[dudul]

Not sure I see the "mental gymnastics" here. Isn't it a usually accepted thing that young children have no clue? It makes "sense" (at least in the scope of Breivik's craziness) to consider that these kids were "victims" brought there by their parents or something.

Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by "mental gymnastics". I think this expression usually applies when 2 contradicting /paradoxical statements are made in the same sentence.

[neither_color]

He was attacking a youth camp and shot many young teens(I didn’t read every slide but one example I saw was a 14 YO girl hit four times) so I don’t see a difference. I guess I’m just shocked at seeing a weird attempt at “ethics” from someone who would do something like that.

[magicalhippo]

What he did was horrible and evil, but it was also extremely calculated and carefully planned. He knew full well what he did.

For example, he researched which drugs he could take that would make it easier for him to shoot the kids[1].

He was not insane. He wasn't on a wild rampage. He had a specific goal in mind: to destroy the future of the labour party.

[1]: https://www.aftenposten.no/norge/i/QJRjP/behring-breivik-var...

[meowface]

Breivik likely saw himself as a very ethical and virtuous individuals. His reasoning there doesn't surprise me.

He and some other mass killers may even feel as though they have a stronger personal code of ethics than most people. Their ethical philosophies and stances are just unfathomably twisted and corrupted, not unlike how cancer cells behave as if they're functioning rightfully.

[mensetmanusman]

In the ethics of evil, one can see that even evil acts are done for some false sense of ‘good’ by the doer.

[GoblinSlayer]

He believes it's wrong to kill children, not teens. The age of 12 is approximately when people go from childhood to adolescence.

[ceejayoz]

Might be that he killed 33 children that day.

[roel_v]

I'm obviously not defending him, but those were 16-18 year olds who were already party members.

My point is: it's easy to find flaws in the reasoning of extremists, and use that to show how "crazy" and "illogical" and "insane" they are, and thereby distance ourselves (mentally) far from them. What we need to do however is face the much more scary truth that even the people who commit atrocities are for the most part reasonable and (somewhat) intelligent people, with some sort of roots in "normal" society, who for some reason just get one idea in their head very strongly (and act on it), and this can happen to many (I won't say "all", but I would say "most") people.

This sort of cases is not about isolated loners that we cannot possibly understand; freaks of nature who are not like the rest of us "normal" people. They can show up anywhere for reasons and through processes we just don't quite understand. But we have to not delude ourselves and see them as an "out group" - radicalization can happen to many people you would bump into in your street, every day.

[ceejayoz]

Two 14 year olds, seven 15 year olds, eight 16 year olds, sixteen 17 year olds. I wasn't counting folks eighteen and over.

He killed 33 children.

[roel_v]

OK, 33 14-17 years olds who were already party members then... That doesn't materially change the point I made.

[handrous]

I'd lay off. You seem to be walking onto "no, the 9/11 hijackers must have been cowards, and if you suggest that maybe cowardice wasn't high on the list of their faults, you're a monster" ground. Being correct within the limited context of what's at question isn't important to a lot of people, in these kinds of conversations. They find it hard to divorce that from the rest of what happened.

[jacquesm]

The point you made seems to be remarkably overlapping with that it is ok to shoot children that are members of some political party, which I hope was not what you intended.

You're 'obviously not defending the guy' with words that are pretty close to if not already across that border. When you step into the breach for some monster weigh your words a bit more carefully please.

[roel_v]

How can you construe anything I said as defending anything? I was super careful not to do so, my point wasn't even about this particular shooting at all. At some point, when writing or saying anything, you have to rely on the person reading or hearing you to have some baseline of capacity or willingness to understand, which in this case I can only assume you do not have, if you insist (or even imply) that I am somehow "defending" this shooting (or any ideology that led up to it). In fact, it seems that your reaction is exactly what I warn against in the actual point I was trying to make.

[bitcurious]

Historically 14 year olds were considered adults, though young. Look at the very many rites of manhood for an context - they used to mean something. Although not aligned with the contemporary definitions of child/adult, it’s not far fetched that a radical right-wing extremist would look to the past for his definitions, and thus see a difference between a 10 year old and a 14 year old.