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There's a little piece of Behring Breivik in all of us

Any inference to this man not being one of us, or any distancing we do from him, alleviates us from the responsibility of examining our own inner fears, dark thoughts and screaming consciences.

Dette er en kommentar. Den gir uttrykk for skribentens analyser og meninger.

Dear Morten, Knut, and Ole David,

Thank you for all of your comments to my earlier article. As you may have discovered, I am more comfortable writing in English (I started Norwegian lessons too late in life) but I do understand the written language (bokmål, i hvert fall). So it was quite fine for you to respond in Norwegian, though Ole David, your written English is exemplary!

Morten, I realize the term 'an intolerance of tolerance' is slightly ambiguous; that's what I get for writing at three in the morning. My thinking was that there appears to be a growing intolerance in the political debate toward the tolerant expression of diverse views and voices, whether left, center or right, which do not follow the (reigning) party ideology. I apologize if my words were (or are) vague.

Knut, thank you for your encouragement and taking the time to respond. I believe that what you wrote mirrors my concerns for the Norwegian people . You clearly underscored a number of the issues that I inferred in my article without my naming them. I hope to share some more thoughts about these in the coming days. I look forward to reading more of your thoughts as well.

Ole David (I'm looking forward to reading your new article 'Hva er norsk kultur'), thank you for your keen insights. As a partial response to your thoughts, I have this to leave you with: that Behring Breivik was not incubated in a vaccuum, but within the context of the societal influences he was born into; he is the pure product of a number of the values which many Norwegians hold dear. Behring Breivik is Norwegian born and bred, though one on steroids (both ideologically and literally). Any inference to this man not being one of us, or any distancing we do from him, alleviates us from the responsibility of examining our own inner fears, dark thoughts and screaming consciences. There is a little piece of Behring Breivik in all of us, if I may be so blunt.

And all of us (whether through the collective process of changing or preserving social norms, or those who specifically had the potential of influencing him at some point in his life) are to some degree responsible for who he is. Behring Breivik of course is solely accountable before God for his deplorable actions. I'm not meaning to dump condemnation on specific individuals, but come on! There had to be someone out there who saw some warning signs of what was going on in Behring Breivik's life but failed to step in or respond. Or maybe someone did step in, but the gentleman refused the help. Whatever the case, this situation should pull us tighter together as a nation in the name of corporate responsibility and personal accountability.

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