Tuesday, November 27, 2012

No One Expects The Norwegian Inquisition!

Torquemada: The Spanish Inquisition

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer sends his analysis of a minor controversy that has been raging within Norwegian academic circles for the past few days. As he says, “It paints a very clear picture of the political climate in Norway at the moment.”

The issue involves a Norwegian writer who had the misfortune to be approved of by Gates of Vienna. Two of his recent articles were translated and posted here, and this innocuous circumstance has put his career in jeopardy. He wrote us yesterday morning and asked that we take down his texts (for copyright reasons). I promptly complied.

This is not the first time that something like this has happened since the Butcher of Utøya did his grisly work on July 22, 2011. To have one’s writings approved by Gates of Vienna can be a death-knell for the career of a Norwegian academic. We are considered, as the Observer puts it, “virtual toxic plutonium” by the elites who run Norway. Our approval gives off a deadly radiation that any Norwegian academic will quite understandably want to avoid.

The calculus that drives these intellectual Inquisitions is strange, when you think about it. The logic runs something like this:

1. Anders Behring Breivik liked Fjordman’s essays.
2. Fjordman published his essays at Gates of Vienna.
3. Therefore Gates of Vienna is a dangerous, extremist website to be shunned by all right-thinking people.

And the corollary, which brought on the present controversy:

4. The writings of Dr. X were translated and posted at Gates of Vienna, which praised them.
5. Therefore Dr. X is a dangerous, extremist author to be shunned by all respectable institutions and publications in Norway.

Yet this same logic could be extended much further. Let’s follow a different sequence of corollary statements:

4. Baron Bodissey administers Gates of Vienna.
5. Baron Bodissey admires and publicly praises the singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen.
6. Therefore Leonard Cohen is a dangerous, extremist performer whose music should be shunned by all right-thinking people.

This level of absurdity will obviously never hold sway, a fact which highlights the double standard described below by The Observer. Anyone who expresses an incorrect opinion risks being lumped with Breivik through guilt-by-association, no matter how many tenuous degrees of connection have to be devised to achieve this purpose. If you live in Norway and hold an opinion that diverges even slightly from the Progressive Multicultural consensus, the Powers That Be are just waiting for you to put a foot wrong, after which you will experience that bowel-loosening moment when they pounce on you.

It’s a very effective means of squelching dissent and keeping would-be independent thinkers inside a constantly shrinking perimeter fence.

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Here’s what The Observer has to say about the Norwegian Inquisition:

The controversy involving the translation and publication of Alse Toje’s two articles on Gates of Vienna is interesting for a variety of reasons, and I intend to highlight a few of them.

I first became aware of the ‘controversy’ when I logged on to Fjordman’s Twitter page yesterday evening. Apparently another Twitter user, Sigve Indregard (co-author of the very dishonest book Motgift — “Antidote”) had caught wind that someone had translated two of Toje’s articles into English and posted them at GoV. Several other Norwegian Twitter users, whom I would describe as academics, followed suit and demanded that the author explain whether he had given his consent to the translation and the subsequent publication of his article on GoV.

The tweets were nothing but poorly disguised threats in which they, the inquisitors — without outright coming out and saying so — made it abundantly clear that they would instigate a smear campaign against Toje if he didn’t publicly distance himself from GoV and denounce the publication of his articles on said website.

Shortly thereafter Toje tweeted that several of Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s allies (one of the two articles dealt with Thomas Hylland Eriksen) had already started ‘hitling’ him, basically meaning that they had started using guilt-by-association techniques to smear him. Gates of Vienna is considered virtual toxic plutonium by the political correct elites in Norway following the events of July 22, 2011. For the author, an academic, to be associated with Gates of Vienna would be a very unwise career move.

There was actually an article in a Norwegian paper a few years ago which highlighted Toje’s difficulties in finding employment in Norway despite the fact that his credentials were a couple of notches above that of the average Norwegian academic. The reason for his difficulties was the simple fact that he had done some work for the FrP (Fremskrittspartiet, the Progress Party) and hence had become unpalatable for the politically correct academic establishment in the country.

