chapter fifty

FUSED IDENTITIES

Most of us, at some point in our lives, identify, to varying degrees, with a group: girl scouts, fraternities, labor unions, political parties. How is identity fusion different? According to Bill Swann, a professor at University of Texas, allegiance to the group in most associations, even active ones, does not eclipse the self. Fused identity does. (I recall that early in my relationships with Pat and Leslie, they both, independently, said that they had “no self” when they were with Manson.) “You give the group strength and the group gets strength from you,” says Swann.

The concept of identity fusion has provided a different way of looking at the dynamics of the Manson Family. So much of my thinking about the women and much of the research on violent group behavior has emphasized the primacy of the leader and the way the situation, as designed by the leader or institution, manipulates and enforces obedience (as it did at Abu Ghraib). More recent research has focused on the relationship between the members of the group and the influence that has on behavior.

Identity fusion may explain one of the most puzzling aspects of the behavior displayed by Pat and Leslie in the aftermath of the Tate-LaBianca murders—the five years it took for them to have any feelings about killing their victims.

I had assumed that the women continued to be disconnected from the reality of their behavior because Manson was still managing to control them even though they were in prison. If, however, identity fusion is as powerful as Swann suggests, it seems just as likely that it was because the three women, Pat, Leslie, and Susan Atkins, continued to reinforce and gather strength from each other at Frontera.

How does fused identity lead to cold-blooded killing? The necessary ingredient for that conversion, according to Swann, is the perception that the group is threatened and that dramatic action is required to defend it. “This completes or amplifies the process of fusion with the group.”

Before this step, however, the leader must get them to sever ties with their existing groups, usually families. Swann calls this, “switching worlds.” Manson not only discouraged his followers from maintaining contact with their families, he used those relationships as weapons. “I still see your mother in you,” he would yell at Leslie if she challenged his dictates or expressed values he considered bourgeois. ISIS, who targets vulnerable young people through various social media outlets, has a similar approach, pressuring recruits to cut off ties with their families and to renounce their countries of origin.

The following is an appeal by Aqsa Mahmood, a British woman living in Syrian territory controlled by ISIS. “The family you get in exchange for leaving the ones behind are like the pearl in comparison to the shell you threw away into the foam of the sea, which is the Ummah [community of believers].” Mahmood is involved in a campaign to urge Western women to abandon their homes and join her there. “The reason for this is because your love for one another is purely for the sake of Allah.”

For ISIS, there is no shortage of enemies. Any infidel will do. The formula is simple: people who don’t practice the ISIS fundamentalist brand of Islam are infidels. An infidel is an enemy. All enemies must be destroyed.

Swann describes members of these groups as having a “visceral sense of oneness.” When I imagine how the Manson Family defended itself from external threats I picture a sea anemone. When you poke it with a stick, the whole organism shrivels in response.