On 23 April, 2015, Prof. Scott Atran addressed the UN Security Council, to our knowledge the first time an anthropologist has ever been asked to speak to this body. In particular, he spoke to the Ministerial Debate on ‘The Role of Youth in Countering Violent Extremism and Promoting Peace.’ His presentation on youth radicalization condenses in a very tight format his insights gained from wide ranging experimental and ethnographic research on young people who have joined violent extremist movements. Scott circulated links to his talk and the text, and he has agreed to let me post it here on PLOS Neuroanthropology so that it can reach the widest possible audience.
Scott Atran is a Directeur de Recherche, Anthropologie, at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, as well as holding professorial positions and chairs at Oxford University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the University of Michigan. He is co-founder of Artis Research and author of Talking to the Enemy and In Gods We Trust. His research in cognitive anthropology is diverse and fascinating, but his current research is especially urgent, which is one reason I asked him if I could post this here.
Address to UN Security Council by Scott Atran.
I am an anthropologist. Anthropologists, as a group, study the diversity of human cultures to understand our commonalities and differences, and to use the knowledge of what is common to us all to help us bridge our differences. My research aims to help reduce violence between peoples, by first trying to understand thoughts and behaviors as different from my own as any I can imagine: such as suicide actions that kill masses of people innocent of direct harm to others. The key, as Margaret Mead taught me long ago, when I worked as her assistant at the American Museum of Natural History here in New York, was to empathize with people, without always sympathizing: to participate in their lives to the extent you feel is morally possible. And then report.
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