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Reality Dysfunction by Morten Rand-Hendriksen

Over the past week the world has born stunned witness to the testimony of Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. Methodically and by all accounts devoid of emotion he walked the court through the planning and execution of a terrorist attack and mass murder unrivalled in history. Much has been said and will be said about these days of recounted terror. What I want to focus on instead is the rationale behind Breivik’s actions and how Breivik in many ways represents a growing trend in western society: One of reality dysfunction. Let me explain:

If we look at the argumentation presented by Breivik divorced from circumstance, context, and other information, it can seem sound and rational.

In the first days of testimony Breivik presented his reasoning for planning and executing the attacks. He laid out historical background, statistics, research results, and drew conclusions from them. And the court, the attendees, the world, winced in horror. As we should. His conclusions are as bizarre as they are incorrect, and his resulting actions are incomprehensible. However, if we look at the argumentation presented by Breivik divorced from circumstance, context, and other information, it can seem sound and rational. And therein lies the real danger: When we start picking and choosing what information to use as our foundation for hypotheses, analysis, and conclusions, we do not get a scientific result but rather the result we are looking for. In science this is called “theory dependence”. In the real world it is a recipe for disaster. And Breivik is the perfect example.

Breivik’s version of history and the resulting argument is fairly simple to break down: After World War II all nationalist and “culture conservative” (his terminology) sentiments were quashed, disallowed and ridiculed because of their obvious ties to Nazism. In it their place socialists, feminists, and “cultural marxisits” with a “multinationalist agenda” (again his terminology) stepped in. These cultural marxists took over educational institutions, government and the media. Then they started a campaign of thinning out the “authentic” genes of indigenous populations such as “ethnic Norwegians” by bringing in people from other cultures like the middle east, Africa and Asia. They also started a campaign to either introduce or at least help bring in Islamic rule in Europe. Nationalists and cultural conservatives were deliberately shut out of the debate because all media outlets were run by these cultural marxists, and as a result no real debate was had and the wool was pulled over the eyes of the masses. Because of this, Breivik and people like him – the nationalists and cultural conservatives – were left watching the destruction of their culture and race from the sidelines. Until they had had enough and took to arms. As Breivik explains it, his attacks on July 22, 2011 were acts of self defense on behalf of all Norwegians. He sees his attacks as similar to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings at the hands of the USA: Preliminary strikes sacrificing civilians now to save millions later.

To the majority of us this line of reasoning is proposterous. However, if you had no background information and you were willing to believe there really was a conspiracy by so-called “cultural marxists” and that there was an “islamic invasion” and a “multiculturalist agenda”, both the reasoning and the conclusion is logically sound.

We love information that builds up under our own beliefs and hate information that contradicts them.

To put it into perspective, this is the same type of reality dysfunction you see when a large percentage of American citizens still believe either that their President Barack Obama is either a) not a US citizen, b) a secret muslim or c) both. In spite of irrefutable evidence to the contrary, they believe in these fictions so intensely they launch nation wide protests, publish books, and even attempt to take the issues to Supreme Court. Another example is the large group of people who insist the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were an inside job and that the World Trade Center was taken down in a controlled implosion.

What links all these cases together is that seen in a vacuum, and ignoring all other evidence to the contrary, the reasoning is (maybe surprisingly) rational and even logical. The problem of course is that to make sound, scientific and truly rational arguments , you have to take all facts into account. And people don’t like doing that.

What we see in Breivik and in these other examples is a basic trait in the human condition: We love information that builds up under our own beliefs and hate information that contradicts them. And if we can argue that all the information that contradicts our beliefs is being put out by conspiracies that deliberately hide the truth, then we can rest safely in our own cocoon and pretend that the world is what we want it to be.

So where does this leave us? In a very bad place. Because millions of other people use the same kind of reality dysfunction Breivik does to allow themselves to believe in their own misinformed (and mostly destructive) ideas about the world.

Though few are willing to say what Breivik did was right, justified, or in any way acceptable, there are thousands of people out there who believe strongly in the same argumentation he used to justify his actions. If you want to see for yourself, look no further than blogs like Gates of Vienna and Atlas Shrugged (I am not dignifying these outlets with a link, but you can find them easy enough). What you will see in these sites and many like them and also in hundreds of publications in print, in audio and in video, is argumentation that the western world is in the midst of a cultural war forced upon us by our leaders who are all joined together in a conspiracy to force Islam on us and cleanse the world of the white race. And if you are willing to accept these ridiculous assumptions as fact, the rest of the reasoning will put you on the same track as Breivik almost immediately.

The human mind is a master of self delusion. And thus begins the reality dysfunction. Logical reasoning and rationality only works when you include all variables and all data, even when that results in your theory being disproven or forces you to change your understanding of the world. Whether it be “cultural marxists”, the “liberal media bias” or the “Islamic terrorism” it is always easier to blame the problems of the world on imagined conspiracies and foes than accepting that your own view of the world may be too simplistic, too ignorant, too self serving. The alternative reality dysfunction may be the easy way out, but it will lead you down a dark hole you may never get out of again.

