A fictional killer and the real killer

Daniel S. writes:

Gates of Vienna has an article about the influence the nihilistic TV show “Dexter,” which glamorizes a serial killer, had on Anders Breivik. There is clearly an underlining, if not immediately apparent, nihilism to Breivik’s beliefs and actions.

LA replies:

How many dimensions of this guy are there, all of which we have to analyze as possible causative factors in his act of mass murder? Among the angles on him I haven’t yet discussed are his family background, including his total estrangement from his father, and now his taste in TV shows.

I’m reminded of James Joyce, who said he planted so many hints, clues, and hidden meanings in Ulysses that scholars would be busy for a hundred years trying figure them all out. This guy is shaping up as the James Joyce of terrorism.

Daniel S. replies:

He is certainly a complex figure, who drew inspiration from a diversity of sources. But the more I learn about the man, the more his nihilism becomes clear to me. The violent video games, the pro-serial killer television show, the drugs, etc. The liberal narrative that he was the logical, violent outcome of the counter-jihad movement is cracking more and more.

- end of initial entry -

LA writes:

Another angle on Breivik I haven’t yet discussed is the blogger Whiskey’s theory that he was a “beta male” on a vengeful rampage. Given the fact that something like 90 percent of men are betas (including, according to Whiskey, Cary Grant and George Clooney), this seems a little weak as an explanation, doesn’t it?. It seems to me that people ought to expend more effort in trying understand things, which means learning about their particulars, rather than just automatically fitting them into their favorite theories.

Karl D. writes:

Just a point that no one seems to mention about the character “Dexter”: Dexter is a serial killer, but he only kills other violent criminals/killers. The plot thickens even more. ; )

Philip M. writes from England:

Why the confusion? Breivik was clearly a neo-Nazi, pro-Zionist, Christian-fundamentalist, pro-homosexual, Darwinian-Atheist, pan-European-Nordicist, radical conservative Freemason, and a lone wolf working as part of a shadowy cell of right-wing extremists who have been primed as part of a false-flag operation to discredit the Tea Party movement, the EDL, and the gun lobby. He was Norway’s answer to Baruch Goldstein, Timothy McVeigh, Seung Hui Cho, and the Unabomber. Coming generations will view him as a hero and a traitor whose intelligence is matched only by his stupidity.

The correct response of those on the right, whom he in no way represents anyway, is to say that we utterly condemn him and totally understand him, pray that this never happens again, and arm for the coming civil war. In the long term we may well find that his actions discredit the right forever whilst forcing its ideas into the mainstream.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 27, 2011 01:12 PM | Send