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What kind of messed up mental gymnastics is that? I had no idea this whole rampage was about a political party; That makes it scarier because you can see this happening in any country where the fringes are being radicalized against each other.
0, https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https:/...
1, https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https:/...
Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by "mental gymnastics". I think this expression usually applies when 2 contradicting /paradoxical statements are made in the same sentence.
So it wasn't really mental gymnastics, it was a conscious attempt to curb a particular party's future. It's evil and it's nuts, but it makes logical sense. It's not dissimilar from genocide motives in that sense, just on a smaller scale.
"Breivik's subtitle is lifted from a 2007 essay by fellow Norwegian blogger "Fjordman". Extensive citations - often plagiarised - also refer to other anti-Muslim ideologues and groups, from the Dutch politician Geert Wilders and Steven Yaxley-Lennon's English Defence League to the likes of Jihadwatch and Stop the Islamisation of Nations (SION). "
I have to work right now so can't work through all the examples listed by another poster below, but will try to come to this thread later. But if you look at e.g. historical Europe or Rome you will rarely find borders defined by ethnicity, and you will rarely even find people defining themselves by a singular ethnicity. Look at the e.g. Franks, the Germanic political entity that ended up defining modern France (and Holland and Germany and Belgium, etc.) A Germanic-speaking tribe that took over a Celtic (Gaulic) and Latin speaking territory, went to war with other "Germans", switched to speaking Latin in some places, but not all, and on the territory where they once ruled you now have a shattered mirror of dozens of ethnicities ("German", "Dutch", "Walloon", "French", "Alsatian", etc) in a nested fractal pattern depending on what lense you use, none of which correspond to any exact political border and which are fluid and changing from decade to decade.
My take: Ethnicity exists, is fluid, etc. Ethnonationalism is a tool, an ideological tool, mobilizing ethnicity for its own ends, using a specifically modern era mechanism ("nations", which are only ~200-300 years old) for the purposes of whoever is wielding it. E.g. the ambitions of an e.g. Milosevic type personality.
My ancestors are from both Alsace and Germany, so I take an interest in this topic.
... but none of this upsets the fact that ethnicity is the 'primary weight' in the ultimate definition of borders, other than the borders which are artificial (i.e. political) which is why those tend to collapse.
i.e. " historical Europe or Rome you will rarely find borders defined by ethnicity" <- this is just not true.
Borders very clearly, 'mostly' ethnic, with huge caveats obviously, but those caveats don't change the underlying gravity of ethnicity.
Both a map of Europe today (though it's national) and even a map of the Roman Empire at any given time fairly strongly highlight this.
Roman borders don't help your point - they speak against it.
For a visual refresher here's a bunch of them [1].
Those are mostly ethnic divisions - some of which exist even today.
The fact that Greece has been 'occupied' for ~2200 years, by a whole variety of external powers, and still 'moslty' remains 'Greece' is evidence of this.
Despite your well meaning highlights of the Germanic invasion of Latin Gaul ... there is still a major delineating border between 'Gallia' and 'Germania' today [2].
Same for 'Hispania', 'Britannia', and 'Caledonia' (i.e. Scotland) and 'Hibernia' (i.e. Ireland).
It's an incredibly similar map 2000 years later.
Maybe one factor you could consider in your line of reasoning is the difference between political and ethnic boundaries.
When one group 'invades' another - that's a political change, not necessarily an ethnic one.
It becomes 'ethnic' when the invaders bring along with them considerable cultural power and especially 'bodies' i.e. if there's a lot of migration.
The official language of France in 2021 (and there are many) is French, which is Romantic, despite Frankish invasion.
Charlemagne was more or less a political phenomenon, less so cultural one.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=map+of+roman+empire&client=f...
[2] https://www.conformingtojesus.com/images/webpages/map_roman_...
"A concept advanced by the philosopher Karl Popper which claims that unlimited tolerance necessarily results in the destruction of the tolerant by the intolerant, resulting in a society in which tolerance is no longer possible. Therefore, while paradoxical to the concept of free speech, it is necessary to be intolerant of intolerance. "[1]
In short, in a society of unlimited tolerance, the intolerant will drive out tolerance and take over. In This murderer's example, by simply eliminating those whose views he doesn't like.
