"Psycho-analysing" terrorist Breivik

There are by now innumerable psychological assessments of Breivik online. Practically every publication you log on to has one. And they are all rather laughable when one looks at the things upon which the various diagnoses are based:

Breivik played violent computer games. So do a billion other men. Breivik did not relate well to women. That's also true of millions of American men -- particularly if you ask American women. Breivik lived with his mother well into adulthood. That too is common these days. It's almost the norm in Italy and Japan. He liked dressing up and giving himself titles. So do the freemasons. And so it goes: Things that do not cause terrorism in millions of others suddenly caused terrorism in Breivik? What a heap of nonsense!

My Ph.D. is in psychology, my academic specialty is political psychology and I have had over 100 papers in that field published in the academic journals -- including papers on what would seem to be relevant phenomena, such as neo-Nazism and psychopathy. So can I do better? Perhaps. To make any diagnosis when you have never even met the person is a very bad start but I will try.

So, for starters, is Breivik mad? Is he insane? There is general agreement that he is not and I agree with that. He shows no signs of delusions and has normal reality contact. He is not psychotic.

The one glaringly salient fact about Breivik is that he is a one-off. People with broadly conservative views are almost never terrorists. Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh is the nearest comparable case and there are considerable differences beteeen him and Breivik. Breivik is much more intellectual, for a start.

And that one salient fact is in my view the key to Breivik. Terrorism is not the product of personality. It is ideologically motivated. Personality plays some part but ideology is the overwhelming influence behind terrorist deeds. Nearly two years ago, U.S. army Major Nidal Hasan stood up at Ft. Hood shouting "Allahu Akbar" - Arabic for "God is great" -- before opening fire methodically from two handguns, killing 13 and wounding 32. Very similar behaviour to Breivik and with the motive being clearly ideological, in his case the ideology of fundamentalist Islam.

And there is no denying where Breivik got most of his ideas. He got them from fairly mainstream conservative sources. What he says in his manifesto about the Left and about Islam could be duplicated from many mainstream conservative sources. Indeed, he quotes such sources at length in his manifesto.

So how come hundreds of millions of conservatives have ideas similar to Breivik but only Breivik used them as a basis for a terrorist attack?

To answer that we have to move from ideology to sociology. I taught sociology for some years in a major Australian university so perhaps I have a few ideas in that department too.

And what seems to be the key sociological context is Norwegian society itself. Norwegians are very self-righteous and politically correct and one result of that is that Norway's penal code (Straffeloven, section 135 a) prohibits "hate speech" and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten or ridicule someone or that incite hatred, persecution or contempt for someone due to their skin colour, ethnic origin, homosexual life style or orientation or, religion or philosophy of life. So criticism of Muslims is illegal in Norway.

And yet, of all Western countries, Muslim aggression against the host country would seem to be at its peak in Norway and Sweden, two of the world's most permissive countries. Permissiveness is NOT the key to restraint and as the old proverb has it: "Give them an inch and they will take a mile". Because Norway and Sweden not only put up with Muslim lawlessness but actually protect it from view, the misbehaviour has escalated in those countries to quite appalling levels. Rapes in those countries in recent years have almost entirely been the doing of Muslims, for instance.

And the average Norwegian is not oblivious to that, for all the clampdown on mentioning it by Norway's Leftist government. Norwegian experts say that Breivik's attitude to Muslims is in fact common among ordinary Norwegians. Leftist reality denial doesn't work for long.

So the pressure towards retaliation against Muslims is in proportion to the Muslim outrages committed. Muslim behavior is at a peak of unacceptability in Norway and that generates a peak head of steam for retaliation against Muslims. Muslims are not as indulgently treated in other countries (even Britain locks some Muslim haters up) so their behaviour is better and that in turn means that resentment against them does not build up so much.

So Breivik was simply the point at which the Norwegian dam burst. When any dam bursts it is always possible in retrospect to say where the weak point was but that is rarely apparent in advance. The point at which the dam bursts can be essentially random.

So we come back to the question: Why was Breivik the weak point? I think it was essentially random. Other Norwegians would have eventually done something similar if Breivik had not.

One thing that I do notice, however, is that a lot of his mental characteristics seem rather adolescent. So we have adolescent mental characteristics combined with a very capable adult brain. And adolescents make great warriors, warriors who are largely heedless of their own wellbeing in fighting for what they are told is the common good. The undoubted heroism of the Hitler Youth in the closing stages of WWII is an obvious example of that and armies generally do recruit heavily from teenagers.

And it is clear that Breivik saw himself as self-sacrificing in what he did. He acted for what he saw as the general wellbeing by attacking the protectors of Muslims at their weakest point: Their children.

And I see no reason to doubt the account Breivik gives of his motivation: It was self-sacrifice for the common good, a very Norwegian motivation. He wanted Norwegians freed from the very real oppressive burden of their Muslim minority.

I heartily agree that Breivik's mind was that of an boy about half his chronological age of 32. The focus on body-building, steroids, fantasies, and video games, and lack of real career or marriage, all are adolescent traits. He's really a creation of modern affluent liberal society, which allows some people to postpone maturity. You can find many of his type on any college campus.

