The Quasi-Breivikian Problem

Fjordman has called Breivik clinically insane.  Robert Spencer describes Breivik's recently published writing as "marginally coherent".  In fact, every time I read Breivik, it seems rather coherent and on point.  He never, to my knowledge, veers off into la-la land with bizarre twists and turns of logic.  Of course, that is one indication of some forms of neurosis, if not psychosis -- that those who suffer from it may obsess in seeming logic over the hobbyhorse of their idée fixe.  No doubt Breivik is to be pronounced psychopathic by virtue of his mass-murderous actions.  However, the ideation he has put to paper (at least what I have read of it) reads unremarkably sane, if rather monomaniacal at times.  (Of course, this is a separate issue from whether one agrees with his obsession.)  I have read plenty of stuff on the Blogosphere over the years that sounds as bad, if not worse.

On reading Breivik's latest missive (he may have written it years ago, but it only recently became available), and particularly with respect to its most important aspect -- his theory about the Counter-Jihad having two "wings" (a "nationalist" wing, and a "liberal" wing), and his self-professed tactic of previously pretending to ally himself with the latter wing in order to arouse the MSM to tar and feather them by association with him -- I find most of it unremarkably logical and cogent, with two exceptions:

1) Breivik thought that, by pretending to ally and associate himself with the "liberal wing" of the Counter-Jihad, this would have the result of handicapping only that liberal wing, while it would have benefited the "nationalist wing".  This is markedly illogical.  As he should have surmised before he ever even tried that tactic, the MSM never cared to distinguish a "liberal wing" from among the Counter-Jihad: The MSM prejudicially and indiscriminately tars and feathers the whole lot as "bigoted", "racist", "extremist", and "far right" -- even when anyone among that whole lot may repeatedly insist that they are not against all Muslims nor even against Islam per se (as Robert Spencer or Daniel Pipes have, over the years -- speaking of "marginally coherent"...).  So even if there are distinct "wings"of the Counter-Jihad, any tactic that would result in handicapping one of those wings -- using the MSM as an unwitting vehicle for that handicapping -- would inexorably handicap the entire Counter-Jihad, including "wings" one is trying to leave unharmed. 

2) Now that Breivik has outed himself as a Fjordman opponent pretending to support Fjordman, one is struck by how strange it is that Breivik cannot see the consanguinity between his own sociopolitical views and those of Fjordman (and no doubt many others of the "liberal wing" -- though Breivik's characterization of this "liberal wing" does in fact fit Robert Spencer).  I have written elsewhere about that consanguinity in previous essays:  

Breivik's Law

Breivik's Law in Action

The Thin Blue Line

I Cheated

The Source of Breivik's Thoughts

 See also my comments on Gates of Vienna (where Fjordman over the years has guest-posted essays) -- particularly this one and this one; as well as here and here.

(Ironically, some Muslim named Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi (who seems, much like Maajid Nawaz and Zuhdi Jasser, to be in the business of passing himself off as an anti-Islamist Moderate) has written in various places (including this comment to a Daniel Pipes essay) approvingly of my analytical observation -- no doubt because he, as a Muslim, is anxious to tar and feather the Counter-Jihad lest it be too... anti-Islam.)

As for Breivik's "wings", I don't necessarily think he's all that off base.  Indeed, over the years, I have seen quite a few civilians and quasi-luminaries promote ideas that are discomfittingly close to Breivik's view.  What is Breivik's view?  In a nutshell (pun intended), he believes that a dastardly and powerful cabal/elite of "multi-culti" "cultural Marxists" are actively destroying the West now (and have been trying apparently for decades).  He doesn't seem to obsess about Jews as being the acutely singular bêtes noires promoting this active destruction of the West -- which a few in the Counter-Jihad seem to do -- but seems to refer to a broader albeit murkily amorphous demographic of Westerners engaged in this grand project of a sui generis sui-genocide and in being thus engaged, principally targeting the white "nordicists" such as himself who would want, and should want (in his view) to fight in defense of this white "nordicist" Europe he apparently believes still exists, or can be rejuvenated through bloody revolution (which would include his one-man commando operation of murdering people, even teenagers, in cold blood for their thought crimes and non-violent activism).

In the comments field of a 2011 Fjordman essay at GOV, I wrote the following adumbration of this notion of "wings" in the Counter-Jihad.  (It was in response to this comment by one "Chechar" -- one of the many civilians of the Counter-Jihad, also including "Zenster", "El Ingles", "Conservative Swede", "Egghead", and others whom I have noticed indulge more or less in a quasi-apocalyptic, quasi-Breivikian anomie).  All that follows is from that comment up to the point of the row of five typographical dagger symbols:

Chechar's post -- to the extent that it accurately portrays what it implies (that a growing intra-AIM sub-movement is afoot guided by the epiphany that Jews are the overarching problem behind the problem of Islam (along with a whole host of related, and not-so-related, problems)) -- points to a major rift developing in the AIM.

