So, apologies in advance, this week I sort of went into mini-diatribe mode. I’m just tired, and sort of grumpy, and well… a graduate student– and we like to argue, especially about things that have nothing to do with our practical lives! If you can though, please enjoy.
The terms ‘extremism’ or ‘extremist’ have been popping up a lot recently in my life. After thinking about them for a while, I come to realize how much they bother me. No group, world-over, could agree what an ‘extremist’ is; instead it has come to mean ‘person with whose philosophy I disagree.’ In America, if you are coming the right it is common to talk about ‘Islamic extremists’ but if you are on the left ‘Christian extremists’ is much more common. But really, fundamentally, what do these words mean? We characterize an extremist as someone who is immoderate—they take what they believe and push it to its full conclusion. But what then, is the opposite of this: someone who has principles but only sort-of follows them? You know, someone who will say he believes something, but never really takes any action to follow up on his beliefs? Or the person who stands by his principles but only when convenient? Somehow these traits don’t seem admirable.
Or perhaps some might argue that extremism means something else. That it describes someone whose ideas are ‘abnormal’; that is, someone’s whose thoughts diverge in some way from what is ‘main stream’. Now aside from the fact such a value judgement is inherently subjective and transitory, and that such a definition correlates moderateness with whatever is currently ‘mainstream’ in a given culture, regardless of the moral or intellectual value of those principles, have not the best minds of our history been, well, abnormal? Albert Einstein’s ideas were not ‘mainstream’ in science; they were ground breaking, unprecedented. Even in psychology, Freud’s ideas never were or could be called by any ‘moderate’, but they revolutionized his field. Without ‘extremists’ would we ever have change or progression in society?
Now, some of you might be thinking: ‘now, Merskank, that’s not what we mean when we say ‘‘extremist’’—we mean people who do things that are wrong.’ But I would ask you: when did ‘wrong’ and ‘extreme’ become synonyms? Sure, when Adam Lanza walked into his mother’s kindergarten classroom and shot the children there, he was doing something very extreme—but isn’t the more important point not that it was extreme, but that it was evil? Rather than holding ‘moderation’ up as a virtue, shouldn’t we point instead to kindness, love, compassion, honesty and goodness?
Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Matin Luther, Augustine—they were all extremists: they had big ideas and they fought for them. I don’t know about you, but I for one can only hope that someday I can be an extremist too.
Nice post, Merskank! I agree that there are many different ways people use the word extremist, and many are unfair, but I think you’ve made your argument a little too extreme for me to agree with…
I LOVE people who love things-who doesn’t? Listening to a person talk about something they are passionate about is the ultimate turn on, a favorite quality I look for in a friend. But I think there is a difference between believing something deeply and refusing to see the other side. Listening to someone talk about something they know everything about is awesome, but watching them get defensive when challenged isn’t. Being able to see the imperfections of your own views is important, and while maybe your ideal opinion will still hold, I don’t think it makes you less admirable for realizing that principals can only apply so far.
I think with understanding comes moderation. I want to eat ice cream all the time, but I’ve been told my energy level will go down so I only eat it occasionally. Illegal immigrants broke the law, but many of them now have American children they want to stay with. Taxes suck, but driving on dirt roads is no fun. A women’s body is her own, but a fetus could be a human too. I agree that moderation isn’t the ideal choice (for you or for the general good) but isn’t landing somewhere in the middle better than not interacting at all? Choosing a side and working hard to provide for it is important, but so is taking a few steps back so the others can catch up.
As for having an abnormal idea, I agree-rock on! Abnormal ideas are the foundation of everything; nothing would ever happen if not for an abnormal idea. But again, you have to be careful here. Believing your own extreme idea may work for you, but unless you convince a few others to agree with you, your revelation will die with you. All those extreme people you mentioned have integrated their ideas into our mainstream culture. Whether by effort or accident, their ideas aren’t extreme any more, and if they hadn’t found some sort of way to ease their paradigm on to us, we wouldn’t remember them fondly. It took millions of people to compromise their previous views in order for these more extreme ones to be put to action.
