As we remember, the first time Anders Behring Breivik, – the racist mass murderer from Norway – had his psychological health assessed, the first psychiatrist saw him as a paranoid schizophrenic. It turned out, though, that this diagnosis did not do him real justice.
In the last analysis, it became clear that Breivik’s delusions were not due to a psychiatric illness that only he, personally, was suffering from. This particular madman was involved in an internet subculture where his ideas were widely accepted. Indeed, he seems to have picked up the ideological contagion from there. And psychiatric illness is something personal, not something cultural. If you believe in the kind of superstition that is widespread in your culture, you are not crazy. Quite the opposite – you are probably a well-socialised and sane person.
The sort of hatred, fascism and racist rage that is now running wild all over Europe is of course being propagated by brutal thugs – evil but sane people who aren’t psychotic or schizophrenic, for the most part. They might be scoundrels but they aren’t crazy. That’s at least the first thing we believe about them.
It seems, however, that the story is more complicated. Since blogging became fashionable, every village idiot thinks the world craves to hear their uninformed opinions on everything under the sun. Some of the most shrill bloggers specialise in racist ravings about the ‘flood’ of immigrants, and it is difficult not to ask the question whether they still have any contact with reality, with their minds loaded to the brim with conspiracy theories.
Even those bloggers crazy enough to have been diagnosed with a disorder of the mind are able to recruit supporters and fans from among completely sane people. Most of us are not familiar with psychotic ravings and cannot recognise them as what they are. Delusional madmen believe in their ravings so passionately that they can be very persuasive, and if their delusions are in tune with our own political opinions or prejudices, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. For instance, we might shrug off the most crazy parts of their ravings as rhetoric.
One of our contemporary philosophers said once, while discussing the way the concept of talent has changed over centuries, that in the old days schizophrenia was actually an esteemed kind of talent, because schizophrenic people started religions based on their hallucinations. I am somewhat unhappy with such a cynical idea of religion as a thing, but I guess the man was indeed right to some extent, seeing how paranoid bloggers are able to establish racist political sects these days.
Panu Petteri Höglund is an Irish-language writer from Finland.
