Awakening the Reptile Brain

The following op-ed was written by Ole Jørgen Anfindsen, who owns and operates the website Honestthinking.org. Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has kindly provided a translation, and includes this introduction:

Anfindsen’s piece is a response to an op-ed written by Thomas Hylland Eriksen in which Eriksen effectively referred to those who are critical of Norway’s immigration policies as ‘reptile brains’.

Anfindsen is a very knowledgeable and a highly respected writer and thinker. He focuses mainly on subjects such as immigration, genetics and demographic trends. Fjordman actually contributed a chapter to Anfindsen’s book ‘the suicide paradigm’. Anfindsen also testified as an expert witness in the Breivik trial, focusing on the ‘impartiality’ of the SSB (State Statistics Bureau) and different demographic scenarios for Norway.

Needless to say, Anfindsen, like every other outspoken critic of current immigration policies, has been ridiculed and bullied by the Left in the wake of the 22/7 attacks.

For more info about Anfindsen, look here.

The translated op-ed from VG Nett:

The term “siren song” is used to denote something which seems nice and attractive, but which will ultimately end in disaster for the one who gets seduced, writes Ole Jørgen Anfindsen.

We need a lot of luck

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (THE) is preoccupied with what he refers to as the reptile brain’s siren song in his op-ed on June 7.

In it he talks about instincts which make people want to live in societies with individuals similar to themselves. I agree with him that in the most basic human nature are instincts and tendencies which must be kept in check. But at the same time, I believe that social anthropologists and their peers have an unfortunate tendency to underestimate the challenges we face in this field.

Strikes both ways

THE goes to the heart of the problems when he writes:

“There are no valid reasons for allowing one’s actions to be governed by the reptile brain when we have a perfectly good cerebrum at our disposal.”

That is a good statement!

The big question, however, is to what extent a society can accommodate big differences before people’s cerebrums are overpowered by signals from the more primitive nerve centers of the brain

And it’s not just Norwegians who in certain situations may be more influenced by such instincts than what is considered healthy. Immigrants are also equipped with reptile brains, and will when circumstances call for it feel compelled to protect the interests of their people, their clan, their tribe and their ethno-religious group.

THE has apparently not realized that his siren song metaphor can strike both ways. It does not only affect anachronistic immigration opponents who are incapable of accepting that the world is constantly changing. It also affects immigration utopians who refuse to realize that human nature sets limits to what types of society which can function in real life.

Because how is the average Norwegian going to react when it finally dawns upon him or her that people with a different appearance, different mentality, different behavior and with other priorities are going to take over the country?

It is all about integration

This is not about a narrow-minded view that everything Norwegian is eternal and unchangeable (views that Hylland Eriksen mistakenly attributes to me), or that immigrants cannot become Norwegians within a generation or ten (depending on who they are and where they come from).

This is more about society’s ability to integrate those who come here. If integration keeps up with immigration we’ll all be able to relax and rejoice in a dynamic and diverse society. If not, our safe, trust-based and well-functioning society will be destroyed.

According to SSB (Bureau of statistics) ethnic Norwegians will become a minority in this country within 40 to 50 years (I was ridiculed for claiming the exact same thing only seven years ago). SSB also predicts that by the year 2100 there could be more than 12 million people living in Norway.

My position is that we need a lot of luck if this is going to end well. Unfortunately, much of what is Norwegian looks to be swept aside by a demographic tsunami. My hope is that people will wake up before it’s too late, and instead of witnessing the downfall of Norway and Europe we’ll be able to listen to the swan song of the social anthropologists.

9 thoughts on “Awakening the Reptile Brain

  1. As you say, the unnecessary
    demographic tsunami will cancel out
    your desire for luck and any idea that integration may take place. The
    Norwegian people will not experience
    integration, they will be absorbed
    by the incomers. Norway is on target to be the first Islamic European country within 30 years.

  2. Part of the problem for the West is our insistence that the world is simply mind over matter. But when part of that mind, the reptile brain, is repudiated, then Pandora’s Box opens all over again.

    Professor Roth has written in detail and at length about our folly:

    The Perils of Diversity: Immigration and Human Nature

    We have to return to the orignal ideas of universal sufferage and expand them to meet our current circumstances: the privilege of voting must be undergirded by some kind of earned wealth or contribution to the commonweal – resources must be gathered in order to prove one has enough moral substance to be permitted to exercise his/her democratic duty.

    That’s the only way to prevent the perils of a bloated plutocracy. Unless someone else has a suggestion to mend this gaping wound in democracy – the huge hole in the wall that throws voting cards at any and everyone.

    It would still be democratic but the totalitarian democracy founded on noxious utopian principles taken up by Norway and Britain and large parts of the EU would be exposed for what it is.

