2011 Oslo/Utoeya Norway attacks

also I'm sure someone has pointed this out elsewhere but norwegian nationalist writing a tome in fluent english, apparently consuming nothing but american culture...is worried about...islam??

also he was taking steroids

the long torturous and hamfisted discussions of deconstruction and literary theory make me feel o_0

not only because it's a crazy rewind to the culture wars of the 80s/90s in the US to think that the main political issue of the present moment is "multiculturalism" in the "it's political correctness gone MAD I tell you"/free-speech-on-campus mode

but also because the sleight-of-hand in thinking that deconstruction = Marxism = cultural relativism = political correctness = affirmative action = cultures of tolerance = the EU as an entity . . . I mean, the jumps in scale and context and meaning are just baffling and wrong but it's not baffling that they would appeal to someone as a kind of explanation, I guess

I thought only self-important literary critics would believe that literary theory had this kind of magical power, but most actual academics that I know are entirely familiar with their marginality and isolation- this guy is more of a true believer in the power of theory than most, yknow, actual theorists

BUT . .. has anyone really corroborated that he wrote this?- the site that disseminated this doc points out lots of slightly sketchy things about the document- could someone else be circulating their crackpot plagiarized-from-the-unabomber nonsense on the heels of a real crime by someone else?

this was quite different to the usual expulsive spree killing by being so calculated. norway presumably has a fairly small political class and many of the attendees at utoya were children of labour party grandees and likely future politicians/civil cervants etc. seldom have organized terrorists groups tried to to cull an entire cadre of a political party on a single day.

yeah I had an argument with my bf about this guy's actions, he was saying "oh he was crazy" and I was pointing out that this was so ideologically driven that it seems much more like terrorism than insanity- this person had political beliefs and was acting on them in order to further them, fully realizing what he was doing- he wasn't schizophrenic, he wasn't out of touch with the basics of reality (though obv. he was in terms of the geopolitical scenario/reality of the threat of the Islamification of Norway which is not going to happen)- so then he was just . . . . what? factually wrong? At which point we then argued about psychopaths and whether they are "insane" or simply "deficient in empathy"- a psychotic person doesn't know what they are doing or what is or isn't real, a psychopath knows that they are hurting people and doesn't feel pity/sympathy/empathy. But this person doesn't seem to fit either model- he has a cause. That seems more like the classic def. of a terrorist to me.

yeah I think that's otm

Norwegian police have not confirmed that an online manifesto ranting against Muslim immigration and multiculturalism was written by Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to the bombing and shooting on Friday. However, Breivik's lawyer referred to it.

nakh and dr3w otm

Just because someone has ideas that place him at the farthest margins of society and those ideas inspire a passionate belief that anyone who holds ideas antithetical to his are criminals, wholly alien to him, and constitute the source of massive oppression, to the point where he wants to kill them, to the point where his convictions override any lingering compassion that might prevent him from killing them - all this does not make a person insane. All these mental mechanisms are pretty common.

What makes this guy completely unusual is how sustained this process was, and how carefully he nutured these ideas and feelings of alienation, and how completely he protected them from being contaminated with empathy. He built up an entire self-identity as someone who could kill his perceived enemies in cold blood, then went out and systematically proved it was true. He rigorously trained himself to be this person and do this act. That's not psychotic at all.

The scale of this was meant to be breathtaking, for the same reasons that al-Q chose to commit 9/11. It's terrorism, but terrorism in the service of a political faith shared by only a tiny handful of angry misfits, and therefore senseless by any practical measure. That's what makes it look insane to an outsider.

I don't think it's an either / or situation with psychopathy and terrorism. I'm not sure how much work has been done to assess the mental health of people who have carried out similar attacks under a political or religious banner in the past but it would be interesting to find out. No doubting that, regardless of what's going on with his brain chemistry, this is as clear cut a case of terrorism as you'll find though.

What makes this guy completely unusual is how sustained this process was, and how carefully he nutured these ideas and feelings of alienation, and how completely he protected them from being contaminated with empathy. He built up an entire self-identity as someone who could kill his perceived enemies in cold blood, then went out and systematically proved it was true. He rigorously trained himself to be this person and do this act. That's not psychotic at all.

