Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Banality seems Apt

I feel a kind of awful mix of sorrow and anger about the loss of human life brought about by Anders Behring Breivik. What he committed was a senseless act of horrific murder, and while the loss of life is especially tragic, the sheer turgid nonsense we're given as his "reason" for it is maddening. 

We are presented with derivative drivel that cons from right-wing bloggers and even the Unabomber. This self-proclaimed Christian seems to believe that western civilization was under threat from multiculturalism and considered himself a kind of modern-day Crusader.  How thoroughgoingly boring. He planned out a sprawling declaration of his beliefs, and most of it was just borrowed tat.  He sets out to strike a blow against the threat to civilization as he saw it--

By opening fire on unarmed Norwegian teenagers.  How uniquely disgusting and cowardly. 

Civilization, if it has any meaning at all, is that thing where you don't open fire on a bunch of unarmed teenagers. If there are any things of value that our civilization should encourage--it should be reason and independent thought, civil discourse, and not killing masses of people who hadn't done anything wrong.

I won't speculate about his sanity or presume to understand the totality of the thought processes of a wholesale murderer, but I can only leave off a little wordless and disturbed that I have read commentary these past few days along the lines of.... "but he had a few good points, there."

The only word I have to answer that with is, "No." Not now. What the fuck is wrong with people?

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