I really wonder where he got the money which he supposedly lost playing the market. Did his indulgent father give it to him? What about this so-called one-man e-commerce venture he claims to have had--what did he actually sell?

Killing people was not his objective, it was to make a statement, a big statement. If he really wanted to kill lots of people he would have chosen a different time and mixed ball bearings with the fertilizer.

He saw his Oslo and Norway sliding down the path to Third World rat hole. If you hang out at the Central Train Station you would think you got a free ticket to Cairo, Istanbul or Mogadishu.

He saw Muslim men raping Norwegian women, he'd been assaulted/mugged by them at least 8 times. There is a Muslim ghetto in Oslo called Grønland/Toyen where I would not go in broad daylight and I'm no shrinking violet.

Breivik has said that “he is responsible, but not guilty” This does not sound like a delusional man to me. If the Norwegian government had done the correct thing there would not be 77 bodies to be buried and Anders would still be playing WoW.

One thing that I do notice, however, is that a lot of his mental characteristics seem rather adolescent.

That's what stands out for me. You watch his video and it's all the highest minded seriousness...except that he has pics of Muslim Rage Boy in there and other goofy stuff you see all over the interwebs, and then the final slide is that pic of him in the wetsuit with the gun, which is pure action hero hokum. So he's like a teenage gamer dweeb mixed with enough adult seriousness to put his fantasy world into deadly effect.

But this isn't enough to explain him. No doubt there are lots of adult gamer types with a conservative bent who believe exactly as he does, but who would never in a million years do what Breivik did. So I come back to his being a nut. He's got a major screw loose somewhere that sets him apart from the rest, and which makes it pointless to extrapolate some kind of trend from him. He is a spurious data point with no real relation to a larger pattern.

Great piece on Breivik by Timothy Dalrymple here, btw.

In his sick mind, some how this made sense.

If he were rationally thinking, but a stone cold killer, not mentally ill just evil, then why not post PRO Muslim rantings saying you are part of some muslim terrorist organization, and then attack the ruling class left, creating a Muslim backlash? His writings show he's either a complete psycho or actually a leftist! No Christianity or conservatives involved!

BTW, I think that will be the next route of the liberal mind. You are already seeing fake Tea party candidates, etc. While the left is mentally ill for the most part, theere are some still rational enough to do this.

I don't think he's crazy or insane. You can't plan an attack for 9 years and be one of those because he'd most likely screw up at some point. He did everything legally. Registering his guns, taking the required safety courses. He rented a farm to grow vegetables as not to raise suspicions about getting 6.6 tons of fertilizer.
Killing people was not his objective, it was to make a statement, a big statement. If he really wanted to kill lots of people he would have chosen a different time and mixed ball bearings with the fertilizer.
He saw his Oslo and Norway sliding down the path to Third World rat hole. If you hang out at the Central Train Station you would think you got a free ticket to Cairo, Istanbul or Mogadishu.
He saw Muslim men raping Norwegian women, he'd been assaulted/mugged by them at least 8 times. There is a Muslim ghetto in Oslo called Grønland/Toyen where I would not go in broad daylight and I'm no shrinking violet.

Thank you for your insight. It does not make sense to call people insane because we disagree with them. Was Osama Bin Laden insane? I do not think so. There is an excellent book titled "War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage" that discusses how people dealt with each other before larger polities were formed. This act could be right out of it.

In his sick mind, some how this made sense. If he were rationally thinking, but a stone cold killer, not mentally ill just evil, then why not post PRO Muslim rantings saying you are part of some muslim terrorist organization, and then attack the ruling class left, creating a Muslim backlash?

You pose a good question. I wondered about it myself. I think that he thought the Muslim fanatics were quite successful in their attacks. It is his belief that Europe is well on its way to becoming Eurabia. If you accept that premise, disguising himself as a Muslim to commit the attack would only hasten the Muslim takeover.

He was sending the message to leftists that appeasing the Muslims will not make you safe.

I can see that, but now all we see on TV is that we must fear the “Christian Extremist” of which he was not. Or that we must strengthen gun laws. Of course if one adult camp counselor on that island had been armed, probably it would have saved a lot of people. Anyway, no one can really see into the mind of a person that could kill kids at a camp like that, so all my theorizing doesn't mean much.

Anyway, no one can really see into the mind of a person that could kill kids at a camp like that, so all my theorizing doesn't mean much.

Many people cannot, but a great many can. This action is not, in principle, any different than the Beslan school terror, or, as the article mentions, the Ft. Hood shootings.

Many Mullahs have said that there is no problem in targeting infidel children.

This appears to me to be typical tribal type defense/aggression. Look at tribal conflicts anywhere in the world. Reading War before Civilization is a mind opener.

Those people did not have the advantage of Christianity.

I heartily agree that Breivik's mind was that of an boy about half his chronological age of 32

And you base that on what Dr Freud? Are you aware that the average videogame player is 32? The average age of the healthclub member is in the forties? So what makes him any different from the usual thirty-two year-old loser?

“Anyway, no one can really see into the mind of a person that could kill kids at a camp like that, so all my theorizing doesn’t mean much.”

The important thing to remember is that he did not see them as children he saw them as the future multi-culturists they were and they would continue to let Muslims into Norway and Europe. He first tried to cut the head off of the serpent and then crush its spawn.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.