Thursday 28 July 2011

The semiotics (and philosophy) of terror

The last few days I have been blogging and tweeting on the terror in Norway. All in Norwegian.

My writings on this topic includes a 9-page blogpost entitled "Terrorens retorikk: Analyse av Anders Behring Breiviks tenkning, og de siste dagers hendelser" [The rhetorics of terror: Analysis of Anders Behring Breivik's thought, and the last days' incidents], and today's "Fjordman: Jeg utfordrer deg til å møte i åpen debatt" [Fjordman [pseudonym for a right-wing extremist anti-islamist who inspired the terrorist]: I challenge you to face me in an open debate].
Today I was interviewed by the regional daily newspaper Fædrelandsvennen. The title of the story is "- Nå begynner krigen" [ - Now the war begins]. Excerpts:


Tønnessen has background in philosophy, and is a doctoral student in semiotics. Which means the theory of symbols and signs.


- And I think Behring Breivik chose the government block as a bomb target exactly because the destruction here is a strong symbol, says Tønnessen.

I further address the culture of online political debates, among other things.

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Update: My challenge to the anynomous blogger Fjordman is referred to in "Massemorderen hyller anonym norsk blogger" ("The mass murderer praises anynomous Norwegian blogger", written by Gunnar Stavrum), a news story which is at the moment the lead story of Nettavisen, a national Norwegian daily. In the news story I am referred to as "samfunnsdebattant og filosof" (/societal debater/ and philosopher).

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