The dark extremism of the ‘extremely online’

The killing of 49 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, was a very modern massacre. Pacing through the Mosque, the terrorist live-streamed his killings in the style of Call of Duty, with a head-mounted camera that allowed his viewers to see the world from his deranged point of view.

The terrorist was the most loathsome kind of attention seeker, and to give him attention is thus to encourage other pathologically pretentious men to ape his crimes. Still, there are aspects of this attack that should be noted.

Whenever a shocking massacre happens, we see different yet similar responses from the left and right. When a jihadi is the perpetrator, lefties tend to brand them as exceptional, unrepresentative psychos, and even dwell on the ‘root causes’ of their murderousness, while conservatives blame their hostile ideology. When a fascist is the perpetrator conservatives tend to brand them as exceptional, unrepresentative psychos, and even dwell on the ‘root causes’ of their murderousness, while leftists blame their hostile ideology.