When I think of an extremist, I think of a person not willing to see the merit in the other side. An extremist is a gun advocate who won’t admit limiting machine guns could help, a socialist who ignores the people taking advantage of the system, a terrorist who believes the other side needs to die, or an environmental activist who bombs corporate headquarters to protest a ruined bird’s nest. An extremist is someone who doesn’t want to see a solution, and chooses instead to inflame differences.
So yes, I would call many members of the Christian Right extremists, because from what I can tell they haven’t given any and expect the other side to come a mile. I’m not an expert, obviously, but I know I don’t want to work with, be friends with or be governed by anyone who considers an all or nothing ultimatum an option. I want someone who will pick their battles, who will argue with people who disagree but never stonewall. I want people who respect the other side, but still do everything in their power to get as much of their passion done as possible-even if that means compromise, moderation or even patience. I want people who believe in their cause extremely, but act in moderation to get the best thing done for everyone-including the people who disagree.
Hey Sleeping Booty—thanks for your response. It has given me something to think about. It’s hard because I feel like you were talking most specifically about American politics, which, although referenced by me, was not really where I was going with my post. Also, the fact that you seem most concerned with the policies of people governing other people’s lives, whereas I was really talking more about how people govern their own lives.
Generally, though I wonder a little though about your point about ‘extremists’ not being able to consider the perspective of other people or groups. I agree that in instances where that is true that would indeed be a bad side of ‘extremism’, however, I think one needs to be very cautious in applying such statements to entire groups of people. You may have had a different experience, but in my life I have found that something like the ability to or interest in comprehending different perspectives varies entirely from person to person. I personally believe that people from any political group are just as likely to be dismissive of perspectives from the other side as any other. And, ultimately, just because someone doesn’t change their position, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t considered or evaluated other perspectives.
I do, by the way, totally agree with your defense of knowledge of other perspectives—I think it is important and even vital; I also like to think that it is what I spend the majority of my time doing during my graduate study. However, I do think I disagree with associating extremism with a lack of knowledge. Maybe my experience is skewed, but I feel like most often the people I know who have the extremist views on something are the people who care most about, read about, and think about it. ‘Moderates’ on the other hand, I find are most often the people who haven’t really put in the time or thought to form a stance.
So, back to the point. Am I for compromise? Sometimes. I do agree standstills accomplish little, but also think sometimes there are things you don’t compromise over—and knowing those things, and standing up for them, well I think that is more important than compromise, and at least equally lacking in our world. But I would like to hear what the other naughty princesses think. Snow-whore? Cinderslut?
Interesting. I definitely took the side of policy making on this one… It’s difficult for me to conceptualize the impact extremism would have on my day to day life. I feel like it would just be the same thing just smaller scale…? Or are you just saying people should stop seeing the word as negative? Because as tempting as it is to group passionate people with extremists, as I said above, I think there is a big difference.
Though, I’d still like to hear an example of a case when accomplishing nothing is better than landing somewhere in the middle. I’m not saying you have to compromise your ideals, but I really believe you have to moderate your actions… I’m curious, what is something you wouldn’t compromise on? Women’s rights? Racism? Murder? The middle ages were anything but dark? None of those policies were or can be made in one leap. Small steps lead to big changes. So theoretically, I agree with you, if you really believe something, stick to it. But as for practically making our society better I don’t see how avoiding moderation will help.
And I didn’t mean to argue that knowledge leads to moderation, though I see that I may have implied that. I agree with you, the people who are passionate and well informed are more than likely to have a strong opinion, and I definitely don’t think extremists are poorly versed. But I define an extremist as a person who has the facts and still chooses to see the other side as… evil. As long as you see that the other side is trying to do what is best, in the same way you are, wrong as they may be, then you aren’t an extremist to me.
OH! I have a non-political example. A handful of skiers die every year from jumping off ABSURD cliffs. Many people would call them extremists, extreme skiers, adrenaline junkies, but I’d say only a few are actually extremists. Most know the risks and their moderate options but choose to stay extreme anyway. The true extremist skiers are the ones who see no other option, believing life is only worth living if you can jump out of a helicopter every other weekend.
