Getting a Grip on Extremism (and Massaging it to Completion)

by Jim Goad

November 04, 2013
Getting a Grip on Extremism (and Massaging it to Completion)
photo credit: Shutterstock

After leftist radicals shot and killed a pair of Golden Dawn members in Athens on Friday, news outlets referred to the killers as members of an “extremist” group. This was odd, as I’ve become conditioned to see that particular scare term used only for people and things deemed to the right of center. I hardly ever hear the word “extremist” used these days to describe communists or violent leftist radicals; that practice went out of fashion around the time Nixon waved goodbye from the White House lawn.

Without bothering to define the term “neo-Nazi,” headline writers made sure to remind everyone that Golden Dawn were neo-Nazis; still, it was strange to see their antagonists described as extremists. That term is usually trotted out to defame neo-Nazis, not the people who shoot them. In Europe you have well-heeled self-described “independent” (yet slavishly globalist) organizations such as Chatham House whose description of “extremism” is myopically fixated on the political right.
“What was once considered an average American has now become an extremist.”

But one man’s extremism is another’s common sense. At least to themselves, I suspect that everyone makes perfect sense. I believe that hardly anyone considers his or her beliefs to be anything but entirely sensible. Rare is the individual who considers their beliefs to be extreme. The word “extremist,” therefore, is an exonymic term, meaning one that is almost exclusively applied to others rather than oneself. It is used as a weapon to establish social hierarchy and declare where one stands in the power equation.

As with all political terms, the meaning of “extremist” depends on who’s using it. As a general rule, though, it tends to denote any group or individual who, ironically, isn’t extremely powerful. In practical terms, an “extremist” is any rogue satellite that dares to resist the Death Star’s magnetic pull.

The right to wield the word against marginalized enemies gets passed like a baton as power dynamics shift and new elites emerge. So-called “extremists” launched every political revolution in history. Once they achieved power, they invariably reserved the right to deem themselves the status quo and to pin the “extremist” donkey tail on others.

Christ’s teachings were considered extreme while he roamed the Earth, but then they served to form the bedrock for much of Western Civilization.

It’s highly likely that Britain’s monarchists viewed America’s Founding Fathers as a motley band of upstart extremists.

The Stern Gang and their ilk were extremists until they bombed their way into power and established Israel. The Judeo-military-industrial complex then proceeded to expend great effort, move vast mountains of cash, and waste thousands of human lives in its quest to paint Islamists as extremists.

When MLK was an outsider, he was considered an extremist. Now he’s a patron saint of the political status quo.

Almost everywhere in American media, education, and even the military these days, the word “extremist” is increasingly applied to those who are unashamedly white, male, and Christian. What was once considered an average American has now become an extremist. Oh, how the whiteys have fallen!

The Tea Party, who cleave with scriptural devotion to what was once an emblem of the American status quo known as the US Constitution, are increasingly referred to as anti-American extremists. So are Christians. So are white Southern males. Hot dogs, baseball, and mom’s apple pie can’t be far behind. Everything that was once deemed typically American is now being redefined as a threat to America’s very existence.

The insatiably power-hungry culture-burrowing boll weevils at the deceptively named Southern Poverty Law Center, whose every action and utterance reeks of extremist behavior, have become so entrenched within the American political status quo that they now work with the US Department of Homeland Security to define extremism. Along with the ADL, the SPLC enables the FBI to indoctrinate the US Armed Forces about exactly what constitutes extremism. It almost always has something to do with being pro-white, anti-Semitic, or anti-government. On its “Hate and Extremism” Web page, the SPLC boasts of “crushing” four groups—“the White Aryan Resistance, the United Klans of America, the White Patriot Party militia and the Aryan Nations.” So much for diversity among extremists.

The SPLC’s definition of “extremism” was thought to have inspired a recent training session wherein US troops were taught that the American Family Association is an “extremist hate group.” The SPLC was also thought to have inspired a 600-plus-page Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute document that endlessly railed against “white privilege” and the unfair advantages presumably held by “healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian” men.

It would seem to be the “Christian” part that would let most of the healthy, white-skinned, heterosexual men at the SPLC off the hook. As luck would have it, much of the SPLC’s leadership, like that of the tireless extremism-fighters at the ADL, consists of members of an extremely small and extremely powerful minority. But it would be extreme to note such a fact; terroristic, even.

But for such groups to now claim the right to define “extremism” is a tacit admission that they are not fighting the “mainstream” or the “power.” They define the mainstream and hold the power. You can tell who’s in power by who gets to define extremism. And it isn’t the Nazis or the white males anymore. This kicks the legs out from beneath the smug leftist pretense that they represent the little people and the outsiders. Instead, they are drunk to the point of blood poisoning on their own newfound power.

In many meaningful ways, I oppose extremism. I hate the extremely stupid. The extremely obnoxious. The extremely smelly. The extremely uninformed.

But in an increasingly collectivized society, swimming against the tide increasingly becomes an act of extremism. If I’m an extremist merely for refusing to submit to a right bloody flogging due to my skin color and genitals, count me extreme. It seems perfectly normal—harmless, even—not to engage in self-hatred. Then again, all extremists think they’re normal, don’t they?

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