Kindle Notes & Highlights
Two other core elements of fundamentalism are anti-modernism and anti-pluralism.
Fundamentalists can be fanatics, and fundamentalism might be a risk factor for fanaticism. However, there is no necessary connection between the two.
fundamentalists are mindset extremists.
zealots are irrational and intolerant fundamentalists and terrorists.
Apologists for extremism do not argue that it is intrinsically good. They argue, rather, that it is, or can be, an effective means of achieving worthwhile political ends.
If moderation is the quintessential political virtue, then extremism is the quintessential political vice.
‘terrorism is an instrumental business: people become involved in the terrorist process in order to achieve something else’ (2016: 3). If terrorism succeeds in bringing about the political changes that terrorists typically seek, then that is one sense in which it works, and if terrorism works, then that is one central type of extremism that works.
Terrorism can be defined as ‘the intentional use or threat of violence against individuals or groups who are victimized for the purpose of intimidating or frightening a broader audience’ (Jackson 2011: 123).
Audrey Cronin’s (2009) study of 450 terrorist campaigns suggests that 87 per cent achieved none of their strategic aims, with only 4 per cent fully achieving their primary objectives.
Indeed, if one looks at historical struggles for freedom, democracy, justice, and human rights, one might draw the conclusion that radicalism rather than moderation is the quintessential political virtue.
The fanatic mind, Mme de Staël argued, is dangerous because it knows no limits, is incapable of self-restraint, and admits of no guilt. Fanatics demand unconditional obedience and uniformity of thought, and they have no scruples about sacrificing the fate of current generations to the hypothetical happiness of future ones.
First, they defend pluralism – of ideas, interests, and social forces – and seek to achieve a balance between them in order to temper political and social conflicts. Second, moderates prefer gradual reforms to revolutionary breakthroughs, and they are temperamentally inclined to making compromises and concessions on both prudential and normative grounds … Third, moderation presupposes a tolerant approach which refuses to see the world in Manichean terms that divide it into forces of good (or light) and agents of evil (or darkness).
radicalism is contention outside the common routines of politics present within a society, oriented towards substantial change in social, cultural, economic, and/or political structures, and undertaken by any actor using extra-institutional means.
Consider Neumann’s list of radicalization drivers or risk factors: (1) the perception of grievance; (2) the adoption of an extremist narrative or ideology; and (3) social or group dynamics.
This assumes the radicalization is cognitive rather than behavioral radicalization.6 To be cognitively radicalized is to adopt an extremist ideology. Behavioral radicalization means turning to violence or using other extreme methods to advance one’s political objectives.
If a person who adopts an extremist ideology is cognitively radicalized, and a person who employs extreme methods is behaviorally radicalized, then a person who develops an extremist mindset is psychologically radicalized.
Radicalization in this sense works by making what would once have been unthinkable – the passing of racial purity laws, for example – not only thinkable but politically feasible.
McVeigh was like many on the right who ‘are attracted to powerful weapons for their own sake … [and] tend to invent excuses, often far-fetched ones, for acquiring weapons for which they have no real need’ (ibid.: 400).
One question about the grievance model is whether the grievances it identifies as drivers of radicalization can be genuine.
Arun Kundnani insists that ‘the micro-level question of what causes one person rather than another in the same political context to engage in violence is beyond analysis and best seen as unpredictable’ (2012: 21).
One is activation of a martial social identity.11 In simpler terms, individuals like McVeigh come to think of themselves as soldiers or warriors.
The transition from the perception of grievance to political violence is a reflection of another key driver of radicalization.
Extremists believe that they are acting for the greater good and that acting as they do is a political and moral necessity. In other words, they believe that there is a moral obligation on anyone capable of fighting to do so, by whatever means would be most effective.
When describing the ways in which an extremist mindset facilitates and underpins both cognitive and behavioural radicalization, it is helpful to distinguish causes of radicalization and enabling conditions. Causes either trigger or increase the risk of radicalization.
Enabling conditions are the background conditions that make it possible for triggers to function as they do.
In the same way, the perception of grievance will not lead a person to resort to violence unless the appropriate background conditions obtain. These conditions include a preoccupation with victimhood and indifference to the consequences of violence.
In L.A. Paul’s terminology, the loss of a family member is a potentially ‘transformative experience’.
Violence results when aggrieved and ideologically radicalized individuals self-categorize as soldiers and become preoccupied with the need to ‘do something’ in the face of a perceived injustice.
The study of a wide range of personal journeys to extremism serves a number of different purposes: as well as highlighting common features, engaging with the idiosyncrasies of personal journeys makes it easier to guard against over-generalization.
According to Sunstein, ‘when people find themselves in groups of like-minded types, they are especially likely to move to extremes’ (2009: 2).
The key is the way that groups exchange and filter information. In groups of like-minded people, a mechanism that leads to extremism and polarization is corroboration.
Another mechanism that leads to greater extremism is that more moderate group members tend to exit groups that become more extreme, leaving behind only group members with more extreme views.
They promote radicalization by promoting their own narratives, attitudes, and ways of thinking, and by systematically excluding alternative voices.
‘if I am in a small community with beliefs that others would think are very odd, I may find those beliefs not at all odd because, after all, they are held by everyone I know’
Two ideas for representing the epistemology of cults and, by extension, the epistemology of extremist groups, are those of an echo chamber and an epistemic bubble.
An echo chamber is a social structure from which other relevant voices have been actively discredited:
Where an epistemic bubble merely omits contrary views, an echo chamber brings its members to actively distrust outsiders … [A]n echo chamber is something like a cult. A cult isolates its members by actively alienating them from any outside sources.
In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined.
Extremists who fall into this category are not irrational. Rather, their extremism stems from the fact that ‘they have little relevant information, and their extremist views are supported by what little they know’ (ibid.: 12). However, the idea that McVeigh and Yousef knew relatively few things and had little relevant information is implausible.
Relevant voices are not just contrary voices but ones that have a proper claim to be taken seriously.
The fundamental problem with socio-epistemic theories of radicalization is that they deny epistemic autonomy to extremists. It is reassuring to think that people whose views are diametrically opposed to one’s own must have been tricked or manipulated into believing what they believe.
it assumes that political disagreement must be the result of ignorance of factual matters but there is no reason to think this is so. Sometimes people disagree because their values or ideologies are different.
Social media is an effective tool to use to radicalize and recruit members into a cause. It is always there whenever the user is. It lures members with a promise of friendship, acceptance or a sense of purpose
A 2013 report for RAND Europe paints a more nuanced picture (Von Behr et al. 2013). It confirms that the internet – which includes social media – may enhance opportunities for radicalization and act as an echo chamber for extremist beliefs.
Polarization is ‘a condition where political officials and ordinary citizens are so deeply divided that there is no basis for compromise or even productive communication among them’ (Aikin and Talisse 2020: 31).
Overton Window
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By making thinkable what would previously have been unthinkable, the alt-right has succeeded in radicalizing American politics and preparing the way for Trump’s election in 2016.
As Peter Neumann observes, counter-radicalization ‘seeks to prevent non-radicalized populations from being radicalized’ (2011: 16).
deradicalization and disengagement, these two terms: describe processes whereby radicalized individuals (or groups) cease their involvement in political violence and/or terrorism. While de-radicalization aims for substantive changes in individuals’ (or groups’) ideology and attitudes, disengagement concentrates on facilitating behavioral change, that is, the rejection of violent means.
As the 2011 Prevent Strategy puts it, ‘the line between extremism and terrorism is not always precise’ and ‘preventing people becoming terrorists will require a challenge to extremist ideas where they are used to legitimise terrorism’ (HM Government 2011: 24).
