‘Sane’tized insanity

Anders Behring Breivik is sane, a panel of five Norwegian judges has pronounced. I have trouble with that.

It is an article of faith with me that when a human being takes the life of another, it is insanity that rules. I claim that insanity descends on a mind slowly and steadily. It is not like an instantaneous delivery from the “insanity stork”. Before anyone else points out, as a concomitant, I also hold that war is an act of insanity, no matter the events that lead to it.

To justify my position I have to take recourse to the work in progress of the concept of a cultural replicator, the “meme”, a memorable word coined by the redoubtable Richard Dawkins. Meme, as I understand it, goes beyond mere imitation, a cul-de-sac.  It is a replicator that in the main follows the principles of natural selection – reproduction, mutation, and differential survival.  

This second replicator came after the first one, the genetic replicator, had done its work too well to create its own potential Frankenstein monster – the meme which cares for its own survival, even if it be against the interests of its progenitor gene. Of course, if the gene (or, more plausibly, the gene pool that created the meme) becomes extinct, the meme (again, the meme pool) too will go likewise.

The tiger kills the antelope under the influence of its genetic replicator – the gene, being “selfish”, has to survive (I request the reader to understand the word “selfishness” in the context it is said – it is a “compulsion” of the chemical processes leavened by its biological consequences – genotype and phenotype). The tiger brain/mind, we surmise, had not given rise to the cultural replicator, the meme; its brain had just not evolved sufficiently. That is, to put it differently and in the context of the current discussion, the tiger brain is incapable of acting insanely, because it lacks the insanity meme.

The sub-species Homo sapiens sapiens is stuck with this insanity meme. As memes transmit culturally with the attendant increased infidelity as compared to that of the genes, the insanity meme cannot be un-remembered (that is, eradicated from memory of humans; going beyond individuals forgetting) as far as the human gene pool exists. What can at best be done is to promote alternate “sanity” genes in the infected mind. But the condition precedent for this is the acknowledgment that the mind has been infected – that is, Breivik is insane.

Breivik, unfortunately, has been found to be sane and this has been welcomed by the defense lawyers and there is no surprise there. In the absence of death penalty, being found sane confers a legitimacy that is unavailable to the certified insane (Death penalty equalizes the sane and insane, in more ways than one!). As a lawyer you would, I venture to speculate, welcome a sane client more than an insane one.

The decision has been welcomed by Breivik, and as above, there is no surprise here too. Going beyond, the judgment also imbues Breivik’s insane ideas of scare-mongering Islamization of the Norwegian society with sanity (Ask yourself: Can a sane person act sanely on his insane ideas? Or better, can he act insanely on his insane ideas and remain sane?). Consequently, the idea has a strong purchase on society’s thinking and norms. I am afraid of this, more because Norwegian people seem to have welcomed the judgment, which has come down on the side of political terrorism vis-à-vis psychosis.

It might even be that Hitler was sane, but it will indeed be difficult to convince anyone outside of the fringe neo-Nazi groups that he was sane. But Breivik has been found sane. The judgment has ‘sane’tized insanity.

This is dangerous. And, it is for this reason I would have welcomed Breivik to have been adjudged insane.

Raghuram Ekambaram