Kjetil Tveit, April 15, 2025
Translated by Erik Strand 13.07.2025
Original article in Norwegian
Writer Didrik Søderlind from Norwegian Humanist Association and yoga teacher Siw Aduvill have published the book Web poisoning: Losing someone to radicalisation and conspiracy theories [Nettforgiftning: Å miste noen til radikalisering og konspirasjonsteorier]. Kjetil Tveit poses the question if it may be Søderlind himself who is an extremist.
What if it is Didrik Søderlind himself who is an extremist!
We wil try to find out by means of a good, traditionsl analysis.
– Extremists have taken over the state and “the political centre”, professor and senior physician Halvor Næss wrote in iNyheter in 2023.
– The common view is that one finds extremism on the outer right and left wing. It is no longer like that. Extremism has now been established in the poltical centre. Over time, extremists have infiltrated all parties in Stortinget [Norway’s parliament, translator’s note] and dominate the political debate, Næss states.
But can consensus be extreme, while fringe groups are not?
Definitively. This is something we know well from history. When consensus turns extreme, there is a grave danger.
Today, many of the dominant narratives are steered by think tanks and NGOs. One such actor is Norwegian Humanist Association (HEF) – an outlook on life based NGO, operating under a humanist flag, but often having a political and ideological bias.
(Norwegian Humanist Association (HEF) has got an annual income for 177 million NOK and a 145 million NOK in savings. Ed)
Among HEF’s most visible advisors we find Didrik Søderlind, a highly profiled voice in the Norwegian sceptics movement, which for many years has been active in the task of defining what is a “valid” conception of reality in the Norwegian public sphere.
Through books, commentaries and a seemingly clipboard for access to concern media, Søderlind and equal minded particiapate in forming public discussion – and thereby how most people understand what is true, what is extreme, and what shall be taken seriously.
Together with yoga teacher Siw Aduwill, Søderlind has now written the book Web poisoning – losing someone to radicalisation and conspiracy theories [Nettforgiftning: Å miste noen til radikalisering og konspirasjonsteorier]. By their own words, the book is about those who are left behind when some of their loved ones “become radicalised and move into a radicalised universe”.
On April 8, 2025, the authors published a commentary inn VG, one of Norway’s largest newspapers, where they describe their book project as a “support for those left behind”, as well as “researchers who explain the conspiracy theories’s history of ideas and how they work”.
But they have made the choice not to talk with people who believe in conspiracy theories.
Their justification?
“Research show clearly that when pepole disappear into conspiracy theories, debate has a limited potential”.
Yes, this is where we have gotten in 2025. One can write a book about – and appear as an expert on – a group of people one has never spoken with.
This is not only a choice of method, it is a symptom. It is polarisation which talks.
Where dialogue used to be seen as a tool for understanding and softening conflict, we have gotten a new kind of ideological practice – one that does not demand contact with the reality it claims to describe.
In the former public sphere ideal it was self evident: If you wrote about a group you had to collect first hand knowledge. But not in the new wokeism.
Here, one talks about people, not with them.
How does one define a conspiracy theorist?
Robert F. Kennedy jr.
The picture VG has used, displays Robert F. Kennedy jr., the present US minister of health. His father with the same name was shot when he ran for president, and his uncle – president John F. Kennedy – was also murdered. Both were popular politicians. Both men with strong opinions that someone clearly wanted removed.
Robert Kennedy has spent his carreer as an environmental jurist and human rights lawyer. He has won cases in court against powerful companies on behalf of people who have been poisoned by indurstrial pollution.
Now he wants to confront medical corruption, demand real evidence based practice and give americans health and confidence back.
In late 2020, the deitor of the well-renowned medical journal BMJ wrote that medical corruption had become even worse during the covid 19 pandemic, and that they were not allowed to publish serious research.
In other words: It is proven that Kennedy has some very important points. One can disagree with him or hold the opinion that he exaggerates – that is legitimate. But if one had talked with him, and not only about him, one might have got something to think about.
An extremist does not do that. An extremist is rigid, has already made up his/her mind regarding who is “dangerous” and does not seek insight, only distance.
Maybe Søderlind is the one who should take a look in the mirror.
