GPDP
5th March 2010, 08:56
I keep hearing this word thrown around all the time, not only out in the real world and in the classroom, but even in this very board.
It appears to me extremism as a label is used not to describe, but to defame. That is, it is used to villify any tendency outside the acceptable, mainstream range of debate and courses of political action.
However, it is not always used to denounce those outside the political mainstream. After all, all of us here would be branded "extremists" by such standards, yet we reject the label (though we do tend to embrace "radical"). And yet I often hear people here talking about "extremist right-wingers," which strikes me as odd. Does this mean that extremism can also be used as a label to use against tendencies we not only reject, but militantly oppose?
I suppose my question is the following: is there any merit to the extremist label? What exactly entails being an extremist? Can there be a non-subjective, universal definition of extremism, like things that an extremist is inherently poised to do? Or is it all entirely subjective?
It appears to me extremism as a label is used not to describe, but to defame. That is, it is used to villify any tendency outside the acceptable, mainstream range of debate and courses of political action.
However, it is not always used to denounce those outside the political mainstream. After all, all of us here would be branded "extremists" by such standards, yet we reject the label (though we do tend to embrace "radical"). And yet I often hear people here talking about "extremist right-wingers," which strikes me as odd. Does this mean that extremism can also be used as a label to use against tendencies we not only reject, but militantly oppose?
I suppose my question is the following: is there any merit to the extremist label? What exactly entails being an extremist? Can there be a non-subjective, universal definition of extremism, like things that an extremist is inherently poised to do? Or is it all entirely subjective?