, I argue that terror has become the dominant pillar of our society's ruling ideology. A reading of Louis Althusser suggests that, in this conception, terror can be called an ideological state apparatus (ISA). Althusser explains that ISAs are "realities, which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions" (96). Althusser states, "In the pre-capitalist historical period . . . there was one dominant Ideological State Apparatus, the Church" (102, emphasis in original). He then suggests that, at the time he wrote "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," education "has been installed in the dominant position in mature capitalist social formations" (103, emphasis in original). I maintain that, at the moment that Bush declared war on terror, terror became the dominant ISA in American culture. Althusser explains that ISAs "function massively and predominantly by ideology, but they also function secondarily by repression" (98). The terror ideological apparatus ensures its own perpetuation through both ideology and repression. The force of ideology alienates America's allies through rampant national egotism and derogates the feminine with an insistence on a myth of masculine strength. Its repression stifles dissent by means of public and private censorship and compromises our civil liberties in the name of national security. The State perpetuates terror through force, both brute and rhetorical, within and without our borders. In fact, borders have ceased to matter. The ruling ideology presents terror as a universal, eternal Evil and invites those with (fire)power-white, Western, American-to scorch the earth on terror's heels. The terror ideological apparatus has created a language to ensure its own survival. All people can cloak themselves with terror's power by employing the language of terror. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Bush used the language of terror well; Senator John Kerry used it poorly. The election results prove that language has become terror's most valuable commodity. To speak of terror employing its own language is to remain under terror's control. Furthermore, the language of terror is inescapable so long as we do not recognize that we are using it. The most powerful aspect of the language of terror is the power to name. However, only names that are within the language of terror are acceptable; only they will "stick. …