Taking life philosophically.
28 June 2010
Continuing my dialogue with the late philosopher Robert Nozick on the topic of ideology, this time I deal with the issue of extremism. The conclusions potentially apply to all kinds of extremism, from political to religious extremism. I focus in particular on how we are to distinguish extremism from having a principled position.
Nozick’s article “The Characteristic Features of Extremism”1 is a short and clear exposition of some of the typical characteristics of extremist positions and of people who hold such positions. Together they should come close to being a definition of extremism.
First of all, extremism is not extreme in any absolute sense, but only in relation to the rest of the distribution of ideas. Thus, a fascist is not an extremist in a society with a popularly supported fascist government, because in such a society fascist ideas are common and to be expected of people. However, in a liberal democracy, a fascist is more likely to be an extremist: he is opposed to several shared core principles of the society in which he lives.
Despite the fact that extremism is always relative, according to Nozick2 extremists do have much in common:
Nozick also outlines a typical extremist personality.3 For an extremist it is simple to switch to a completely different kind of extremism, as long as it is extreme. The idea is that they do not just happen to believe in ideas that just happen to be extreme, but instead they actively seek to be extreme in relation to the current distribution of views. They are often less concerned about how their views are extreme. Nozick writes:
Since extremists have come to distrust the conventional wisdom, as they call it, on the one issue that has seized their attention, they tend to conclude the conventional wisdom must be wrong on a whole lot of other issues as well.
While Nozick admits that he is not a psychologist and that this is simply a suggestion, the idea is interesting. It is a reversal of 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong, or what is called the “bandwagon fallacy” — the extremist thinks that the vast majority of people not only can be wrong but must be wrong.
I would perhaps add that this is not simply a question of psychology. Surely extremists would have reasons to support their belief, such as the idea that a degree of thought control is always necessary to maintain a stable government, and that because of this thought control the majority of people have false beliefs. But of course believing in such ideas may not be rational, and may just be a characteristic of the extremist personality.
Previously I wrote a brief defense of being ideological. What I meant is roughly what Nozick in his article calls having a principled position. He tries to distinguish extremism from a principled, non-compromising position in two ways.4
The first is that principled, non-extremist opposition to a view nevertheless tries to recognize what is good in that view, to understand it, and is also willing to listen to counter-arguments. The extremist instead labels the whole opposing view or ideology evil. Therefore dialogue is not possible with the extremist.
The second difference between extremism and principled opposition is that principled opposition lacks one of the features of extremism, that of spilling over. The extremist habitually adopts new extremist views and principles with relatively little consideration. Non-extremist opposition instead limits itself to what it considers the crucial principles.
These differences may not be as useful as they seem. Regarding the first one, it is easy enough to make thought experiments that lead into difficulties. Imagine a liberal activist jailed by a racist, totalitarian regime because of his support of free speech and because of his skin color. What kind of dialogue should the activist engage in with the regime, and which counter-arguments should he listen to? Just like it is not paranoia when they really are out to get you, it is not extremism to say that a completely immoral government really is immoral.
One option for Nozick would be to add an exception for being under the domination of a totalitarian regime, since the regime itself would refuse to participate in dialogue or listen to counter-arguments. Totalitarianism destroys the conditions for dialogue and rationality, and only naked force remains. Still, it would be preferable to distinguish those with a legitimate reason for being opposed to the regime from those who are simply extremists.
The second difference may be more helpful. Non-extremists generally have determinate convictions that are relatively few in number. They are committed to a few specific things and have no all-encompassing doctrines for how things should be done. The non-extremist has a certain economy of thought. He does not feel compelled to make his ideology answer every question or have a rule for every possible occurrence. In contrast, the views of the extremist do not form a structure with strict limits but are adopted on whim.5
The only problem with the second difference is that it requires knowledge of the personal history of the person. Unless you know how he came to adopt the views he has, you do not necessarily know if he is an extremist or not. Only in the most extreme of cases, when the extreme views are already numerous enough, would the difference become clear. It might still be difficult to recognize a principled person from an extremist only just getting started in his career of extremism.
The journal of Timo Laine (contact information). Cultural commentary from the perspective of a philosophy student in Helsinki.