True. It seems that he somehow did what he could to rationally work on getting rid of his sense of empathy.

it's not either/or, surely psychopathic tendency just makes you more like to be a good terrorist

Thrust of the Martyr (TotM)
Breaking a flank is a dangerous move. However, keep in mind that they will not expect you to rush them aggressively (go for head shots) so you have the element of surprise. Let’s call this strategy: “Thrust of the Martyr” due to the severity and critical circumstances of the attack. It is a lethal move where either you or your opponent(s) will
die or get injured. Based on your strengths and their weaknesses you will have a success rate of aprox. 75% if facing 2 agents (scenario 1). Against 4 agents this will however drop to 30-45% (scenario 2) even taken your conviction and superior armour and firepower into account. If you allow them enough time to deploy 1-2 snipers in either scenario you will not likely get out of the situation alive, survival rate of less than 20%.

Under normal circumstances, you will however only face 2 police officers (2 per car) which should allow you to neutralise both quite easily. In any case, surrender is not an option. You either break free or die in the attempt.

This is one of the many sections wherein he sounds like a Call of Duty FAQ writer.

regardless of what's going on with his brain chemistry, this is as clear cut a case of terrorism as you'll find though.

this is important. maybe this guy is nuts, maybe he isn't (hint: he is), but terrorism is an act, not a pathological mental status.

xp darragh also otm

geir, do you know more about the chances of him being released after 21 years?

also: i have not read this guys rants/"musings"/whatever, and don't plan to (it's a beautiful day outside, why would i ruin it), so bear that in mind, but i kinda think that trying to de-pathologize the killer's actions here is concern trolling, at a certain level. we would all like to think that his despicable ideology, taken to its logical extreme, is the root cause of his actions. but really i'd wager that his political beliefs just served as a framework for his mental illness. i totally get the impulse, but painting this guy as the Natural End Result Of Right-Wing Nationalism, and dismissing any psychological factors, is nagl and sort of unwittingly cynical, imo.

no, it's not really, but you shouldn't waste a beautiful day on his ramblings

only someone totally mentally unhinged would be able to carry this sort of thing through alone. members in a group would tend to reinforce one another, but mass killing by oneself is just a nut case.

― Aimless, Saturday, July 23, 2011 3:45 AM (Yesterday)

I thought this was interesting, specifically wrt to idea of 'the internet' acting as that reinforcement network. Seems like being an extremist crank used to be much harder, lonelier, riskier work in the olden days. Were there unaffiliated nihilists carrying out random assassinations a century ago? Crime & Punishment suggests maybe there were, actually.

i missed that bit by Aimless, but that's exactly what i was thinking w/r/t loners v. cells

'Right-Wing Nationalism' in europe does kinda have a high bodycount, historically speaking

well sure, but again we're dealing with a guy who was (presumably) acting alone, perhaps with the encouragement of voices on the internet. glib comparisons to maniacal political institutions is like w/e man, nice lay-up

(i also realize that armchair mental health assessments are also nagl)

Were there unaffiliated nihilists carrying out random assassinations a century ago?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Nechayev

i don't think this guy actually got any assassinations done but he was a very busy and lonely bee.

bakunin loved him at first and then basically had a "wait. wait sergey hold on. shit." moment.

Neither the insanity interpretation nor the terrorism interpretation are without drawbacks and problems- If we just decide that "he's crazy" then we medicalize his actions- then he is sick and these actions are symptoms of a sick person who needs and deserves treatment, and this makes him a victim too- which I am not sure is more or less appealing than the decision to treat him as a coldblooded political agent who is pursuing his vision "by any means necessary". Can we treat him as a terrorist without in the process "taking his ideas seriously" i.e dignifying those ideas as somehow part of an ongoing political conversation between different parties? Dumb / badly formed / simplistic ideas have effects in the world- often they are more successful because of their very incoherence- I mean, fascism wasn't intellectually coherent either and that didn't stop it from taking over.

I guess Darraghmac is right that there is a vanishing middle / false choice if Breivik can't be read as an insane terrorist who is *both* politically motivated and a psychopath- the self-training is, as Geir points out, really striking to think about here because a garden variety psycopath wouldn't have any empathy to restrain, while a "normal" person would. To me as a partisan for the very society of tolerance that Breivik attacked, what I would hope for is that this would make extreme nationalist politics less appealing than ever, and in order for this action to discredit the politics for which it was committed we have to see the link between the act and the ideal as a tight one- if we just discount this person as "merely crazy" then we can't do that effectively, and so extreme nationalism isn't the topic anymore, it's brain chemistry, early parenting, care in the community etc.

Were there unaffiliated nihilists carrying out random assassinations a century ago? Crime & Punishment suggests maybe there were, actually.

