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with the forces of evil than of good. We have seen the enemy -- do not let it become us. We have also witnessed the tremendous outpouring of positive emotions, good will and heroic deeds of Americans in response to this tragedy. We are giving money and blood, selflessly donating our skills and energies, and even sacrificing our lives to help others. This tragedy may in the long run help to nurture the best in us all, to rekindle civic engagement, to connect each more fully with family, friends and neighbors, to put community and nation before self interests. It may give us new reasons to be genuinely proud to be Americans who oppose evil with tolerance, compassion, justice, and love.

--Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Stanford University, President-Elect, American Psychological Association

the terrorists. Research by Dane Archer shows that homicide rates increase dramatically following all wars, the same for victor or loser nations, presumably because individuals learn to use violent means of conflict resolution as had been sanctioned by their national leaders. We cannot allow that transfer of hostility to develop, because it fuels the cycle of violence started by the terrorists. Terrorists create terror; terror creates fear and anger; fear and anger create aggression, and aggression against citizens of different ethnicity or religion creates racism and, in turn, new forms of terrorism.
     We must individually and collectively refuse to adopt the terrorists' devaluing of human life. If we do not, and we yield to the quiet rage of hatred that their vile deeds have generated in most of us, then our desire to destroy them at all costs will ally us more

     Can the recent tragedy on our own shores teach us empathy for all people? Who does not agree that the perpetrators of the horrible acts of last Tuesday must be stopped and  punished? But more is necessary to combat terrorism. Feelings of injustice, disregard, deprivation and humiliation are significant roots of terrorism. When people with deep grievances are unable to get any kind of redress, a breeding ground for terrorism exists. Such people will not necessarily turn to terrorism. They may turn against each other or even against their families. Or they may simply suffer. But the possibility of taking action in their own behalf or the behalf of their family or group will be very appealing. And violent actions are often framed by "leaders," whatever the leaders' motives, as expressions of higher ideals, such as the welfare of their people, serving justice, or the will of God. People in pain and others who identify with them can replace helplessness with a sense of meaning and purpose by striking out against those they see as their enemies, or the enemies of these higher ideals. I believe the U.S. is a special target for terrorism for several reasons. One is that many people see some of our actions as a nation and some of the actions of U.S. corporations as contributor to their own and others' suffering. Another is that we are a source of and a symbol of great changes in the contemporary world.  As the foremost and most successful practitioners of  capitalism, and as a source of many contemporary cultural trends that contribute to change, overturn tradition, and thereby create confusion about how to live life, both people whose lives are difficult and those whose lives have been deeply affected by circumstance and change see us, or can be led to see us, as responsible.
     To stop terrorism, our great and powerful country must become more concerned with the fate of people everywhere. Tragedy can bring people together and create caring and empathy. In New York and across the country people have been reaching out to each other in moving and striking ways.

We can create more satisfying lives for ourselves by holding on to such generosity and concern about our fellow Americans in more normal times. In a similar spirit, our pain ought to lead us to open our hearts to people's suffering everywhere.
    A coalition of many nations is needed to exert many forms of influence and stop nations from "hosting" or sponsoring terrorists. But such a coalition should also act to help people in refugee camps, or living in great poverty. Helping by economic aid, but at least as importantly by providing expertise and training, by doing whatever caring nations can do. (Such a coalition would be impossible to maintain, and a spirit of empathy would die, if we indiscriminately bombed and killed many innocent people in response to the violence we have suffered.)
     If we truly expand our empathy, we will stop being passive bystanders to the many kinds of suffering in the world.  We will not again be passive in the face of the extraordinary suffering of people who are victims of mass killing and genocide. When during the Holocaust the allies, flying near Auschwitz to bomb factories were asked to bomb the railroads leading there, or the gas chambers where huge numbers of people were killed every day, those responsible decided that no plane can be spared for this. When hundreds of thousands of people were being killed in Rwanda, with pictures of a river filled with bodies, the world did nothing. The U.S. even slowed down the return of some peacekeepers that was contemplated. If we as a nation become more caring about the lives and suffering of people everywhere, our lives will be enriched. Just as it is enriched today when we act, or just see our fellow Americans, act in behalf of others.

--Ervin Staub, Professor of Psychology, University of Massachusetts and author of "The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence."

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