    Here in the US, our Slave immigrants, hauled over here in a collusion between the feds and private “charities” are used and tossed:

    Virtually every major social problem in the First World today can be traced to the desire for cheap labor. From gang rapes in California to Islamism in London, from suicide bombings in Israel to drug dealing in Sydney, from riots in Paris to honor killings in Sweden, the common element in these social problems is that they are caused by people who were brought in because they were once considered cheap labor. But cheap labor quickly turns out not to be so cheap after all.

    The same big companies that complain about high taxes and socialism, seem to have no understanding whatsoever that when you import hundreds of thousands of immigrants, legal or illegal, they will have to pay the price for them sooner or later. Capitalism may rely on cheap labor, but cheap labor inevitably leads to socialism, because importing a population incapable of caring for itself, will require the government to step in sooner or later.

    It’s All About Cheap Labor and Political Gain

    No one gave you a choice at the grocery store – more expensive food prepared under humane circumstances or the products from Big Food. For that matter, the stores are caught in the loop too.

    Slavery in the US isn’t gone – it has simply gone underground.

    And when it all goes sideways, these people will be left in the middle of the nowheres in flyover country, to fend for themselves. That ought to scare Iowa, et al. It sure does me – I know it goes on in Virginia.

  3. Neither Europe nor Scandinavia will be “destroyed”. Our traditions of free speech, democracy and secularism will force us to fight. The sad paradox is that professor Eriksens ideology will in the end lead to war of the worst kind: the civil war. As stated by Anfindsen, the reptile nature of humanity works both ways and cannot be ignored. It is like we all should try to fight our sexuality, it wont work.

  4. Not sure is it already clear, but Amazon sells interesting book. It is translated into english:

    “But the Greatest of These Is Freedom: The Consequences of Immigration in Europe [Paperback]
    Hege Storhaug (Author)”

  5. I have to disagree with Prof Roth about his assertion that voting rights should only be given to those who have accumulated resources (wealth) and provide the nation with sufficient tax money. This would not include working class folks, presumably, the ones who do most of the donkey work in society. Imagine a domestic worker or street sweeper, who prevent illness through infection by cleaning up after people, who have no way to vote even though the service provided to society is worth far more than overpaid executives, managers and politicians etc put together? This would be a disgraceful state of affairs. A woman who gave up paid work to take care of her family (regardless of class) would not be able to vote under these conditions, even though she is taking care of her family’s(including her husband’s)physical, mental and emotional health and raising the next generation of workers with values and morals. No. I absolutely disagree with this and would only serve to create massive division in society (particularly between the “haves” and “have-nots”) many of which the people would simply not put up with. This scenario could also lead to civil war with a class (and perhaps even, a gender) uprising. Those who say that Britain would work better on traditional values and inequalities are not seeing the bigger picture. By all means prevent the immigrants from voting because they do not have ancestral roots here, but all socio-economic classes and both sexes should have equal access to all the privileges that being a responsible citizen should provide – otherwise, what is the incentive for a man to work hard and a woman to raise a family instead of remaining single, childless and being independent earning her own money. We all make sacrifices somewhere – so should the middle and upper classes and men.

  6. It needs be said that even though Professor Erikson admits to having higher brain function he has seemingly spent his life gathering a comprehensive ignorance and the question is why?

  7. Thomas Hylland Eriksen show the true colors of the leftism: they thrive controlling people.
    They must repress the response from the reptile brain preventing people from reacting to their home becoming an alien environment, they prevent people from learning how to control their reptilian brain when is about sex.

    In the end, the reptilian brain is a fundamental part of humans. You can not do without it but you can not do only with it. People must be trained and must understand how to use it with their mammalian and human parts. Learning how to switch it on and off is how to learn to manage fire, a powerful slave and a fearsome master.

    About the vote right, restriction is needed. It is insane the politicians are allowed to import their own voters from abroad and give them voting rights.

    First the right to vote must be restricted so immigrants are allowed to vote only after at least ten years after they request to become citizens, but they must own property in their new nation (they must have something at stake, something to lose if they are not good citizens).
    But the vote must be limited for the people living off the dole, people working for the government (military included) and people unable to pay taxes.

    I’m all for low taxes, but people only receiving and never giving MUST NOT have any saying about how the nation is managed. They must have their civil rights respected, but they must not be allowed to vote for politicians interested to buy their votes with the nation money.

    Anyone willing to vote will be allowed to refuse the government money in the previous five years before be able to vote. This will select out a bunch of people. And the voters will be much more difficult to buy if the government money will prevent them from voting for more of the same.

  8. To Foregone

    Prof. Eriksen has himself stated as to be part of the global middle-class. He is then not primarily part of the norwegian society, nor is he very interested in his immediate surroundings; the local society. To have grand ideas for the betterment of the human race is nothing new, though it usually comes in the form of religious zealotry.

    I want to pursue the goal of a local society that functions with less friction and that moves towards further secularism, more reason and less fanaticism. I am therefore very concerned about islam and for that I am “an extremist”. Ridiculous.

    Eriksen and his companions believe that the problems with immigration will disappear by increasing it. And yes they are quite right; when another culture has taken over completely, the problem is gone.

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