Meat
Another example of what Søderlind and Aduvill think extreme conspiracy theorists believe in, is this:
“…red meat is health food…”
This is held forward as a symptom that “marginal ideas” have become “mainstream”. But – is it not in reality the opposite way?
In a book published by Norsk Helseverk in 1948, red meat and innards is listed as “securing food” – recommended in order to secure a sufficient intake for both micro and macro nutritients. Plant bases food was to a large extent mentioned as “additional food” – something one used as supplement for economical reasons. This was the advice of the health authorities in post war Norway.
Today, 8 per cent of teenage girls have clinical iron defiency – a condition that harms the devellopment of the brain and can have serious conseqiuences for learning and life quality. Red meat could have solved this problem. Instead we have accepted that a new “marginal idea” – that meat is poison – has gained hegemony in the health debate.
Norwegians had good health in the 1950s, but do not have good health today.
Should we not then – without raising our voices – be allowed to ask:
Has the change in food habits been a success? Without the question by itself leads to family members of the one asking the question, hears that their loved one now is “radicalized” and a lost cause?
Once again – who is really extreme and rigid here?
The one who asks questions or the one who refuses to listen?
The climate crisis
If one utters critical remarks about the climate crisis, one is – according to Søderlind and Adivill – a lost cause. People like that one can talk ABOUT, but not WITH. It is if they suffer from some condition that cannot be healed, and the only thing one can do is to support ‘the bereaved’ around them.
Let us start with revinding
During the nineties, Al Gore presented the best that science could offer in his famous documentary. In this documentary, it was almost apoclyptically presented as if a 6 meter rise in the sea level was soon to come.
This presentation was not met with nuances or debate, but a pressure towards consensus.
The truth is that the climate crisis has never been presented in a sober way in the public sphere. The issue has always been stained with fear, fairy tales and incentives to suppress opposing voices. For this very reason the topic demands a serious, open dialogue – as well as tolerance for dissenting.
In 2015, the norwegian-american physician and Nobel prize winner Ivar Giæver, explained in a debate on TV2, that steam has got a so huge impact on the Earth’s temperature, that CO2 becomes almost irrelevant by comparision. He is not a blogger from the basement, but a Nobel prize winner in physics.
Still, according to Søderlind & Co, people like Giæver are extremists?
Again – who is the exttemist in the mirror, Søderlind?
The one who screams “dangerous!” or the one who says “let us talk about this”?
Kamala Harris
There does not seem to exist a limit to what Søderlind and Aduwill define as extremism.
Among the “marginal ideas” they point at in their commentary one finds this:
“That Kamala Harris’s electoral defeat was a victory for women.”
Yes, you read it correctly. Ift you think that Harris is not necessarily a gift to the women’s rights movement – then you are an extremist.
Let us first take a look at what Harris has stood for:
She has supported that men shall be allowd to compete in women’s groups in sport.
During the Olympic Games last summer we witnessed that women were beaten severely by men in the boxing ring, and that a man took the gold medal home – in a women’s group.
How can this represent a victory for women?
Again – one does not have to agree to the analysis. One can dicuss the matter, weigh rights and see nuances. But when Søderind gives the impression that the mere thought that Harris is not a feminist hero is extremism by itself – then we have left democratic disagreement and entered moral monopoly.
Is it then so extreme that one becomes a person people should not talk with? Should one then – for society’s sake – be a person to neglect in order to preserve the “rational space”
Who is really the extremist in the mirror, Søderlind?
Analysis
What is extremism and how does Søderlid fit into the extremist basic attitude?
Extremism is not first and foremost a matter of violence or spectacular actions, but a matter of fundamental attitudes and patterns of thougt. An extremist basic attitude is characterized by five elements:
1. A rigid conception of reality
Extremism is often characterized by a black-white worldview where “we” are right and “the others” are fundamentally flawed – and are dangerous.
In the book and commentary:
Søderlind/Aduvill operate with a dichotomy between “conspiracy theorists” and “ordinary people”.
They regard the first group’s conception of reality as so pathological that it does not deserve dialogue.
They describe alternative ideas in a derogatory way and with crude simplifications, and they do not recognize the nuances in the iews they critisize.