Burning down the castle in the sky by Morten Rand-Hendriksen

On April 16th begins a trial unprecedented in history. In Oslo, Norway, a terrorist stands accused of the murder of 77 and attempted murder of another 42 of his fellow countrymen and women. And with this trial our simplistic and misinformed post 9/11 understanding of the world, as black and white, east versus west, islam versus democracy, us against them, becomes impossible to justify.

How did our modern western society create this monster?

But accepting this, and accepting the inner dissonance it brings, will be difficult, even more so because of the terrorist himself. The man at the heart of the story, who claims membership in the Knights’ Templar and expects to be crowned king for his actions, has provided an easy way out: He appears to be insane, thus we cannot, and do not have to, understand his actions. Illusion restored. The castle stands. But we cannot take the easy way out. The terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, has presented us with a mirror that, though horribly deformed and smeared with the blood of our future leaders, shows us a true reflection of our society. And it is our duty, to ourselves as well as to those that died at his hand and at the hands of every terrorist around the world, to look deep into ourselves and our society and ask the one impossible question: How did our modern western society create this monster?

A central question in the trial is Breivik’s sanity. The judges, two court judges and three civilians, will be presented with two diametrically opposing psychiatric assessments: The first finds Breivik to be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and deems him insane during the act and not fit to stand trial. The second finds Breivik to be suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder but that he was sane during and following the acts and that he is fit to stand trial. It is tempting to side with the first report: Breivik is insane, his actions say nothing about us as a society, we are all OK. But the world is quite simply not that simple.

Much debate sprung from the first report, and though this debate has gotten sparse coverage in international media, it is an important one: Is Breivik really insane, or are his political ideals just so far outside our common understanding we don’t recognize them as such attributing them instead to madness? At the onset, and based on the terrorist’s manifesto and grandiose proclamations to the media, it would seem they were indeed products of madness. But a simple internet search on terms like “eurabia” or “cultural marxism” shows that though his actions may not be supported, there are many people who share his views, his political ideals and even his conviction that only through violence can the western world be saved from cultural invasion.

Through Breivik we have gotten a glimpse of a vast and growing infection in our society; An infection of ideas that sees one cultural group as superior to all others; An infection of ideas that stops at nothing to impose its rule on everyone, through any means necessary. We have seen this type of infection before, and when we did nothing, the world was engulfed in the sickness of war leaving millions dead and causing the near annihilation of an entire culture through gas chambers and concentration camps .

Through Breivik we have gotten a glimpse of a vast and growing infection in our society

What is different now is the vector through which the infection is spreading. Where extremist ideas were once confined to soap boxes and underground newsletters they are now available at the touch of a button through the world wide web. And the very nature of the web creates almost hermetically sealed echo chambers where any idea can be radicalized and turned into a dogmatic obsession. Combine that with our delusions of cultural grandeur and the increasingly vitriolic and populist political debates and you have not only a perfect breeding ground for fascist ideology but also a trigger for someone who wants to hold the world under his thumb.

Though it may not always appear that way, much is lost in translation. When Stieg Larsson completed his Millenium trilogy, he titled the ultimate volume “Luftslottet som sprängdes” – “The castle in the air that exploded”. The message in the title is clear to Scandinavians: Our idyllic view of the world can easily be torn asunder by reality. The English translation, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest” presents a different message all together. And it is because of this loss of meaning in translation, this illusion of understanding across cultures and languages, that I borrow Larsson’s imagery today.

What we see in Breivik is the ultimate extreme of our own cultural arrogance. Western society has built itself a castle in the sky from which it wants to rule the the world imposing on everyone our own interpretations of freedom, democracy, right and wrong. From our vantage point far off the ground we convince ourselves we understand other cultures and know what’s best for them. And when they don’t adopt our ideals, we make them, even when it means using violence to do so. But as our castle grows and more cultures move in our illusion of understanding falters. We realize that other cultures are not like ours and we don’t always understand them. And in this realization we also see that while we impose our cultural ideals on others, these other cultures start inspiring and changing our ideals. For some this shift feels not like cultural evolution but rather dilution. And basing their actions on those of their leaders they turn to violence to impose their own interpretations of freedom, democracy, right and wrong on their fellow castle dwellers under the auspice of protecting their own cultural ideals.

It is time we burn down our castle in the sky and face reality

It is time we burn down our castle in the sky and face reality. Our western society is not the pinnacle of cultural evolution – it is but one of many branches on the tree of civilization. And it is only through this realization and the acceptance of our pluralistic society we can move forward. If we don’t, Breivik may indeed turn out to have fired the first salvo in a new world war, though not the war he imagined. If we don’t face reality now, the fascist cultural elitist ideals fronted by Breivik and supported by thousands will continue to fester, eventually infecting our society and plunging us into a new dark age of dictatorial tyranny.

When the trial begins on April 16th, remember this: We are not out to place blame nor seek revenge. The terrorist was caught, we know what he did and we feel the consequences of his actions. What we need now, what this trial is about, is to understand why Breivik thinks what he did was warranted and what we as a society can do to help those like him that only through participation in the democratic process can true change for the betterment of everyone be achieved.

As humans we fear what we do not understand. Knowing this we must reach out and learn to communicate and understand each other. Only through communication and understanding can we build a truly multicultural society. And only through communication and understanding can we help the Breiviks, the Bin Ladens, the Hitlers of our time come to grips with reality and learn that despite cultural and ethnic differences, we are all equal.