The PC establishment in Norway is almost Stalinist in nature. One only needs to take a look at the Norwegian TV documentary Brainwash to find out that this is not an exaggeration. Most academics are based in Oslo, which is a tiny little city by international standards. Oslo is also a place where everybody knows everybody in academia. Step out of line in there or utter unacceptable truths, and the smear machinery of the elites will come down on you with full force.

Another thing which I find interesting is the double standard employed by the academics involved in this incident. Unbeknownst to him, Toje’s articles were republished in translation at GoV, but unlike Fjordman, who was virtually crucified when it was uncovered that the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik had republished several of his essays in his twisted manifesto, the Grand Inquisitor in the shape of the self-righteous Sigve Indregard and his inner circle of Twitter goons forgave Toje after Toje made it abundantly clear that he had nothing to do with the translations, or GoV in general for that matter.

It’s worth noting that Indregard & Co. belong to the elites that crucified Fjordman after the July 22 massacres. One could of course ask the obvious question, which is: Why didn’t they extend the same privilege to Fjordman? Wasn’t Fjordman also unwittingly ensnared? Breivik didn’t ask for his permission to republish his texts, so why was he vilified for it? Indregard & Co. are oblivious to their own double standard, which is not a surprise when it comes to Norwegian left-wing academics.

It was not my intention to get Toje in trouble when I translated his articles. I translated them because I thought they were of a high quality and I honestly believed that English speaking readers should be given the opportunity to read them. I guess I underestimated the power of guilt-by-association which exists in Norway, and the very strong need for the politically correct elites to crucify those that don’t agree with them. Toje will be OK, as he has now publicly distanced himself from GoV and made it blatantly clear that he doesn’t espouse the views of GoV, which he is of course more than entitled to do.

With this controversy out of the way, equilibrium has been reestablished in the tiny little duck pond that is Norwegian academia, where everybody quacks in tune and where nobody is allowed to rock the boat.

22 comments:

john in cheshire said...

Norway appears to be very sick country.

Zaba said...

Well Baron, isn't it time for you to post an e-mail list of those Norwegians who would love to receive copies of your blog articles (or perhaps any of the many excellent pro freedom bloggers)?

Anonymous said...

Turn it in to a weapon again them self.

Start quote those high and mighty a**holes when you can get it into context :)

Anonymous said...

Yes, just start publishing articles by the multiculti loons and they will be hauled before the tribunal of justice or whatever.

Anonymous said...

Norway's gradual transformation from a free, independent and democratic nation to a police state is not unusual in 21st century Europe.

The ideas of the French Revolution have finally found a home all over the continent and in the British Isles as well. The witch-hunt is increasing in severity. In 2006 Dr Frank Ellis lost his post a Leeds University for daring to suggest that not all races share the iq levels of Europeans, the Japanese and Chinese. Now Tommy Robinson is in prison for opposing islamification and the spread of sharia law here.

I am sure that any academic in Britain who openly posted an article on this website would be ostracised by his colleagues and would probably lose his post also.

What we are now seeing in the hitherto white world is the clash of civic nationalism ( a product of the French Revolution which influenced the American Revolution and later all Marxist revolutions ) and ethnocentric nationalism which was deemed taboo after Hitler took it to ludicrous extremes. He stood up against communism but in such a stupid way that he ultimately allowed Marxism to triumph.

Those white countries which were the first to take up civic nationalism are about to become its first victims. Both France and the US will probably lose their European majorities by the middle of the century.

There is no talk of civic nationalism of course in the likes of China, Japan, India or black Africa.

The rest of Europe will follow unless there are moves to arrest this inane left-wing idea. Civic nationalism was ok once it involved mostly peoples of the same race, religion and culture but once it was opened up to the whole world it became inevitable in view of overbreeding in the third world that the cuckoo would push the host bird out of the nest.

