"One person with belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."

The paraphrased John Stuart Mill quote that the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik tweeted before his murderous rampage.

In 2009 he wrote about the need to set up a counter to what he described as "the violent Norwegian Marxist organisations" that he believed terrorised the "politically conservative"....

Things Breivik blogged:

The vast majority of new faces in the Progress party are now politically correct career politicians and not in any way idealists who are willing to take risks and work for idealistic goals....

In Norway and Sweden extreme Marxist attitudes have become acceptable/everyday while the old-established truths of patriotism and cultural conservatism today are branded as extremism....

I have on some occasions discussed with… the [English Defence League] and recommended them to use conscious strategies. The tactics of the EDL is to 'entice' an overreaction from jihad youth/extreme Marxists, something they have succeeded [in] several times already.

So, here is one man, apparently acting alone but believing perhaps that his action is the equivalent of 100,000. What he did was emphatically not an "idea" — as Mill had it. I'm speculating that he imagined his action embodied an idea: That others like him could act on their own to great effect, for his cause. Why amass armies or even terrorist groups, when individuals, understanding the idea, can take up their arms and set out on the day they feel called and take down 100 (or more) selected individuals who represent these "new faces in the Progress party"  (or whomever the enemy is supposed to be)?

This is a powerful idea. Will we not hear it again and again, as Breivik receives endless publicity and his politics and motivations are plumbed and analyzed? It is a viral idea, and the media are catching the virus right now. As we talk about Breivik, we need to think clearly about what we are doing and whether we are promoting his cause.

By the way, the John Stuart Mill quote, unparaphrased, is: "One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests." It's from "Representative Government," which you can read in its entirety here. Here's the quote in context:

To think that because those who wield the power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests. They who can succeed in creating a general persuasion that a certain form of government, or social fact of any kind, deserves to be preferred, have made nearly the most important step which can possibly be taken towards ranging the powers of society on its side. On the day when the proto-martyr was stoned to death at Jerusalem, while he who was to be the Apostle of the Gentiles stood by "consenting unto his death," would any one have supposed that the party of that stoned man were then and there the strongest power in society?

The Biblical reference is to the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and the Apostle of the Gentiles is Paul, then Saul, consenting to the stoning.