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Extremism is a term used to describe the actions or ideologies of individuals or groups outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common standards of ethics and reciprocity. It is usually considered by those to whom it is applied to be a pejorative term. It is typically used in reference to political and social ideologies seen as irrational, counterproductive, unjustifiable, or otherwise unacceptable to a civil society. The term connotes the illegitimacy of certain ideas or methods. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... For other uses, see Ethics (disambiguation). ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with pejoration. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. ... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... Look up Civil in Wiktionary, the free dictionary The word Civil is derived from the Latin word civilis, from civis (citizen). Used as an adjective, it may describe several fields, concepts, and people: Civil death Civil defense Civil disobedience Civil engineering Civil law Civil liberties Civil libertarianism Civil marriage Civil... The word legitimacy comes from the Latin word legitimare and it has two uses: Legitimacy (political science) is variously defined, but refers in general to the peoples acceptance of a law, ruling, or a regime itself as valid. ...

The terms "extremism" or "extremist" are almost always exonymic—i.e. applied by others rather than by a group labeling itself. Rather than labeling themselves "extremist", those labeled as such tend to see the need for militant ideas or actions in a particular situation. For example, there is no political party that calls itself "right-wing extremist" or "left-wing extremist", and there is no sect of any religion that calls itself "Extremism."^{[citation needed]}

Radicals as extremists

The term "extremist" is used to describe groups and individuals who have become radicalized, in some way, even though the term radical originally meant to go to the root of a (social) problem. The term "radical" is a somewhat less negatively-connoted label sometimes used by radical individuals or groups to label themselves. The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

The terms "extremist" or "radical" are often used to label those who advocate or use violence against the will of the larger social body, but it is also used by some to describe those who advocate or use violence to enforce the will of the social body, such as a government or majority constituency. Ideology and methodology often become mixed under the single term "extremism".

The idea that there is a philosophy of extremism is thought by some to be suspect. Within sociology, several academics who track (and are critical of) extreme right-wing groups have objected to the term "extremist", which was popularized by centrist sociologists in the 1960s and 1970s. As Jerome Himmelstein states the case: "At best this characterization tells us nothing substantive about the people it labels; at worst it paints a false picture." (Himmelstein, p. 7). The act of labeling a person, group or action as "extremist" is sometimes claimed to be a technique to further a political goal—especially by governments seeking to defend the status quo, or political centrists.

On the other hand, according to George and Wilcox, the use of the "extremist" label has been historically applied to both the extreme right and extreme left, but they claim that some academics on the left wish to change the frame of reference to one in which only the far right, but not the far left, lies outside the pale of societal acceptability.

Uses of the term in mainstream politics

John Fitzgerald Kennedy paraphrased Dante by saying "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality" (from Dante, Inferno, The Divine Comedy). JFK redirects here. ... Dante in a fresco series of famous men by Andrea del Castagno, ca. ... Detail of a manuscript in Milans Biblioteca Trivulziana (MS 1080), written in 1337 by Francesco di ser Nardo da Barberino, showing the beginning of Dantes Comedy. ...

Barry Goldwater said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue" at the 1964 Republican Convention in a phrase attributed to his speechwriter Karl Hess. Barry Morris Goldwater (January 1, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–87) and the Republican Partys nominee for president in the 1964 election. ... The Republican Party, often called the GOP (for Grand Old Party, although one early citation described it as the Gallant Old Party) [1], is one of the two major political parties in the United States. ... Karl Hess Karl Hess (May 25, 1923–April 22, 1994), was a speechwriter, editor, political philosopher, hippie, welder, motorcycle racer, tax resister and libertarian. ...

Robert F. Kennedy said, "What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents." Robert Francis Bobby Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also called RFK, was one of two younger brothers of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and served as United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964. ...

Extremism defined

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Researcher Laird Wilcox identifies 21 traits of a political extremist in the Hoaxer Project Report: Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Shortcut: WP:NPOV Wikipedia policy is that all articles should be written from a neutral point of view. ... Laird Wilcox Laird Wilcox is an American researcher specializing in the study of political fringe movements. ...

1. Character assassination
2. Name calling and labeling
3. Irresponsible sweeping generalizations
4. Inadequate proof for assertions
5. Advocacy of double standards
6. View of opponents and critics as essentially evil
7. Manichean (bipolar) world view
8. Advocate some degree of censorship and repression of their opponents and critics
9. Identify themselves in terms of who their enemies are
10. Tendency toward arguments by intimidation
11. Widely use slogans, buzzwords and thought-terminating clichés
12. Claim some kind of moral or other superiority over others
13. Doomsday thinking
14. Tendency to believe that it is justified to do bad things in the service of a supposedly "good" cause
15. Emphasis on emotional response, as opposed to reasoning and logical analysis
16. Hypersensitivity and vigilance
17. May claim some kind of supernatural, mystical or divinely-inspired rationale for their beliefs and actions
18. Inability to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty
19. Groupthink
20. Personalization of hostility
21. Assumption that the system is defective if they don't win

