Who is the typical lone wolf mass murderer/terrorist, what do they have in common, and what drives them to commit these violent acts? This book tries to answer this question by looking into ideology, mental illness, conspiracy theories, social failures, and failures with attracting women. If you would like a deeper understanding of who these people are this book will give you something to think about. 

Angry White Men by Audhild Skoglund. 
Published by Humanist Forlag in 2013. 185 pages.

The book is a study of several known mass killers and explores the factors and reason behind. It´s largely based on an FBI report by Kathleen Puckett, where she studied 10 lone wolf killers. The book also discusses five attackers in depth. The Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh, Anders Behring Breivik, and also two Swedish killers. It turns out that several of known mass murderers and/or terrorists are narcissistic and carry a rage against some form of external enemy, they have paranoia and therefore are not seldom attracted to conspiracy theories. According to the FBI-report a majority of them have tried to connect with extremist groups, but have failed. A lot of them have also failed with women. Both of these facts are often attributed to the general problem they have with forming social bonds. What comes first of ideology or mental issues is difficult to answer. Neither education or socio-economic background seem to be a common denominator.  Some came from failed homes, whereas others had normal upbringing. The majority of the perpetrators have an intelligence of above average. 

The author does mention that right-wing white supremacy groups often have some form of antifeminist attitude. And in that there is a cultural connection. The cultural connection is also important when considering anger against the government, conspiracy theories, racism etc. Most of the lone wolf killers seem to have had problems relating to people in general and especially to women. Many of them carried a resentment, loathing or even hatred towards women. This factor seem to be quite common among most of these types of killers. The last few years this toxic masculinity has been discussed further. I would love to hear what Audhild Skoglund thinks of this debate. She has a small chapter on it, but I’m sure she could elaborate this subject more today. 

The cultural connection to white power groups as well as toxic masculinity is a real scary part. Because it implies that we all are part of our culture and therefore have some form of responsibility in how we shape it. There are lots of people here in Norway who hate immigrants and the politicians from the workers party. The lone wolf that committed the atrocities in Oslo and on Utøya on 22th of july in 2011 is not so lonely after all. 

«Det var vår kultur som gjorde at han ikke følte seg alene da han satte avgårde med en gigantisk bombe og flere skytevåpen for å eliminere forrædere av klasse A, B og C.»
Translates as: “It was our culture that made him feel not alone when he set off with a huge bomb and several guns to eliminate traitors of class A, B, and C.”

The reasons why men much more often become lone wolf attackers than women do is also discussed to some extent. Some of the reasons are that men in general are more violent, men often externalises their anger whereas women focuses more inward, several of the mental issues like paranoia and narcisism is more common among men, and lastly there is also the practical reason that many more men have experience and training with weapons. 

All in all I guess the book paints a nuyanced picture of the angry white men that commit massmurder.

The literature list at the end of the book is extensive. Might pick up a few of the books there. But I must say that seing the manifests of Ted Kazcinski and Anders Behring Breivik as well as their names are a bit weird. I understand why they are there since the author has drawn her material from them, but still. Imagine that these madmen are cited authors…

I would not call this a fun book, but definitely a good read. As the more perceptive of you have noticed, I read the book in Norwegian. The Norwegian crowd can order the book from any of the online book stores we have here.
Why not order it directly from the publisher?

 I have no idea if it is available in English, but if you are interested in reading related literature all you need to do is a quick search on Amazon. 

Rating 4/6
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