Anders Behring Breivik: Mad or Bad?

The trial of Anders Behring Breivik in Oslo is the topic of much controversy in the news at the moment.  The trial doesn't necessarily concern whether or not he committed the acts of 22 July 2011 - he openly admits that he did kill 77 victims people and injury over 150 more in Oslo and Utoya and even said he would do it again - the key question for the trial to answer is about his mental state at the time of the attacks.  Was he mad, or just plain bad?

Breivik claims he committed the killings last year as a preemptive attack to halt the spread of Islam across "his" Norway and the rest of Europe.  He has ties with the far-right English Defence League (who, for the record, I won't give much air time to on this page), and, during his hour-long hate speech on the second day of his trial, described Norway as a "multiculturalist hell".

Anyway, to the point in hand - is he criminally culpable for his actions?

The first psychiatric evaluation (conducted in late 2011) suggested not.  According the the first report, Breivik acted compulsively, with little affect and a severe lack of empathy.  In addition, his worldview was based around grandiose and bizarre thoughts, bordering on the delusional.

Somehow, the outcome of this first report was a diagnosis of "paranoid schizophrenia".  To me, this seems a little contradictory.  The description above eludes to a man who is, if anything, a narcissistic psychopath.

Now, at this point, I don't want to get too political, but it could be suggested that many members of our political system are narcissistic psychopaths, and indeed some people do make that claim (see Sam Vaknin's YouTube page, for further details).  However, if somebody like Nick Clegg or David Cameron committed a murder, I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't be arguing that they shouldn't be held responsible for their actions.

So what's different about Breivik?

Well, he has commented several times about how he is fighting in a "low intensity civil war" against Islam and multiculturalism in Europe.  The same could be said about the exploits of our friends in the EDL, the British National Party and, to a certain extent, UKIP, who are rather surprisingly gaining political popularity here in Britain.  Granted, his thoughts are expressed in such a way that seem to indicate that he is insane and delusional, but this is often a tactic employed by extremists in order to recruit followers.  The more extreme the language, the more interesting it sounds to potentially vulnerable people, resulting in more 'followers' for the original extremist.

Again, though, this doesn't make him mad.  If anything, it makes him incredibly intelligent.  He spent years planning his attacks, compiled a 3-volume 1500 word long manifesto, and created a whole propaganda campaign to get his message out to the world.  And now he has the whole world watching his trial.

He will inspire far-right sympathisers, and this type of thinking is something that we will need to address in the coming years.

For me, Breivik certainly has a warped view of the world.  He is a narcissist and a psychopath, but he is not insane.

What do you think?  Debate this hotly contested topic using the usual methods - comments below will be much appreciated, but you can also subscribe to this blog on the right-hand side of the page, or follow me on Twitter for more updates.

I hope this has given some food for thought.

All the best,

Craig