Some differences can survive cohesion within an overall unity for a movement; others cannot. This one, it seems to me, cannot but result in a split of the AIM into two camps at odds with each other. The nature of the difference is such that no amount of discussion and debate will heal the rift (even if a few from the one camp -- i.e., who don't agree that Jews are the real problem behind the problem of Islam -- may come to have that epiphany and cross over).

Currently, there seem to be two major groupings in this regard among the AIM:

1) Those who think the West's inability to deal effectively with the problem of Muslims is due to some vast, powerful, and evil conspiracy composed of some cabal

2) Those who disagree with #1, and who think the West's inability is due to factors not conspiratorial and evil.

Those in #2 tend to be subdivided into two loose camps:

a) Those who don't have a clear explanation for why, and how, such a colossal inability manifests itself throughout the West, and when pressed either toss out trite memes about those "damned Leftists" or just vaguely imply that innumerable Western "elites" are doing it for greed or stupidity -- thus variations on the theme expressed classically by Hugh Fitzgerald as the "Esdrujula Explanation" (which, as I have analyzed here, is not really an explanation, but merely a description that sheds little light on the why and the how)

b) Those who have attempted an explanation (so far, I seem to be the only person to have spent time doing this).

Meanwhile,

Those who gravitate to #1, pace Chechar, seem to be subdividing into two groupings mentioned above -- namely:

a) Those who think the vast conspiracy is directed and controlled by Jews (with a little help from their non-Jewish friends, apparently, along with millions of dupes/sheep who don't realize they are being directed and controlled to destroy their own civilization)

b) Those who resist ascribing the evil nexus of the conspiracy to Jews, but still ascribe it to some nefarious Cabal of "Leftists" and/or "cultural Marxists" who are pulling all the geopolitical strings of the world.

It is readily apparent that #1 is a type of thinking ripe for the evolution toward the epiphany of 1a; though that by no means means that all of those who are #1 will make the move. It is likely that many will continue to hold out for a more amorphously diverse cabal on which to pin the Real Problem and Real Evil of which Muslims are being used as pawns.

At any rate, time will tell how big the rift will be (i.e., how large the numbers of those who fit #1a will become).

† † † † †

I'll give myself the last word on this, quoting myself from another comment I wrote on that same Gates of Vienna thread:

All this morphing -- upwards, sideways, upside-down -- of the problem into other issues of grandly existential dangers which may or may not be worthy of concern is what I object to. It's distracting us from this particular problem; and it inevitably gets vague and needlessly complex and amorphous.

My position on this may be plotted somewhere between the PC MC stance that considers anti-terrorism a sort of delimited police action having nothing to do with Islam per se; and between the apocalyptic alarms of the likes of many on this thread as elsewhere. It's like a house is beginning to burn, and instead of a rational team of firefighters marshalled, a whole gaggle of different groups from town insist on bringing all various trains of their tangentially related claptrap and hobbyhorses they've been raising at town meetings for years to the scene in order to solve the "real" problem behind, beside, or beneath the burning house. And, of course, on the other side of this Problem of the Problem, we have an inept team of official firefighters (our various representatives and journalists in the West) who can't even do their job of noticing a burning house, and then trying to save it.

P.S.:  On Fjordman's asymptotic tendency (see my comments in the thread there, especially the last one).  It's interesting that Fjordman would write so virulently and vividly about how cultural Marxists are destroying the West now, but would tend to hedge his bets ever so gingerly when it comes to Muslims.  That seems to be indicative of the "Real-Problemers" (i.e., those who think the "real problem" is not Islam, but some nefarious dastardly cabal of evil Westerners).

Post-Post-Script:  In researching today's post, I stumbled upon a few of my comments (don't forget to click on page 2 when you get done with page 1 there) I lodged way back in the summer of 2011 on a discussion forum I had hoped would have stimulating conversations (one SciForums.org), but which proved, yet again, to be rife with PC MC -- not only among its main active members, but also by its owner, who after a while had enough of my incorrect rationality and banned me.  I was pleasantly reminded of my efforts at marshalling, yet again, articulations of the Problem of the Problem, even if it evidently fell on deaf ears at the time.

