Monday Morning Crisis Quarterback

For the last six days, the man responsible for the bombing and mass shooting that killed 77 people in Norway last July has been testifying at his trial. He admits that he was the person who carried out the attacks -- there is no question or controversy about that. This trial is being held to determine whether what he did was a crime and, if so, whether he was sane at the time he committed it.

The shooter's view is that this was not a crime. He has an elaborate and fairly paranoid political ideology which, he believes, justifies the attacks as part of a war against Muslims and multiculturalism. Since he was defending his people, he claims, this was not a crime. As far as I can tell, no one expects this argument to win the case.

The question of whether he is -- or was at the time of the attack -- sane is somewhat more complicated. There are two psychiatric reports in play. One says that the shooter has paranoid schizophrenia and was unaware of reality when he committed the crime. The other says that he is a narcissist, but he knew what he was doing and is responsible for his actions. The shooter, for his part, says he is sane.

This case points out some of the big problems with legal discussions of sanity. "Insanity" is a legal term, not a medical or psychiatric one. There are millions of people in the world at this very moment who have a disorder that is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) right along with paranoid schizophrenia, and they are legally sane. That is, they know right from wrong and can appreciate the consequences of their actions. In fact, there are millions of legally sane people with paranoid schizophrenia.

In fact, one of the mental disorders listed in the DSM is narcissistic personality disorder. In other words, both psychiatrists who have evaluated this man think he has a disorder. What they disagree about is which one, what type (personality disorders are considered to be in a different group or "Axis" from other mental disorders) and whether it impacted his ability to know right from wrong. (In another high profile case, the man who kidnapped and repeatedly raped Elizabeth Smart was found legally sane in part on the basis of a report that said he had narcissistic personality disorder as well.)

On an intuitive level, most of us have a sense that you can't be all there and do what this man did. You'd have to be "sick" or "crazy." But those aren't medical terms either. And obviously your view of right and wrong has to be pretty messed up to think this is OK. But most people who commit murder are legally sane, and most legally insane people don't commit murder.

Where is the line between wrong or bad or evil and insane? Where do messed up values and priorities cross the line into not responsible for your actions? I think that's a question that doesn't have an answer. We have legal standards, and we hope we'll know the difference when we see it.

In my next post, I'll take a look at the impact of the trial on the families of those who died. Stay tuned.

As you almost certainly know, last Friday a massive explosion rocked Oslo, Norway. Shortly thereafter, a gunman opened fire at a camp run by the Labour Party on a nearby island. In all, 76 people were killed and many more injured. Many of the victims were children.

For a brief time on Friday, it was reported that a previously unknown radical Islamist group had taken responsibility for the attacks. The stories in the mainstream media generally represented two different views of this (we now know incorrect) fact.

View 1 was that this showed how dangerous Muslims in Europe are. View 2 was that this was a case of a small minority of Muslims twisting the religion to suit their own purposes and beliefs, and should not be viewed as typical of all Muslims or the religion itself.

Soon it came out that, in fact, the perpetrator in these attacks was a Norwegian citizen upset over immigration and multiculturalism. Two views quickly emerged about this as well. View 1 holds that this is the inevitable result of dangerous rhetoric on the part of conservatives. View 2 holds that this man is clearly mentally ill, and his actions should not be held against an entire political ideology.

There are certainly parallels between these two sets of views. Either the person responsible is representative of their group or they are the exception but not the rule. But there is one notable difference -- in the first scenario, neither view considers mental illness to be a factor.

What is going on here, in both scenarios, is people's attempt to distance themselves from those responsible. They are not like us. They are other. They are different. That means that we are not at risk of becoming like them, and we are less vulnerable to them because their difference may be easy to detect. In the first scenario, the difference in question is one of religion. American mainstream media is largely a Judeo-Christian business. From that perspective, Muslims, whether a handful of radicals or an entire religion, are not "us."

Once it was clear that the perpetrator was European, however, we regrouped. For those on the political left, it was easy to point to him as being on the political right. For those on the right, however, "othering" him was more difficult. He must be mentally ill.

I actually think that this perpetrator probably is mentally ill. Whether that is the whole story or political ideology also plays a part is open for debate. What is interesting to me, though, is that we tend not to consider that suicide bombers from Al-Qaeda, or Osama Bin Laden, or anyone in that general category may be mentally ill. Some of that is racism. Some of it is the ease of separating ourselves from them if we are not Muslim ourselves.

But if you consider it, the narrative of the Oslo massacre probably should be that these attacks were carried out by a deranged person or persons. What religion or ethnic group they are from is not, from that perspective, all that important.