I refer you to this:

http://images.word-power.co.uk/images/product_images/9780224078078.jpg

Neither the insanity interpretation nor the terrorism interpretation are without drawbacks and problems- If we just decide that "he's crazy" then we medicalize his actions- then he is sick and these actions are symptoms of a sick person who needs and deserves treatment, and this makes him a victim too- which I am not sure is more or less appealing than the decision to treat him as a coldblooded political agent who is pursuing his vision "by any means necessary". Can we treat him as a terrorist without in the process "taking his ideas seriously" i.e dignifying those ideas as somehow part of an ongoing political conversation between different parties? Dumb / badly formed / simplistic ideas have effects in the world- often they are more successful because of their very incoherence- I mean, fascism wasn't intellectually coherent either and that didn't stop it from taking over.

I guess Darraghmac is right that there is a vanishing middle / false choice if Breivik can't be read as an insane terrorist who is *both* politically motivated and a psychopath- the self-training is, as Geir points out, really striking to think about here because a garden variety psycopath wouldn't have any empathy to restrain, while a "normal" person would. To me as a partisan for the very society of tolerance that Breivik attacked, what I would hope for is that this would make extreme nationalist politics less appealing than ever, and in order for this action to discredit the politics for which it was committed we have to see the link between the act and the ideal as a tight one- if we just discount this person as "merely crazy" then we can't do that effectively, and so extreme nationalism isn't the topic anymore, it's brain chemistry, early parenting, care in the community etc.

I basically agree with all of this---it just seemed to me that ppl were p quick to dismiss mental illness in a rush to demonize his eminently demonizable politics. both were at work and served each other.

do these deconstructions happen when the perpetrator isn't white?

BTW, there have been several questions about whether 21 years is really the longest sentence Breivik can receive; apparently there are clauses which will allow him to be locked up for life:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/norge/1.7725087

(the above is somewhat challenging to decipher due to Google Translate.)

do these deconstructions happen when the perpetrator isn't white?

You could use the DC sniper as a test case for this, but the perpetrator identified his motive as extortion rather than straight-up politics, so the parallel is not exact.

It's very difficult to talk about 'garden variety psychopaths' as nobody seems particularly clear about what psychopathy means or how to identify it. I think most people recognise a continuum between 'can function in society' and 'serial killer' but even that's controversial. Most of the people on that continuum are held criminally responsible for their actions and are not routinely defined as crazy.

It's probably important to remember that his beliefs are not really outside of the mainstream of the European far right, even if the actions would be. It might seem impossible to understand how someone could genuinely believe, without being mad, that militant Islam is destined to conquer Europe unless someone stands up for white Christian culture but thousands and thousands of people do. They have political parties, television shows and organise marches through the streets. Is it a clear sign of mental illness that someone went one step further and tried to eradicate the people he saw as facilitating that? No. Is it likely that his brain works differently to most other people? Yes. It's impossible to know to what extent, though.

None of this would put him outside the class of the other terrorists who do pretty much exactly the same thing in the name of other causes, though.

You could use the DC sniper as a test case for this, but the perpetrator identified his motive as extortion rather than straight-up politics, so the parallel is not exact.

― Aimless, Sunday, July 24, 2011 7:59 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

The beltway sniper was a terrorist. I'm fascinated by how he's been portrayed as anything else.

"In the short term, Mr. Malvo said, their aim was to create havoc to cover for Mr. Muhammad's plans to kidnap his three children. The longer-term goal, Mr. Malvo testified, was to extort law enforcement to stop the killing, after which Mr. Muhammad would take the money and move to Canada with Mr. Malvo and the three children. There, Mr. Malvo said, Mr. Muhammad planned to create a training ground for 140 young homeless men whom he would send out to wreak similar havoc and to "shut things down" in cities across the United States."

He legitimises his actions by framing them in history: he's only doing what the legit crusades and original knights templar were doing, in his head.

Neither psychopathy nor terrorism have a very clear definition, iirc. Both follow their own internally consistent logic, except their premises and conclusions aren't what the rest of society thinks. "Wrong" is too weak a word but that's what they are, ultimately. Like this guy, he isn't crazy or dumb, but he is very very wrong. His pure white christian society is long gone, it won't magically reappear once he and his imaginary army of facebook recruits have won the battle. 9/11 was, in Bin Laden's head, a legitimate reaction to some perceived American threat or wrongdoing and every tape that was made public only gave him a new way to spread that world view.

That's also why Breivik's asking for a public hearing: he wants a soap box to let us all know he's saving us, etc
I don't think loads of extremists who got his manifesto will join his cause, but it is a danger - they're often very sensitive to that kind of historic glory blah blah blah.

It's very difficult to talk about 'garden variety psychopaths' as nobody seems particularly clear about what psychopathy means or how to identify it.