But I guess my main, huge, most important point is that you can act moderately and still be entirely informed and truly passionate. Yes, moderate voters in the political sphere are notoriously uneducated, but when it comes to the policy makers themselves, it seems to me that the best leaders I can think of have strong opinions but act moderately. And when it comes to someone like me, NOT involved in policy, I still think that no matter how much I learn about one topic I’ll never strive to be extremist. Passionate-YES, Informed-Yes. Extremist? No. To me that word is negative and isn’t useful or worthwhile.
I agree with most of your post– really, I don’t think we are coming from especially different perspectives at all. As you mention, my original post was most semantic: attacking the word ‘extremist’ was what I meant as my original point. Your final comment I agree with completely: ‘To me that word is negative and isn’t useful or worthwhile.’ I am really trying to argue that the word itself is not helpful. I agree with you that most often people do use it in a negative sense- definitely not the way I was using it above. However, I think it is not a helpful term: yes, people can be extreme and it can cause negative results (like jumping off a cliff or killing children) but people can also be extreme in doing good. I am not trying to argue that ‘being extreme’ is virtuous, and as you say, it would be strange to ‘strive to be extremist’, all I am saying is that being extreme is neither: it is neutral. There is nothing inherently bad or inherently good about being extreme, in any case, what sort of thing you apply your extremism too makes all the difference.
Yet in modern speech we do use ‘extremism’ as a value-charged word. When you say: ‘But I define an extremist as a person who has the facts and still chooses to see the other side as… evil.’ I would agree that most people probably have a similar definition in mind. But the problem is, no one is ever going to agree on who constitutes an extremist. The occasioning of this post was actually a comment my pastor made at church on Sunday when he referenced some group as ‘extremist’. It struck me as funny because I know a lot of people in England would consider the members of my church extremist for their views on the Bible. So yes, I feel like in theory extremist might mean something we could agree on but in practice it means ‘someone I strongly disagree with’. No one knows who the extremists are and the fact that ‘extremity’ is such a subjective concept makes them harder to identify. I think it is much more useful to label people by the actual concept with which you disagree– i.e. yes the skiier jumping off the cliff was extreme, extremely reckless or extremely stupid. I have met a few people in my life that are extremely selfish, etc.
My overall point then wasn’t to argue for extremism as an overall good– even in my first post I mentioned evil things done by people that were extreme. My point instead was that ‘extreme’ in itself as an adjective is valueless, it modifies something else which does have a value. And yes, you are totally right that in our daily conversation ‘extremism’ has taken on a negative value, but I don’t think it should have that. As I am sure you also believe, any action is not bad simply because it is extreme. In this way, I think the term as it is currently used is misleading and non-helpful. But of course, this is just my opinion and you can keep using it as you wish 🙂
agreed. 🙂
I agree with you both that the word extreme or extremist should be, by nature, neutral, and to flash it around to vilify various groups is not good or helpful. I also agree that the term has taken on a negative connotation whether we like it or not. That’s how I think of it too. Maybe it’s just my environment, but the first thing that came to mind was “Islamic extremists,” i.e., terrorists. My husband had a Pakistani roommate in grad school who told him to his face that one of his greatest desires was to see America (and Americans) destroyed so it could become an Islamic state. Pretty extreme. However, this guy didn’t seem to have any personal problems with my husband, and of course has never purposely harmed anyone in the name of jihad. But if he did, it would be perfectly justified to call him an extremist and mean it in a terrible way. You could also apply the same logic to the Holocaust, Crusades, and innumerable other genocides, holy wars, hate crimes, and acts of terror. My point is that there’s a difference between having what some might consider an extreme view and acting on it to harm others. My husband’s roommate had a right to his views, and since he never acted on them, the two of them had a perfectly fine relationship as roommates and are still in contact today. If someone decides to follow an extreme diet, like only eating white foods or going Paleo, I would think it was kind of crazy. Why cut out all those delicious foods you could be eating? Wouldn’t moderation be a better policy? But since that person following an extreme diet doesn’t affect me, I don’t have any right to expect them to compromise. There are some things you can’t compromise, religious and moral beliefs chief among them (not healthcare policy or tax rates), but as long as it’s not harming others, I say go ahead and be extreme. And if you do decide to harm others, don’t be surprised that your extremism has landed you in jail, or worse.