Extremists

Hello! It's been a little while since I posted, so I say a) sorry 'bout that and b) welcome back, dear readers! C:

I've been thinking about politics a great deal recently (mostly when I'm in the shower and no one can easily challenge me), and I've come to the conclusion that a political "spectrum" is a dangerously misleading model for people's alignments and ideologies. It's not bad, it's just insufficiently refined, as I might say commenting on someone's grant proposal.

There are two ways I see politics most commonly schematized: the line and the Cartesian graph. The line is so simple it's actually disgusting; we draw a line segment labeled "far left" on one end and "far right" on the other, then plunk down little markers denoting where various people and movements fall. If that sounds vaguely like something you did in first grade, it's because it is. Drawing the number line and placing evenly-spaced markers on it to learn the integers is, in essence, the same exercise. Personally, I find that I get taken less seriously in a political discussion if I open it by scratching out a little line plot on the table in crayon, but that's neither here nor there.

Soon enough, someone realized this left-right binary was grossly insufficient to encompass the whole range of human ideology. "Aha!" the fictional They proclaimed, "I have met people on the political left who do NOT believe in a strongly centralized government, preferring instead the independent small-commune lifestyle ideal usually advocated for by the political right! Thus, there must now be TWO axes: left-right and authoritarian-libertarian!" Thus the Cartesian two-axis graph was born, and we applauded mightily our ability to accurately write down that there were both communists and anarcho-capitalists in the world at the same time. 

Now, graphing is something we generally learn to do in middle school, or so it was when I was young (sometime around the birth of land plants, for perspective). This two-axis model is strictly more detailed and advanced than the simple line. As a scientist I appreciate refinement and resolution of detail, so it may surprise you to learn that, of the two, this model is actually the more dangerously wrong one. 

What the Cartesian model suggests with its even, geometric perfection, is that moving toward the political extremes is accomplished by taking measured, symmetrical steps away from the political center. It suggests that, as one grows and solidifies one's beliefs more and more ardently, one will naturally "progress" toward the ends of whichever axes you fall on.

In my opinion, that is a dangerously teleological way to think, and furthermore it is wrong. The scientist part of me thinks it's wrong as in "factually incorrect," and the more emotional part of me feels it's wrong as in "morally indefensible."

Additionally, this two-dimensional sort of graph suggests that the political extremes are radically different from one another. According to the model, for instance, a far-left authoritarian communist and an extreme right-wing fascist ought to have nothing whatsoever in common, politically speaking. They are, after all, at polar opposites of our graph. 

Well, wait a minute now. I seem to recall a great many people being lined up against a wall and shot, on the orders of people who fit both those descriptions, in fairly recent history. So, the far left and far right appear to agree on something, which is inconsistent with the assumptions we made up there. 

Straying away from the extremes, let's pick someone like me, a young person who's somewhat left of center, and examine what I think. To oversimplify and turn myself into a cliché, I think basically in the lines of "live and let live." I don't smoke weed, but I don't see a compelling reason to make it illegal for any given person to do so. Guns aren't necessarily my thing, but I've had a great time borrowing rifles and plunking a few rounds at cans and whatnot. Similarly, I'm not inclined to marry another man, but I also know there are people who wish to enter same-sex marriages, so in the words of a great philosopher, "fuck it, dude, let's [all] go bowling." I could drone on and on, but you get the idea; the state has no real business interfering with the fussy little minutiae of life, but I don't mind paying taxes for such amenities as roads and all. 

Now, somebody on the other side of the axis, a moderate center-right person. They're on the other side, and as such they ought to disagree with me, wholly!

My brother is what I would describe as center-right, on most topics, actually. And in his own words, he wants to... have the right to smoke weed and own guns. 

Well that's fucking interesting, man. 

You can probably see what I'm driving at here; my belief in summary is that extremists of any description are vastly more similar to one another than their more moderate counterparts are different. For example, there is substantial doubt in my mind that a Hamas suicide bomber might go around to each of his potential targets and ascertain whether each one was actually a member of the IDF. No, he'd shout something like "Death to Israel!" and deliver death and heinous injury to a group likely consisting of Israelis, Arabs, and probably a few tourists or consultants from some other part of the world altogether. 