However, I sense that Europeans have finally woken up to what is their fate i.e. their racial and cultural and religious suicide. But still the Left are trying to keep them down. We are at four o'clock in the morning, we are lying awake worried and depressed. But in a few hours the dawn will arrive and the Marxists and Robespierre's reign of terror will be brought to an end.

How this will happen is difficult to determine. In the case of the US it will probably be violent and bloody. As for emasculated Europe the jury is out. Are there any Norwegians and Swedes capable of putting up a fight against this tyranny? The Norwegian resistance did a good job in World War 2 but relied on help from Britain. Most English seem as terrified of rocking the boat as their Scandinavian cousins. Sad when you think that it was the democratic spirit of the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings which gave democracy to the once free world.

Thom Jefferson said...

Right now a group in the UK "Common Purpose" is getting a great deal of uncomfortable attention. This was after one of their "Graduates" took away some foster children. From a good home for their political affiliation.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100191674/murdoch-jews-lizards-lefties-and-leveson-the-spread-of-british-conspiracy-politics/

Anonymous said...

First they came for Fjordman...


EV

Anonymous said...

While Norway is unusual in its degree of Gramscian fascism, among academics such attitudes are common throughout the West. Other than Ellis, examples of academic "Purity of the Doctrine" persecutions that come readily to mind are of J. Philippe Rushton in Canada, Linda Gottfredson in the U.S. and Satoshi Kanazawa in the UK. And these are just the egregious cases. For the thousands of others who have not been shoved into the pyre of public condemnation and persecution, the means of control is to throttle their career via denial of tenure, relegation to small out-of-sight-colleges etc.
Takuan Seiyo

Crille said...

I just want to inform you that we have the same debate climate here in Sweden. Whenever someone wants to stigmatize another person who dares to hold another opinion as regards the immigration policy, that other person is frequently liked to Anders Behring Breivik.

And whenever a person in a debate feels somewhat defensive, he or she always uses Breivik to stigmatize the other person. It has become a venom in the Swedish society.

Anonymous said...

Thomas Hylland Eriksen started character assasinating again? This is rich! The very professor T. H. Eriksen was himself given some moral blame for turning Breivik into a spree killer days ago. The accuser was an Iranian immigrant, no less.

The Observer can probably fill in the details, from Aftenposten and/or Document.no.

Anonymous said...

He's just lucky they didn't put him in ... the comfy chair!

dymphna said...

Breivik is obviously a powerful icon. He's replaced Hitler as the go-to-demon when lazy thinkers want to condemn another's beliefs.

Breivik is the sum of all Norwegian fears about the underbelly of their nice, nice culture. Even more so than most multi cultis Norwegians choose to remain naively AND DELIBERATELY ignorant about the pernicious effects of their severe repression on vulnerable individuals. The ones that crack under presssure - Breivik being the most infamous - scare the Norwegians silly because they can't be predicted ahead of time. As I've said before, a growth industry in Norway these days must be forensic child psychiatrists whose job it is to cull the herd of small boys, searching ahead of time for possible future Breiviks. Not to mention the growing need for child psychiatric hospitals for the 6 and 7 year-old suspects.

Because of its characterological strictures, Norway is helpless in the face of its obsessive need to maintain this multiculit farce. The sane ones flee the lunatic asylum that is Norway, while visitors to that sad country often come away remarking on the child-like nature of the people they meet there.

As I told Fjordman when I begged him not to cooperate with the police (who ended up stealing his stuff) - under the heel of tyranny one has only three choices:

(i) to flee;
(ii) to lie - i.e., to go along with program even though you despise it;
(iii) to become a doormat lacking character or integrity.

There *are* rare souls who stay and speak out but they are marginalized and shunned. I admire them for their courage. Those precious few are NOT childlike.

Sol Ta Triane said...

I would add that Toje is being punished for aiding and abetting the enemy (of the totalitarian left), to instill the fear that, in the future, he should take care to only to write pieces that would more distinctly fall within the accepted mannerisms of the current lefto-facist circle.

Mr. Toje simply went too far in his writing, and this straying cannot be allowed.

