A View on the Extreme.

I was thinking today about how much politicians and media figures love to use the word ‘extremist’ in relation to attitudes and opinions which run counter to the established order. It’s been my experience that many – if not most – views labelled as ‘extremist’ are not extreme at all, but simply different. There are exceptions to prove the rule of course – especially on the far right and at the totalitarian end of the liberal alter-establishment – but the word is much overused and often disingenuously so. In most cases, ‘extremist’ is nothing more than a synonym for ‘alternative.’

But of course, politicians and establishment figures dislike the word ‘alternative.’ It’s a thinkers’ word, and people in power generally want people to follow, not think. ‘Extremist’ is far more appropriate because it carries the inherent suggestion of danger, of being a threat to everything which people have grown used to regarding as comfortable, axiomatic, and even sacrosanct. It’s good for the rich and powerful that people should be so persuaded because that makes them more compliant.

I’ve no doubt the Chartists were described as ‘extremist’ because they advocated such outrageous nonsense as having secret ballots during elections. Do we still think of the secret ballot as extremist? And the suffragettes also held the extremist view that women should be allowed to vote.

And so, if I might be so presumptuous, I would like to suggest to young people that every time they hear a politician, a police officer, a civil servant, a politically polarised newspaper, a school teacher, or even a parent use the world ‘extremist’, they might step to one side and ask what the word actually means.