Another, maybe less polarizing example: that asshole who clubbed several people in the head with a U-lock during a rally and counterprotest in Berkeley, the now-infamous Bike Lock Bandito (as I prefer to call him). If I recall he blindsided at least seven people, and seriously injured three of those. These are all head-shots, mind you, aimed right at the ol' center of consciousness.

Footage of people being blindsided by a bludgeon to the head is disturbing to say the least, but I noticed something it distinctly lacked. Eric Clanton, that warped bastard, never issued any sort of challenge to his victims. There was no "You there! Procliam whether thou be a Trumpist or a Trump-Dumper, that I may target mine cudgel appropriately!" No, he just picked people who happened to be standing on the other side of an arbitrary line on the sidewalk and clubbed them, with intent to wound and possibly kill, and then scuttled off into the shadows to wait for another opportunity. 

Extreme political groups always have another group that they declare to be their sworn enemy, but for a true extremist, it doesn't matter if you're "officially" the target or not. If you're not an extremist, you are the target by definition. 

All I had to do to convince myself of this was pick up a history book, about any given era, really. Who did Nazis kill? Well, officially, they were after Jewish people and others they regarded to be racially inferior (which is a whole separate fuckin' mess, but that's what they said). Off the record, it turns out disagreeing with any given Nazi was grounds for execution, or at least harsh, harsh censure. 

On the other end of our supposed spectrum, the horrifically violent Stalin regime illustrates the point a little more clearly. Stalin, after a certain stage, didn't even bother pretending that it was the Jews, or the capitalists, or the bourgeoisie he was after. Speaking out against Stalin's state was alone sufficient to make you an executable enemy of said state. 

This pattern goes back a long, long way. Any time one political party, ideology, or even a single person becomes monodominant over all others, the society in question goes down an exceedingly dark, turbulent trajectory. How did one survive the much-studied, widely-feared Roman Empire? Well, you became a Roman citizen, or you hid as far away as possible and waited for corruption and stagnation to burn it out. 

I hate to reduce politics to this level, but there's a card in Hearthstone called Cult Master. When played, it issues a pronouncement: "Join, or die! ...or both." The player controlling Cult Master gets to draw cards any time one of its allies dies, or, to generalize, the Cult Master works most effectively by throwing its allies into the grinder and consuming everything around it. 

It's a bit like political extremism, really. Extremism 101 is only a three-week special seminar. Week 1: expose an impressionable person (read: any person) to your ideology, Week 2: convince them that your ideology is the only one that exists or has merit. Bonus points if you establish yourself in their eyes as a deity, or at least the avatar of one. Week 3: hand them a rifle or strap a bomb to them and send them off to glory. 

This is all rather negative, a laundry list of problems, and rather a depressing post. I like complaining as much as the next person, but I prefer to end on a positive note, so now the question arises: so how do we resolve any of this? If these models are so vastly inadequate, Fool Peter, what shall we draw instead? As the philosophers and ethicists often cry: BRO WHAT DO I DOOOO?

As far as the model goes, I think either of the conventional models you care to draw will do, as long as you realize what you're doing, and I might recommend one major modification. Get some paper and draw this out with me, if you please. We can draw the usual line of the political spectrum, but I suggest we make it three-dimensional instead. Imagine the line is in the foreground, and draw a further pair of lines off it. Pretend you're drawing a road that abruptly starts someplace and extends off toward the distant horizon. 

There's the usual spectrum in the foreground; you know better than I do what goes on that first axis. The other, extending into the paper, denotes how ardent or, put another way, extreme, a given belief is. We can also build this model off the usual two-axis Cartesian dealio, making a sort of 3-D converging pyramid. 

This model is heavy-handed enough, but let me point out explicitly: notice, if you will, that increasingly extreme beliefs become more and more similar, converging to the point where true die-hard extremists are essentially indistinguishable. "Agree with us or face destruction" is the uniting theme of every extreme movement I've been able to find, at least. 

Now, as far as what should be done: look at these movements, study their history (which ranges from troubled to downright hideous), and learn from them. There is no doubt in my mind that Adolf Hitler and the retinue that was his High Command were, and remain, some of the most purely evil motherfuckers ever to walk the earth in human bodies. If I were placed in a room with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot and given a gun with two bullets, I would honestly be hard pressed to avoid shooting someone twice out of simple gut fury, logic be damned. 

