Check out this Bloggingheads.tv debate, featuring TAC contributing editor Michael Brendan Dougherty. Michael discusses Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik’s manifesto with the Daily Beast‘s Michelle Goldberg.
Michael Dougherty on the Norwegian Terrorist’s Manifesto
Posted in Announcements, Terrorism.
7 Responses to Michael Dougherty on the Norwegian Terrorist’s Manifesto
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Mortified TAC Staff says:
Fixed — thanks!
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Thomas O. Meehan says:
Suggestion. Try thinking out what you believe before appearing with someone with a clear agenda, someone who makes you appear supine and baffled. If baffled, why not keep it to yourself?
She wants to make the point that people of the right are in some way responsible for the murders in Norway, and she sticks to that. You more or less concede the point. You even fall for the old canard about Fascism = right wing. Not once did you challenge her direction of the interview toward a conservative point of view.
Perhaps when you have lunch with her, you should ask for a job?
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I see that long after the demise of his so-named blog, Michael still finds himself, assuming the here-100% distaff ratio of his Blogginheads interlocutors continues, Surfeited With Dainties.*
*Once his paleocon groupies – and they are of the Daintiest indeed, at least numerically, or so our family-feuding, right-internecine survey said – start to roll in, he may find himself Surfeited With Panties, but I tigress…
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“A lot of it is simply copy and pasted.” Exactly.
Breivik: One of conservatism’s most important insights is that all ideologies are wrong. Ideology takes an intellectual system, a product of one or more philosophers, and says, “This system must be true.” Inevitably, reality ends up contradicting the system, usually on a growing number of points. But the ideology, by its nature, cannot adjust to reality; to do so would be to abandon the system.
William S. Lind: As Russell Kirk wrote, one of conservatism’s most important insights is that all ideologies are wrong. Ideology takes an intellectual system, a product of one or more philosophers, and says, “This system must be true.” Inevitably, reality ends up contradicting the system, usually on a growing number of points. But the ideology, by its nature, cannot adjust to reality; to do so would be to abandon the system.
Breivik: Therefore, reality must be suppressed. If the ideology has power, it uses its power to undertake this suppression. It forbids writing or speaking certain facts. Its goal is to prevent not only expression of thoughts that contradict what “must be true,” but thinking such thoughts. In the end, the result is inevitably the concentration camp, the gulag and the grave.
William S. Lind: Therefore, reality must be suppressed. If the ideology has power, it uses its power to undertake this suppression. It forbids writing or speaking certain facts. Its goal is to prevent not only expression of thoughts that contradict what “must be true,” but thinking such thoughts. In the end, the result is inevitably the concentration camp, the gulag and the grave.
Breivik: But what happens today to Europeans who suggest that there are differences among ethnic groups, or that the traditional social roles of men and women reflect their different natures, or that homosexuality is morally wrong? If they are public figures, they must grovel in the dirt in endless, canting apologies. If they are university students, they face star chamber courts and possible expulsion. If they are employees of private corporations, they may face loss of their jobs. What was their crime? Contradicting the new EUSSR ideology of “Political Correctness.”
William S. Lind: While some Americans have believed in ideologies, America itself never had an official, state ideology – up until now. But what happens today to Americans who suggest that there are differences among ethnic groups, or that the traditional social roles of men and women reflect their different natures, or that homosexuality is morally wrong? If they are public figures, they must grovel in the dirt in endless, canting apologies. If they are university students, they face star chamber courts and possible expulsion. If they are employees of private corporations, they may face loss of their jobs. What was their crime? Contradicting America’s new state ideology of “Political Correctness.”
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eep says:
I found his manifesto. I skimmed it. I hated that he mentioned Serenity. Good movie! He must have some kind of sexual hangups.
I agree he was all obsessed with ideology and he lost his humanity as a result. Instead of looking at what he said maybe it is better to look at his thought process. He could have created a narrative in a number of ways to try and justify his terrorism.
Ian McGilchrist ideas on the left and right hemisphere could explain it. Breivik didn’t have experiences to show that his thinking was crossing a line. He thought in narrow systems, losing his own humanity, and dehumanizing his victims. He filled his head full of crap. It is a shame that he must not have found anything that told him to treat people with respect. Does this mean that left and right ideologies at their core are logical, psychopathic, and self consistent systems?
Ian McGilchrist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbUHxC4wiWk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXiHStLfjP0Ideology in most cases is a gun. It is the character and personality of the user which determines how it is handled. The problem with peaceful Christians is that the Armageddon Lobby is very vocal and powerful. Jack Hunter had a video a while back pointing out the absurdity of pro-life yet pro-war social conservatism of some people in this country.
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Joe the Plutocrat says:
As I noted yesterday; this is “less filling” vs. “tastes great”. It’s “Ginger or Maryanne”? calling Breivik and “anti-jihadist” is at best irony (insert Shakespeare’s “what is in a name?”). Did I just hear the phrase “intellectual infrastructure” within the context of terrorism? Did not Charles Manson believe the Beatles White Album was a call to start a race war?
Er, Danish? Does TAC have some kind of scoop here? Everyone else says he’s Norwegian.