Concept

Extremism

Overview

Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied shared social consensus) to be far outside the mainstream attitudes of society. It can also be used in an economic context. The term may be used pejoratively by opposing groups, but is also used in academic and journalistic circles in a purely descriptive and non-condemning sense.

Extremists' views are typically contrasted with those of moderates. Political agendas perceived as extremist often include those from the far-left politics or far-right politics, as well as radicalism, reactionism, chauvinism, fundamentalism, and fanaticism. Extremist groups will differ in their preference for violent extremism vs. nonviolent extremism.

Research specific to social media activities has shown that groups from different sides of the left and right political axis or of those that consist of an incumbent party and opposition party, are further apart in terms of ideology, with ideological distance strongly correlated with an extremism score.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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And so the extreme characters push away, so to speak, towards each other the man in the mean state; the brave man is called a rash man by the coward, and a coward by the rash man, and in the other cases accordingly. And there being this mutual opposition, the contrariety between the extremes is greater than between either and the mean, because they are further from one another than from the mean, just as the greater…
Aristotle, The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
States what Extremism is.
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For materialism denies reality to the objects of almost all the impulses which we most cherish. The real _meaning_ of the impulses, it says, is something which has no emotional interest for us whatever. Now, what is called 'extradition' is quite as characteristic of our emotions as of our senses: both point to an object as the cause of the present feeling. What an intensely objective reference lies in fear!
William James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
States what Extremism is.
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For popular use this definition is amply sufficient, but it still falls short of the complete accuracy required for the purposes of the philosopher. Political Economy does not treat of the production and distribution of wealth in all states of mankind, but only in what is termed the social state; nor so far as they depend upon the laws of human nature, but only so far as they depend upon a certain portion of those…
John Stuart Mill, Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy
States what Extremism is.
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Philosophers who discussed Extremism

Gabriel Liiceanu

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Political philosophy.

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