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Anders Breivik
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/the-inexplicable
One of the best pieces of journalism I've read in quite some time.
One of the best pieces of journalism I've read in quite some time.
Replies
It's beautifully easy and simple to say "the guy was nuts" and move on, assured of your knowledge of the worlds workings.
But it's ****, and it's dangerous.
As an American this seems inadequate.
You might call this the Eichmann effect. I see this every day. . .and its jarring.
Edit: Heh. Looks like I should have read further before posting.
Its just business, bro.
I wish I could think that way. I **** a professor off over something petty and I funk out for days.
A completely unrelated request... can I have your phone number?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
Just sayin'.
It'll never work. Two enablers should not be together.
Agreed, the article was much more than "hey, look at this nuts guy!" Thanks for sharing.
Mike
You can't quit me.
We could build a little farming community and invite sherb and Pio.
1) This guy was nuts?
2) How did this nut happen in Norway?
3) How did this guy become nuts?
4) What enabled the guy to become nuts?
5) How to identify nuts?
Something I find amazing: the description of the kids lined up against the wall waiting to be shot. Why? What in human nature allows this happen? From the death camps to ISIS. Is it that we don't believe? Do we not comprehend; our brains shut off? Do we hold out hope that if we don't do anything, there will be a reprieve or our captors may show mercy?
I see these unfortuante souls trapped in Iraq or Syria kneeling - ready to be beheaded - while their future killer rants for the internet. Are these captives drugged? Do they think not doing anything is the ultimate sign of bravery? Is it some kind of message they're sending to loved ones - they can kill me but they can't get to me? Or did they just give up and not care anymore?
I'd like to think I'd take actions - scream, yell, swear, place a head butt right in the effers nuts, something. You want to kill me, kill me when I'm standing.
But maybe I wouldn't.
For the kids, I would think it's a paralyzing fear. When faced with unimaginable terror, I could see how my brain might send 1,000 different signals, all of which conflict with the other. Or conversely, it would cease to send any signals because it couldn't process what was happening.
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I don't know that there was an overall point of the article aside from Knausgaard's attempt to deal with what happened. What I took away from it, what I think was most important, is that Breivik was not batshit crazy. It's convenient to think of Lanza as an autistic automaton and Breivik as a raving loony because then we don't have to force ourselves to understand that a normal person could commit such heinous acts.
My wife and I disagree on this issue. She thinks anyone who would commit mass murder or other similar-scale reprehensible acts is crazy by virtue of their misdeeds. I disagree, which is why I appreciated this article so. Unfortunately, there's no concrete answer, so I can't throw it in her face.
I read an excellent article on this once, and wish I could find it again. In short, everyone lined up against the wall is waiting for someone else to do something. In that moment of sheer terror, most people don't think that maybe THEY should do something. It seems to be proportionately worse the more people that are involved.
It also talked about a crowd of people witnessing a bad accident, or someone being mugged. The more people witnessing the event, the less likely someone is going to attempt to help. However, if you are the only one around, you're much more likely to intervene. After all, there's only yourself around to be able to help. With a crowd of people, you're expecting "someone" to do it.
Sounds like the guy had a serious personality disorder. So, no he wasn't "batshit crazy" (mental disorder) but he wasn't normal either.
very interesting insight.
Great post.
I think our culture has lost the language to describe such deeds and the people who perform them. We no longer have words for it. We generally ascribe to them some form of pyschopathology, and indeed, the first thing the judge did (as any judge anywhere in the Western world would do) was to order a psychiatric eval. But of course that didn't tell us much. Frankly, the way he whined like a little girl about the cut on his hand tells us more about him than a busload of mental health professionals would. I think in bygone centuries we would have called it "evil," or the work of the devil. . .but now?
I only know this much: calling him crazy does not fit.
I found it interesting that the author wrote that an incident like this is nothing that they should make an effort to protect against because it was so one-off.
I'm thinking, "hey, this guy is nuts!"
Let's say you beat the **** out of your three kids - you're not crazy, you have anger management problems. What if you beat the **** out of three kids at a park? You're crazy. What's the line at which you go from anger management troubles to batshit crazy? This is a silly example, I know, but it's not easy. You shoot a guy you got into a fight with, you were acting out of anger. You shoot people because you think you'll get your political point across, you're crazy.
The guy who ran Silk Road had, or at least thought he had, a few people killed. How many people OD'ed on drugs that moved through his website? How many crimes were committed by those using his website? Not once is he labelled crazy, or offered a diagnosis of a personality disorder.
That's a whole lot of gibberish above. Pardon me - I've got weekend brain.