Yeah, I read that "Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us" book by Robert Hare a while ago and it was fascinating to a point but also pretty apparent that there wasn't a conclusive and convincing account of the genesis of this condition, its boundaries- there are actions and patterns and tendencies but not some clearly evident bright line that separates these people out- a case of "you know it when you see it"- but do you?

Stan otm about why Breivik made sure to be captured alive- he can't wait to start blathering into the mics and cameras about his views and longs to be persecuted by his enemies- his sentencing will confirm his narcissism (I'm guessing his reaction to his conviction will be not dissimilar to Varg Vikernes' great big shiteating grin at hearing his own conviction)

ShariVari very much otm. his political ideas, however extreme and incoherent, are not just his own made-up misconceptions but part of the public political discourse and to leave that out and sum it up as simply madness would be terribly wrong i think.

otm

Psychopath: not mad but wrong.

bumper sticker?

The analysis piece on one belgian news site focuses on the most important issue of this whole story: violent computer games. Sigh.

Surgeons, meanwhile, confirmed he used "dum-dum" bullets designed to disintegrate inside the body and cause maximum internal damage.

Sort of feel that targeting white Norwegians (however much they are "traitors") gives the game away a bit. Isnt this the standard resentment of your imagined persecutors, those you imagine are excluding you? I'm probably wrong but I can't help but feel there is a disconnect between his politics and his act--he just wants to hurt those people who he imagined hurt him.

So, I am really speechless when I see the cult calling themselves national socialists
today. If you truly love our tribe, the Nordic tribes or any other European tribe, you must
learn and acknowledge that Hitler is a traitor to the Germanic and all European tribes,
NOT a hero. Hitler had the military capabilities necessary to liberate Jerusalem and the
nearby provinces from Islamic occupation. He could have easily worked out an
agreement with the UK and France to liberate the ancient Jewish Christian lands with the
purpose of giving the Jews back their ancestral lands. The UK and France would perhaps
even contribute to such a campaign in an effort to support European reconciliation. The
deportation of the Jews from Germany wouldn't be popular but eventually, the Jewish
people would regard Hitler as a hero because he returned the Holy land to them.

there is a strange recursive logic throughout, having created these strange taxonomies (category a and b traitors) they are reified to the nth to degree and treated as self-evident things

hundreds of pages seem to be devoted to the evils of miscegenation

though he is at pains to point out that he is very much not a racist

3. Destructive role models who propagate and glorify anti-authority/
revolutionary/anarchistic attitudes through the graffiti movement (which is a central part
of hip-hop).

I remember my active years in the hiphop movement as a continuous and intense orgy of
misconduct, manifested primarily through tagging and piecing. During my two most
active years at the age of 15 and 16, I estimate that myself (Morg), Richard (Spok) and
Jon Trygve (Wick) inflicted property damage (through bombing raids - "tagging") of
approximately 2 million Euro combined of which I inflicted aprox. 700 000. The three of
us were the most active of a loosely distributed "tagger force" numbering approximately
1000 at the time. This was during a primary peak of Hiphop, in 1994-1995.

That's also why Breivik's asking for a public hearing: he wants a soap box to let us all know he's saving us, etc
I don't think loads of extremists who got his manifesto will join his cause, but it is a danger - they're often very sensitive to that kind of historic glory blah blah blah

I'd be more concerned about his success in carrying out the killings, if we're talking about his being an example pour encourager les autres

geir, do you know more about the chances of him being released after 21 years?

Only his shrink knows. And only after 21 years.

The practice that makes it possible to lock up lunatics for life is still no older than 11 years or so. A guy who, together with his friend (who was not deemed "crazy" enough), raped and killed two little girls at a lake in Southern Norway was the first one to get this kind of sentence and he has still not yet even finished his ordinary sentence. So there is no practice to speak of, and not a lot of experience. However, a guy who had molested his own young son more than 100 times got out because he was a "hopeless case" and later travelled to Gambia to molest more kids, so it doesn't seem like it always works properly. :(

Sort of feel that targeting white Norwegians (however much they are "traitors") gives the game away a bit. Isnt this the standard resentment of your imagined persecutors, those you imagine are excluding you? I'm probably wrong but I can't help but feel there is a disconnect between his politics and his act--he just wants to hurt those people who he imagined hurt him.

Labour Youth have done a very good job recruiting immigrant youth the past 10 years or so (there weren't so many back in the 90s when I was active there), so I would guess a fair percentage of his victimes were actually immigrants. Not that it seems he went after them in particular though.

what do you think the political consequences for this will be? (do you think a historic labour landslide is in the future?) do you think gun control laws may drastically change?