It is easy to have an absolutist rule "oh just let anyone say and do anything". Seems like the simple freedom, but the paradox points out that this WILL be hacked and destroyed by some intolerant group.
It is much harder to implement a few constraints that are actually required to keep things free. But it is necessary (and that murderous rampage to literally eliminate a class of future leaders is an example of why it is necessary).
1. stop calling it right wing extremism. These guys are mad nationalists, not Ayn Rand (not that I am a fan of Ayn Rand either.)
By calling it by its real name it won't come across as just a variant of conservative or liberal. Because we absolutely detest them and I guess I speak for most of us when I say we don't even want them to vote for us.
2. Encourage serious debate. Dare to meet people.
I wrote about this the other day in the context of climate change:
Climate change believers are awfully fast to reach for the branding iron whenever someone asks an innocent questions.
Meanwhile climate change deniers will patiently smooth talk people and dig out "study" after "study" carefully picked to prove their point.
Same goes for this: the only place you can safely discuss immigration without risking someone sneaking up on you with a red hot "racist" iron is - you probably guessed it - with the racists.
Now why don't we fix this?
Probably because we'd have to admit that there are some serious problems with the way immigration has been practiced.
> The Jerusalem Post describes his support for Israel as a "far-right Zionism". He calls all "nationalists" to join in the struggle against "cultural Marxists/multiculturalists" [1]
Now fear of "cultural Marxists" destroying Europe/US/Christianity etc is mainstream talk in right of center politics.
[1] http://www.jpost.com/International/Norway-attack-suspect-had...
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." [0]
[0] K. Popper (1945) 'The Open Society and Its Enemies'
It would be great if that condition was used to distinguish between individuals that are intolerant and those that simply are dissenting.
A dissenter might disagree with the rationality of the arguments being presented. They might be in minority in term of public opinion. Suppression would still certainly be most unwise.
You can go a step farther and say that "tolerance towards intolerance leads to intolerance, therefore we should be intolerant towards tolerance in the first place!" It's a paradox for a reason, and no high-minded solutions of "intolerance in the name of tolerance" are able to sidestep its implications.
There are two conclusions that I personally draw from it. The first is that intolerance/tolerance is not a binary, is not easily definable, and therefore there is no clear standard for what speech is right to censor and which is not. i.e. the paradox is unsolvable. The second is that "tolerance" and "intolerance" are not great words to describe the dynamics at play, they carry extra nuance that is not helpful.
(if you can't tell, I'm not a fan of the paradox of tolerance)
You can ignore them, don't have to amplify them or give them a platform, but you don't shout them down and you don't allow them to shout others down or stop them from building their own platform.
The Communists in America have been marginalized for a long time in America, but even the most totalitarian/Stalinist believing of them aren't muzzled. Whatever one's extreme belief, a truly robust society has the tools to survive their ability to talk about them.
So the very existence of most of our nations, is a form of 'Tolerance' of it.
If you look at the borders of Europe and how they flop around over time, it becomes clear that the 'delineating' factor is mostly ethnicity, at least crudely. Sometimes, a political dynasty can force those lines (i.e. Habsburg) but those don't last. What were the chances that Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia etc. were going to stay organized under one House?
Even highly authoritarian ideological secular organizations i.e. USSR failed. Napoleon failed outside his borders whereas within France, it might have just worked for him.
Religious Empires aka Arabic conquest, have some lasting impact but that didn't change borders in any lasting way mostly (although maybe in SE Europe).
Despite a degree of 'multi-culture' in China, the CCP authoritarianism hinges on Han ethnocentricism without which it probably would not hold together.
Where those 'ethnic lines' are drawn poorly, we see trouble.
Belgium is almost a 'failed political state' (literally 100's of days in a row without a government) and the 'division' is 100% because of Flemish/Walloon divide.
Canada has the 'Quebec' factor which has really fundamentally affected things and has a profound effect.
The 'Long Straight Lines in the Desert' in the Middle East were arguably drawn poorly after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and a lot of people tend to point at that as an existential source of instability and why we see problems to this day. Iraq is not a functional state as the Kurds have de-facto independence, and the primary source of instability is the Shia/Sunni divide, unfortunately inflamed by neighbouring parties for their own gain.
The 'New World' aka US, Canada, Australia, Brazil represent something different surely, but even there, it's hard to ignore strong ethnic foundations of the colonizing powers.