This is a clear example of rigidity: They do not relate to the grayzones or the compelxity of the topic.
2. Rejection of dialogue and opposing views
A central characteristic of extremist thougts is that one does not view opponents as worthy dialogue partners – dialogue is replaced by delegitimization.
In the book:
The autors explcitly reject talking with those they write about. They claim that opposing views only “strengthen the beilief” among the conspiracy theorists, and use this as a rhetorical shield in order to avoid dialogue.
They present this as “research”, but without discussing how dangerous avoiding dialogue can be in a democratic society.
This method is in conflict with basic democratic and humanist principles, and approaches authoritarian ways of thinking.
3. Dehumanization and psychologizing of opponents
Extremists often reject that their opponents posess rationality and humane motivation by regarding them as sick. radicalized or seduced victims.
In the text:
Those who believe in conspiracy theories, are described as “to intense, to hateful, agreesive and monomaniac”.
The authors puts weight on how human relations are destroyed, but without any insight into what the people they write about, actually believe in, or why.
Their entire world view is reduced to a “problem” that has to be handled, not as human beings with legitimate questions, experiences that have created distrust, or system critisism.
This behaviour mirrors the mechanisms we recognize from extremist movements that demonize their opponents in order to create social distance and mobilize support.
4. Concluding with the necessity of exclusion and social isolation.
Extremism often seeks to draw clear lines for what is “within’ or ‘outside’ what is acceptable – and proposes social or institutional exclusion as a solution.
In the text:
The authors do not directly propose sanctions, but implicate that giving up the relation to these people (cancel them) is the most reasonable thing to do.
One should not try to understand them, meet them in a dialogue or chellenge their ideas.
The moral imperative is: Protect yourself – do not try to save them.
This reminds strongly about excluding practices that we see in totalitarian or sectreic contexts, where one “clean out” problematic elemnts instead of meeting them.
5. Monopolization of truth
One characteristic of extremism is the idea that oneself – or one’s group – has got access to the only valid truth, while others are misled.
In this context:
Søderlind and Aduvill write as if they represent “the objective reality”, while the others are radicalized and caught in notions.
The practice that one is not even open to the possibility that someone in the “conspiracy group” might be right in something, suggests a reluctance to accept pluralism and variation in conceptions of reality.
This has got similarities to the self-righteousness one sees in the ideological fringes, where reality is ideologically filtered.
Conclusion: Extremism in the name of reason
What makes Søderlind’s position particularly interesting – and dangerous – is that it is camouflaged as moderation. He does not speak in anger, but in a concerned, reasonable pitch. Nevertheless, he displays some of the same mechanisms he accuses his opponents of.
He delegitimizes, denies dialogue, he psychologize, he simplifies and he excludes.
And he does so out of the moral superiority he thinks he has.
I would like to have a talk with Søderlind. I might be wrong about him. Maybe he has got something to add that I have not thought about.
It is possible that I would have got something to think about in a meeting wth him, that I did not think about before I analyzed him.
Unfortunately he has made it clear that people like me – with “wrong perspectives” – are not worthy of his attention. I am simply dehumanized and made irrelevant. Therefore I have to do my best without dialogue.
What do you think?
Should Søderlind take a lokk in the mirror? I think so. In his eagerness to warn against radicalization, he mirrors what he claims to warn against.
I have chosen to personify what I see at a new kind of totalitarian thinking in the person Didrik Søderlind – not because he stands alone, but because he for years have worked in the backdrops and influenced more than many people realize. He is part of a huge person gallery, highly influencing a culture that has cultivated a black-white worldview where doubt is a sin and dialogue a threath.
I agree with professor Halvor Næss: Extremist attitudes have infiltrated both the state and the political centre.
Norwegian Humanist Association and Didrik Søderlind have contributed heavily to this evolution – by legitimizing a colture where moral superiority wins over democratic dialogue.
Now, with their new book, they have to take their part of the responsibility for the toxic discourse and the fear for participating in it – that they taking part in shaping.
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Note from the editor:
Didrik Søderlind and Siw Aduvill have off course the right to reply, and will get a reply published at steigan.no if they wish so. Ed.
Fampo 