Office shooter's rampage shows terrifying rise of motive-free violence, experts warn
Experts say attackers share common profile of alienation and despair but remain hard to identify
By Julia Bonavita Fox News
Published August 24, 2025 10:00am EDT
As Americans continue to witness senseless violence throughout their communities, the rise of nihilistic violence is raising alarms for law enforcement as officials try to prevent attacks that often come without warning following a mass shooting in New York City that left four dead last month.
The concept of nihilistic violence – acts lacking an ideological motive and often driven by a need to gain approval in extremist online communities – remains a key conversation whenever a mass tragedy is carried out.
"Nihilistic violence is destruction for its own sake," Jonathan Alpert, a New York City-based psychotherapist, told Fox News Digital. "It isn’t about money, ideology, or revenge; rather, it’s violence born of emptiness."
"Other acts of violence, however twisted, usually have a motive that can be identified," he said. "Nihilistic violence is different because the act itself is the message: a statement of meaninglessness, a way of saying ‘nothing matters, so I’ll be destructive.’"
In 2024, 65% of terrorist attacks carried out in Western countries were not associated with any belief system of the perpetrator, marking a significant rise compared with data from previous years, according to the latest Global Terrorism Index.
The report acknowledges that a portion of the increase can be attributed to a lack of information regarding specific attacks; it also likely indicates a rise of "ideologically confused" acts of terrorism.
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