Fortunately, for Toje, the cult allows absolution by (moronic) acts that reconfirm obedience to the cult. Sermonizing or a shaking of the finger at greater demons, like a GOV, will suffice.

Keep up the translations, GOV, Observer. It's obviously working.

Anonymous said...

I have a suggestion for how to deal with this. Please have Indregard's articles translated and posted on this site. Do the same for all the other bullying tyrants who destroy other people's careers just because they don't like their opinions.
How unpleasant and fascist Norway has become!

Melvin Muskrat said...

I think Anonymous' idea has merit. Nothing too long though. Some GoV readers might become nauseous. Perhaps an opuscule or two.

Anonymous said...

It should be remembered that major Norwegian leaders, current and past Prime Ministers, were earlier in their career chiefs of Socialist Youth International. SYI was founded in 1907 by Karl Liebknecht, leader of the German Communist Party. Once this line to the top of Norway's ruling elite is noted, the communist duckspeak and repression become easier to understand.
It should also be remembered that Hitler was radicalized by... Karl Liebknecht (and company). Whatever Shicklgruber was before, it was the communist uprisings in Berlin and Munich that caused him to flip out. It would become a part of his dolchstoss "stab in the back" theory.
The more Norway persecutes its sane, truthful critics, the more it will grow not only one-off psycho cases like Breivik, but organized Nazis.
Takuan Seiyo

Anonymous said...

I think the best syllogism in these circumstances is:

A. Hitler killed 6 million people
B. Hitler advocated vegetarianism and tee-totalism
C. Therefore eating vegetables and drinking water causes genocide

Anonymous said...

As to using the inquisitors' own words against them; it can be tricky to sense the tenor of prof. T. H. Eriksen's writings at a glance. Just publishing his screeds in full won't do.

I think some extracts from televised debates that he has participated in would be pure gold. Maybe the people at www.rights.no can provide some clues...

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:23 AM

If Hitler killed only 6 million poeople, I'd be inclined to give a pass to Norwegian grandees who do everything they can to bring us another Hitler and are too blind and stupid to see it. But Hitler killed 65 million people, of whom only 25 were military casualties.
Takuan Seiyo

Anonymous said...

When it comes to PC inquisition Norway is still Swedens little brother. MSM and academia are totally in control of the cultural marxists and left wing liberals here. Even the chief editor of Axess Magazine (supposedly conservative) have been pushed to endorse open borders after the Breivik massacre last year. Swedes moving to Norway report of a less oppressiv mental climate. In Sweden the democratic opposition -the Sweden Democrats - are constantly likened to nazis, rasists ans fascists in MSM. Last week Jimmie Åkesson (party leader) were cartooned as a cockroach (to be exterminated) in a socialist daily.
Members of Swedendemocrats continually get harassed, threatened and beaten up with no reaction from MSM. Looks like the Nordic light is turning again into the Nordic darkness.

/Benge

Fr. John+ said...

"Norway's gradual transformation from a free, independent and democratic nation to a police state is not unusual in 21st century Europe."

It's more than just that. It's also the Scandic conformist culture, known by the term 'Jante Law'- do a google search on it.

So pervasive, so evil is this racial/cultural conformist trait in Nordic Culture, that American evangelicals are writing about it, seeking ways to use the liberating truths of the Gospel, to 'free' people from this tyranny of the mind!

As a cleric, and an academic (with a doctorate), I find it indicative that this Jante Law attitude is actually the barometer of how inbred, naive, and 'hickish' Scandinavian society is, when compared (say) to the French or the English, before the PC Police started enacting their Bolshevism in these lands.

How recent surveys that consider Sweden, Norway, or Finland to be 'top of the list' countries, with this infantile racial/cultural variant of their own Quisling fascism, is beyond me. I'd gladly trade some 'security' for a little more 'Lebensraum' of the Mind.

Fr. John+ said...

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It helped me finish an article I had started writing months ago.

http://thewhitechrist.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/jante-law-explains-everything/