Salman Abedi was solidly middle class, so the familiar, lazy argument that lack of economic opportunity was his motivation does not pass muster….

What, then, does explain it? Perhaps in earlier times he would have found a Marxist groupuscule that would have provided him with the total explanation of all the ills of the world that troubled youth so often seek, and that also suggests to them the equally total solution to them. But the downfall of the Soviet Union destroyed completely the prestige of Marxism, however much theoretical Marxists may have denied that the Soviet Union was a genuinely Marxist state: and so, Salman Abedi sought his total explanation and solution elsewhere. The obvious place was Islam, for he was of Muslim descent and heritage and there were no other contenders for the possession of his soul, both little and grandiose. I never thought I would lament the demise of Marxism, but I have recently begun to remember it rather more fondly. By comparison with Islamism, it was intellectually compelling; Marxists could have interesting things to say, however mistaken they were, which Islamists never can and never will be able to do. At most, they are interesting to psychopathologists.