(full article here) Character assassination is the process of harming a persons reputation enough to cause rejection of that person from their community. ... A double standard is an ethical rule applied more stringently to one party than to others. ... Manichaeism was one of the major ancient religions. ... For other uses, see Censor. ... A repressed memory, according to some theories of psychology, a memory (often traumatic) of an event or environment which is stored by the unconscious mind but outside the awareness of the conscious mind. ... A slogan is a memorable phrase used in political or commercial context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. ... A buzzword (also known as a fashion word) is an idiom, often a neologism, commonly used in technical, administrative and political environments, consisting of an over-used word or phrase. ... A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance, especially in cases where the person experiencing the cognitive dissonance might resolve it by reaching a thought-provoking epiphany. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ... Reasoning is the mental (cognitive) process of looking for reasons to support beliefs, conclusions, actions or feelings. ... Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ... Vigilance is the act of watching for something to happen, of watching for danger. ... Look up Supernatural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Mysticism (ancient Greek mysticon = secret) is meditation, prayer, or theology focused on the direct experience of union with divinity, God, or Ultimate Reality, or the belief that such experience is a genuine and important source of knowledge. ... Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. ...

Eric Hoffer and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. were two popular political writers during the mid-20th century who helped define societal definitions of political extremism. Hoffer wrote books such as The True Believer and The Passionate State of Mind about the psychology and sociology of those who join fanatical mass movements. Schlesinger wrote books such as The Vital Center, championing a center of politics within which mainstream political discourse takes place, and underscored the need for societies to draw definite lines regarding what falls outside of this acceptability. In this way, both Communism and Fascism were defined in the postwar western democracies as extremist movements, as were other groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. The term was also used at times to describe groups which held views outside of the mainstream but which did not advocate militant or violent action, including: The John Birch Society, the Nation of Islam, and the nuclear disarmament movement. Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1898 – May 21, 1983) Eric Hoffer was a social and political philosopher who is best known for his book The True Believer (1951). ... Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. ... The True Believer covers The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements ISBN 0060505915 was Eric Hoffers first and most successful book, published in 1951. ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. ... Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the needs of the state, and seeks to forge a type of national unity, usually based on, but not limited to, ethnic, cultural, or racial attributes. ... Members of the second Ku Klux Klan at a rally during the 1920s. ... The John Birch Society is a conservative American exceptionalist organization founded in 1958 to fight what it saw as growing threats to the Constitution of the United States, especially a suspected communist infiltration of the United States government, and to support free enterprise. ... The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and social/political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930 with the self-proclaimed goal of resurrecting the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of the black men and women of America and the rest of the... U.S. and USSR/Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles, 1945-2006 Nuclear disarmament is the proposed dismantling of nuclear weapons, particularly those of the United States and the Soviet Union (later Russia) targeted on each other. ...

Other terms

The term subversive is a somewhat obsolescent term which was often used interchangeably with extremist during the Cold War period, although it does not mean the same thing. This article is about the computer software framework. ... For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ...

Fringe or "lunatic fringe" have also been used as synonyms for extremist. A fringe is an ornamental appendage to the border of an item, such as a flag. ...

ℳ== See also ==

• The ends justify the means
• False consensus effect
• Fanatiφcism
• Far left
• Far right
• Fundamentalism
• Misanthropology
• Secret society
• Sensationalism
• Sister Souljah moment
• Vigilantism

The ends justify the means is a phrase encompassing two beliefs: Morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary to achieve morally right outcomes. ... The false consensus effect refers to the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them. ... The term far left refers to the relative position a person or group occupies within the political spectrum. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into far right. ... Look up fundamentalism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A secret society is an organization that conceals its activities and membership from outsiders. ... Sensationalism is a manner of being extremely controversial, loud, attention-grabbing, or otherwise sensationalistic. ... In United States politics, a Sister Souljah moment is a politicians public repudiation of an allegedly extremist person, statement, or position perceived to have some association with the politician. ... For the aircraft, see A-5 Vigilante. ...

References

• George, John and Laird Wilcox. Nazis, Communists, Klansmen, and Others on the Fringe: Political Extremism in America  Prometheus Books, 1992. (ISBN 0-87975-680-2)
• Himmelstein, Jerome L. All But Sleeping with the Enemy: Studying the Radical Right Up Close  ASA, San Francisco: 1988
• Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Various editions, first published 1951.
• Schlesinger, Arthur. The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom. Various editions, first published 1949.
• Wilcox, Laird. "What Is Political Extremism", retrieved from The Voluntaryist newsletter #27, 1987
• Hawk, Tony. Tony Hawk: American Wasteland. 2006.