The Roots of Extremism

 

The Roots of Extremism

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following passages are found in the book The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons from Nixon to Obama, by Len Colodny and Tom Shachtman:

 

                  “The fundamental and continual clash between ideology and pragmatism is a basic theme of human history. At certain times, however, it becomes possible to take actions that have both an ideological and pragmatic basis. The September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon provided such an occasion.” [385]

 

                  Therein lie the roots of extremism. That is, to think that a “fundamental and continual clash” between two alternatives, here called “ideology” and “pragmatism,” does not require that a choice be made, that these two alternatives may both be embraced, is an invitation to political extremism. It is such political naivete that lies at the roots of extremism, as the policies of the Bush administration made clear, with, by the way, the wholehearted support of the American people and American elites across the board.

 

                  So: “President Bush and his advisers construed those attacks … as the ‘new Pearl Harbor’ the PNAC had predicted would be necessary to awaken the sleeping giant to the need to act aggressively in the world.” [385] That is, Bush and his advisers construed those attacks as an invitation to extremism, what Dick Cheney called “going to the dark side.” And they did so in part because they did not think that in the political arena humans are confronted by fundamental alternatives among which choices have to be made.

 

                  “So as they fashioned the response of the United States and its allies to the al-Qaeda terrorists who had planned and executed the attacks, they also conceived a new main enemy for America and the world, and the rationale for what President Bush called ‘a global war on terrorism.’” [385] And, of course, because Bush defined that war as a war to eradicate evil in the world, it can be accurately described as extremist, an extremism that mirrors the extremism of bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

 

                  Only when the political arena is understood as presenting fundamentally different and conflicting alternatives can political extremism be tamed or avoided. Without a recognition of such alternatives, the temptation to embrace extreme political projects is easily succumbed to, especially because absent a perception of such alternatives, it is all too easy to convince oneself that you know how all humans ought to live, that you know not only one good way to live but you know the ideal way all humans should live. Insofar as there are fundamentally different, conflicting but legitimate alternatives, just so far it impossible to embrace extremism.