The prosecution in the Breivik case announced yesterday that they would seek an insanity verdict. Apparently, there were two psychiatric evaluations of the mass killer which contradicted each other, and the prosecutors decided to side with the one pronouncing him insane. There seems to be a circular logic at work here. Why did Breivik commit his egregious crime? Because he is insane. And why is he insane? Because he committed that egregious crime.
Breivik strikes me, from the screen at least, as fairly “neurotypical,” maybe just a tad more delusional than, say, investors in funky derivatives; and this is what makes him so scary. But, as I noted earlier, the left hemisphere of the brain can rationalize away almost any incongruity. And speaking of that, Norway is the proud home of a cash prize for the promotion of world piece given out from the estate of a guy who patented a powerful explosive.