Post-Post-Post-Script:  Another comments thread -- this time from Jihad Watch approximately two years ago -- in which I voluminously articulate issues revolving around this (as well as the less directly related sub-topic of the irrational animus commenter "Kinana of Khaybar" had against me), I have cut and pasted over in my Resource for the Hesperado sister blog (in case Spencer sees fit some day to delete my comments there, which would tend to reflect poorly on his attempt to exploit Fjordman's inept (or disiingenuous) analysis of Breivik)  In this comments thread, I was "LemonLime".

Post-Post-Post-Post-Script: From the comments thread mentioned directly above, I articulated the overall problem in one comment well enough that it deserves a reproduction here (everything that follows is from that comment, whose final paragraph I just tweaked):

“A mass murderer of children in the West is labeled criminally insane, but in dar-el-Islam he would be a hero, provided the victims were living in dar-el-Harb. If they had been Israelis, Ramallah would soon have a Breivik Street.”

In fact, the children (really mostly young adults) on the Utoya island in Norway whom Breivik mass-murdered in calmly collected cold blood were participants in a project of, among other things, Leftist “dialogue” with youth members of Fatah where the latter actually lived on the island and held seminars with the Leftists who created the project, and who doubtless were anti-Israel. Breivik planned his massacre long in advance and obviously chose his target on purpose: He massacred the very same Leftists who — according to people like Lawrence Auster, Fjordman, El Ingles, Baron Bodissey, David Horowitz, Jamie Glazov, Robert Spencer, Pam Geller, and quite a few others — are at best undermining the West in the face of its worst enemy; and at worst are actively, through their Leftist multiculturalism, trying to destroy the West.

This Leftist project on the island of Utoya described its embrace of Fatah Youth:

“Fatah Youth has participated for almost 15 years in the same summer camp and our youth has benefited by learning and sharing experiences on democracy and advocacy for peace and justice.”

The ability to make distinctions — to notice them and articulate them — is the hallmark of Reason. This ability becomes particularly important when it is assailed, or tempted, by concerns to subvert it in the name of simplistic anxieties which, though perhaps motivated by the good intentions of protecting a good principle, end up betraying it.

The distinction being botched by certain individuals within the ragged and porous edges of the Anti-Islam Movement who over-simplify Breivik is that between

1) the Fascist supporter of Islamic jihad (whether that Fascist is “Leftist” or “ultra-right”)
and

2) a new type which has evolved and which political science behooves us to recognize in its singularity: the seemingly ultra-right Fascist opponent of Islamic jihad.

What distinguishes the type in #2 are the following:

a) an opposition to Islam

b) a belief that behind the danger of Islam, there looms a larger, more insidious and ultimately more evil danger — that of “Leftism” and/or some Leftist cabal that is pulling all the strings of a globalist New World Order that is inimical to all that is good for the West

c) closely related to b), a belief in some kind of “Traditional West” that is being destroyed by “Leftists” (and/or some Leftist cabal) and which has to be revived in order to survive

d) a belief that the revival of the “Traditional West” — beset both by Muslims and by “Leftists” (and/or some Leftist cabal) — is currently a dire emergency that requires opposing force in the form of physical violence

e) a belief that most if not all Western governments and political and media and academic elites are controlled by the “Leftists” (and/or some Leftist cabal) and that therefore the West’s emergency survival — and revival — cannot depend on them, but in fact has to fight against them, not only with words but with physical force that perforce must take on the form of a nascent and growing pan-Western insurrection: nothing short of a civil war throughout the West.

Now, this new type of anti-Islamic Fascist is not merely the creation of my imagination: I have noticed in the Blogosphere quite a few who fit a)-e) — subdivided into those who boldly avow it, and those who shrink back from the logical implications and conclusions their fevered language otherwise compel. Related to this latter subdivision are those within the ragged and porous edges of the Anti-Islam Movement who are not even “seemingly” ultra-right, much less Fascist — but who, nevertheless, have been sounding the emergency alarm upon which individuals identified by the former subdivision feed in order to give credence and cogency to their radical solution.

Breivik simply took the logic of this new type to its concrete conclusion; and it is simplistic and misleading, if not blatantly inaccurate, to describe Breivik as a supporter of Islamic jihad. What he recognized was that “we have to become like them” in order to defeat them, where — unlike those who glibly misuse this phrase in order to supposedly oppose its principle even where it does not pertain — he really meant it in the grimmest sense; but like those who glibly and anxiously try to distance their fevered rhetoric (about the West's "destruction" at the hands of evil Leftists) from Breivik, he meant by "them" not principally Islamists, but rather evil fellow Westerners.