Greece is still Greece today after 2500 years, the borders are similar. Also note their 'primary antagonists' i.e. 'Persians' are also something very roughly resembling a state today.
Of course for every 'long lived state' there are 10 that don't exist anymore, but there seems to be resiliency in culture more than anything else.
So I think it's a matter of keeping 'true extremists' (aka not vast government spying and overreach) under wraps as individuals, not so much thinking about specific kinds of movements.
I also believe that these kinds of people would just as easy fall under some other cultural/religious/ideological/extremist umbrella.
I don't think there's much difference between 'XXX extremist' and 'YYY extremist' even if they are ostensibly opposed to one another.
> If you look at the borders of Europe and how they flop around over time, it becomes clear that the 'delineating' factor is mostly ethnicity, at least crudely.
No. I don't know why you would think that. Brittany was Gallo-Breton, and the two ethnicity almost cut the duchy in two. Two very, very different languages and ethnicity. I would know, i was born on the lingual border. Occitan was closer to Ligurian than to Paris' French, Normand was closer to London's, I would like to think that Liege was always speaking alsacian rather than French, and that Burgundy was speaking more French than the Armagnac Duchy was. The Basque ethnicity was always separated between two crowns (at least)
You know what defined the national borders during the nationnalism epidemic of the 19th century? Natural borders. And when none exist, you create artificial ones, not a all following ethnicity. Ukraine? Lithuania? Poland even? No natural borders => the borders cut with forests or swampsm not "ethnical divide" (or else eastern Europe would NOT look like this).
> Napoleon failed outside his borders whereas within France, it might have just worked for him.
Yes, and what was France looking like when he took power? How yeah, Savoy, Piedmont, Liguria are really French. As are the netherlands... It worked for him until he started to meddle into other kingdom's/Empire internal affairs.
> Greece is still Greece today after 2500 years, the borders are similar.
Yeah, no. The old Greece western borders stopped before that (linguistically at least), the northern border reached higher, as were the eastern borders. I know that Iran fancy themselve as persia successor, but let's be honest, their border follow more natural borders than the old Persian Empire.
If ethnocentrism were "as old as time", what about the Mughals? What about the Romans? What about the "King of Franc" ruling over a lot of non-Franc (a majority of non-Franc even)? And the Holy Roman empire? What about the Commonwealth of Poland? The truth is, ethnicity is a lot like language, and follow the same rules language used to do.
Should add re: Greece that there was few points at which the Greeks ever even considered themselves any kind of "ethnic "nation"; in pre-Roman times they recognized the existence of "Hellenes" but were constantly at war with each other. In Roman times (which went on much longer there than in the west) they came to consider themselves Romans. And in post-Roman Ottoman times they were one of ethnicity of many in what is now Greece and Asia-Minor and identified more around religion. Until the great ethnonationalist catastrophe of the forced population relocation of Greeks and Turks in the last century in which all sorts of people who didn't fit the "right" categories were mixed up (Christian Turks? Muslim Greeks? etc)
I know about 'Switzlerand', thanks. Which is why I brought up USA/Australia/Brazil etc..
Nobody is going to argue that there are many factors that drive boundaries (aka natural boundaries) merely highlighting some counter examples doesn't deconstruct the fact that ethnicity is the primary marker.
"No. I don't know why you would think that. "
Well I don't know what to say because to me, it's 'very obvious' that ethnic boundaries are strong - I don't know how anyone could think otherwise.
In fact, if there is 'nuance' it's probably the things that you are stating that are 'less obvious'.
Here is a map of Rome in the year 0 [0]
Here is a map of Europe today [1]
They are incredibly similar.
By pointing out 'that there are differences' doesn't deny that fact.
Again: "Yeah, no. The old Greece western borders stopped before that (linguistically at least), the northern border reached higher, as were the eastern borders."
That borders have shifted materially, doesn't change the underlying fact that 'Greece is strongly related to Greece'.
I think that's the clearest example of where your argument does not cross the threshold you think it does. You say 'the borders have changed' - fine - I say 'it's still pretty much Greece', which it is.
The Duchy of Savoy was mostly a political organization, not an ethnic one, and guess what? It doesn't exist.