That said, the cold, logical part of my brain studies the facts of fascist societies and sees: political extremism leading to unconscionable violence. They are also, however, immensely organized and responsive bureaucracies; at least at their beginnings, they are devoid of the obstructionist clutter that plagues modern republics. The means by which this concerted mode of action was attained are absolutely indefensible, but we can look at a fascist government and say "damn, that is an efficient system" without condoning or excusing the hideous things they've done politically. 

At the other end, look at the idea of a communist society. Everyone is equal and equitable, in the purest sense of the word; the uniting axiom "from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs" is implemented with the support of every person. The society in question is harmonious, equitable, and fair. 

Communist societies in real life have long been led by politically extreme people who execute the ideal of equality by a) rendering (nearly) everyone equal by subjecting them to crushing, abject poverty and b) executing anyone who opposes the idea of crushing, abject poverty. Megalomania abounds; go and read a book about Stalin or the other leaders of the USSR for a true-to-life account of what happens when you take nightmare-level narcissism and give it an unlimited reach and bottomless budget. 

I'm starting to ramble, but bear with me for one more example: capitalism! Good ol' free-market bootstrap-heavy capitalism, near and dear to our hearts as Americans. Theory: everyone is free to enter contracts and consume products as their desire dictates. The idea is for all contracts to satisfy both parties, and the laws of supply and demand to drive the motion of a free market. If you think a product sucks, buy its competition! Better still, start making that product yourself, in accordance with your own entrepreneurial vision. Innovation flourishes, and anyone with a vision and steel in their spine can make it work for them. 

Reality: multinational, globalist mega-corporations are converging toward monopoly, or at the very least hegemony. Collusion between partnered corporations has created a situation where consumer choice is increasingly illusory: choose Comcast or AT&T, and both services will suck for the price, for example. These same corporations pursue cheaper production and higher retail in their blind worship of the bottom line, heedlessly crushing up natural resources and people (often people in less financially solvent nations) into a paste to lubricate the gears of a great machine producing profit purely for profit's sake. 

Well, needless to say, I don't think that's quite ideal, as far as capitalism goes. 

So what we ought to do, in my profoundly non-expert opinion, is take the best parts of each ideology and try to average them out into something better. Fascism's unity of purpose, dedication to efficient operation and pride in one's government are admirable, deprived of the context of its uglier practitioners. Communism brings the noble ideals of fairness, egalitarianism, and altruism (sacrificing your able labor for the benefit of someone less able, for instance), despite the gulags and Party purges that plague its history. Capitalism's focus on individual freedoms and the pursuit of personal objectives are equally laudable, in spite of the way that global corporations have begun to sully that respectable dream. 

I learned this through Christian doctrine, though the idea of moderation is far, far older than the Bible (word to the homie Siddartha et al.). Isaiah 1:18 remains one of my favorite phrases: "Come now, and let us reason together... though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." The exact meaning is essentially "become Christian for redemption," but I'm appropriating the phrase for political application; you may advocate an ideology to which I am wholly opposed, but I strive to understand why. No matter what -ism you choose, I maintain that we could hash out a discussion and find something redeemable we could learn from it as we march into the future. Stooping into violence and "us-and-them"-style thinking has a long, bloody history of not working, and I don't think it's crazy to posit that the world would benefit mightily should every person make a conscious effort to think logically and critically about any given topic in politics. 

Okay! I'm gonna cut it off there, as long in the tooth as it is. I can only hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it; if you did, feel free to press whatever combination of buttons you deem appropriate to express same. The best combinations of buttons, in my opinion, are those required to leave me a comment, or show someone else this post and start a conversation! Tell me what you think, challenge me, call a tenth Crusade against me for supreme blasphemy, whatever you feel is best; as much as I enjoy rambling endlessly as a talking head, I do mightily prefer when there's feedback and engagement. "Discourse," one might say. Anyway! Have a lovely rest of your day/night cycle, and try to elevate your thinking before raising your voice, so to speak. Send me an email, drop my dumb ass a Facebook message, whateva. 

TL;DR It really is too long this time, isn't it? In my view, the people on the other side of a given aisle are not the enemy; we all have shared enemies in the people who didn't show up to Parliament because they're busy making bombs.