The fragmented borders have mostly collapsed - along the lines of ethnicity, crudely. And of course, within those borders, it's fragments like a fractal (great analogy by the commenter above).
And finally, yes, 'natural borders' are obviously a framing reference, because they keep people apart, which allows groups to develop, we agree there.
[0] https://www.conformingtojesus.com/images/webpages/map_roman_...
Link to study: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/cu...
https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/ny-studie_-anders-behring-breiv...
Perhaps they have played too much Wolfenstein VR to come to that conclusion of seeing Nazis everywhere or some sort of hidden agenda of a secret Nazi invasion from space.
SlateStarCodex (A HN favourite) put it more accurately about the media (and social media) during the recent events in 2017 and still to this day:
"I also think events proved me right in saying that the media was going crazy in a particular way where they would read racism into anything..."
"...At some point you just have to admit everyone went crazy for a few years and seeing started seeing Nazis in trees and rocks and grilled cheese sandwiches and Trump was an especially tempting target."
[0] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-grading-...
Even the attacker of the Christchurch mosque massacre referenced him.
Ban his name and pictures, remember his victims instead.
Should Breivik have killed more to qualify for banning. Yes, a ridiculous suggestion as with the idea of banning mention of him.
There is probably even more work to do on Stalin's legacy not to mention the others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Great_Purge_victims
Hitler and Stalin are already partly banned.
People commit acts of terror for all types of reasons; holy wars, separatist movements and other political movements, etc. There had been attacks and events in the US for similar right wing reasons, but there wasn't really an umbrella term for this type of event at the time. The fact that this motive is now as commonly known as jihad terrorism is, is rather worrying.
In Italy right wing terrorists from the stay behind army Gladio committed several false flag attacks to prevent the rise of communist parties.
1980 a right wing extremist bombed at the Oktoberfest in Munich.
Before 9/11 it was one of the dominant forms of terrorism. The movie The Sum of all fears is bases on the book of the same name. In the book the terrorists are muslim extremists, but they deemed the scenario as too unrealistic so they changed it to Neo Nazis for the movie.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Anders_Behring_Breivi...
While detention must be evaluated at given intervals, it can be extended indefinitely[2].
It doesn't mean that such prisoners are definitely released with 21 years - it can (and likely will) be extended indefinitely for as long as a prisoner remains dangerous to society:
> If the prisoner is still considered dangerous after serving the original sentence, the detention can be extended by five years at a time. Renewal of the detention every five years can in theory result in actual life imprisonment.
Now, in case as unique and clear-cut as that of Breivik, I would advocate for an extremely rare application of actual punishment-punishment - e.g., keeping him alive for as long as possible while torturing him.
As for three-strikes-society-removes-you, that's probably my favorite part of the justice system in the US.
Wow.
As chilling as this all is, I appreciate you sharing.
In the US, we're accustomed to mass killings not changing anything, and I'm curious if Utoya was different.
Edit: Why downvote? I'm asking for details on the mechanism that would lead to this reduction.
Unfortunately on HN, some won't give a reason, explanation or any evidence of the details you are asking for.
Claims are left without any substance and are left to you or someone else to refute them. Leaving everyone confused.
What a shame to a discussion.
Arguing that ABB using legally purchased guns means gun control doesn't work is pretty much the same as saying burglars will bypass the lock on your door so might as well not have any doors in your home.
[1]: https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/breivik-kjopte-drapsvapen-i-r...
As a thought experiment, do you think there would be so many casualities if this island was located in Texas, USA where socialists/labor party is also not very popular?
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherland_Springs_church_shoo...
(it is probably a safe assumption that a Baptist church in a small town in Texas had at least a couple armed congregants)
It would be great to have no bad guys, but they will always exist, and will not follow the laws no matter what.
Laws should be written to enable good guys to protect themselves.
Just the other day a 16 year old student in Singapore used an axe to kill a 13 year old in a bathroom at school. They had never met.
None of these are spontaneous.
The best way is to identify the roots behind what attracts the followers of these ideologies, address any root issues, and attack the premises behind the ideologies itself.
Not talking to these incidents, but all over the world, people tend to violence when they feel that the system does not hear them.
I have no dog in this fight, don't know much to be prescriptive of solutions for this case.
A generic statement I made which holds true as such, is being downvoted.
Just because I make this case, does not mean I know the solutions?
