In order not to be derailed by ideological preferences or newly veneered influencers, I asked the question to that robotic version of the Sibyl of Delphi called ChatGPT: What is extremism?
She told me: “Extremism is an ideology or set of beliefs that is characterized by radical, inflexible, and often violent positions in relation to certain ideas, political, religious or social beliefs. Extremists tend to reject compromises or negotiations and seek to impose their views in an absolute way.”
“It can arise at any end of the political or religious spectrum and is not necessarily tied to a specific ideology. For example, there may be right-wing, left-wing, religious, nationalist extremism, among others.”
“Extremism is often a subject of concern in society due to its ability to generate conflict, violence and division.”
When I asked her for examples of extremists in the world, she mentioned a catalog of terrorists, supremacists, Nazis, religious fundamentalists, leftist or rightist organizations, and at the end she added: “online hate movements that promote violence against specific individuals or groups through digital platforms.”
Lastly, artificial intelligence reminded me that “extremism can manifest itself in many different forms and contexts, and it is always important to address it seriously and sensibly to prevent violence and promote tolerance and understanding between people.”
So how to identify the subspecies of extremists among us? I have met misogynists who exalt virility and openly denigrate women, as well as sorority activists who preach suspicion towards men; Havanacentrics who disqualify easterners as Palestinians, and easterners who proclaim themselves anti-capitals at heart; confessed supremacists, white and not so white, who attribute defects to others only because of their darker skin color.
It is not difficult to find some ready to proclaim that their parents beat them and made them good people; calling practitioners of African religions barbaric and backward for believing in the powers of Ifá or because they sacrifice animals; supporting the death penalty as a means to end violence or eradicate corruption; calling anyone who does not share their ideas on social media a police officer and anyone who challenges arguments in a public debate a censor; affirming that whoever does not follow to the letter everything the Bible says will burn in hell forever. However, I have never come across anyone who recognizes himself as an extremist.
If extremism is made up of beliefs and support for ideas that are very far from what many consider correct or reasonable, as the Encyclopedia Britannica suggests, which ones are acceptable to the majority? What is correct or reasonable concerning what? How invariable or shifting is that convergent zone of what the mainstream majority thinks?
If we were to accept, for example, that the political consensus — that is, the predominant ideas about the system or the actions of the government — has mutated, and that today this conglomeration of ideas and feelings has become more heterogeneous, contradictory, problematic, where is what today is considered disagreement, dissent, critical judgment, questioning, concerning what was previously opposition or belligerence against?
Let’s say, when the leadership calls to discuss this or that law or policy, and even accepts speaking one’s mind and systematically debating in-depth, is it not in fact naturalizing dissent? If this were the case, is that mainstream, now crossed by dissent, not approaching the point of being confused with antagonistic political confrontation? So where does dissent end and dissent begin?
Answering these questions could redefine the space of ideological confrontation, and could be in line with the debate of ideas in a different way. Decant, for example, political opposition and extremist attitudes. But, although the latter could be masked by the haze that ideological polarization raises, in the long run, they would become visible. As a chemist would say, the atomic weight that distinguishes rare soils would continue to mark their trace on the screen. Especially when they are accelerated.
Naturally, I do not aim to present a scientifically measurable scale, like that of the elements of the periodic table, to classify extremism and extremists. I am barely trying to approach the problem of extremism for what it is not.
For starters, being an extremist is not the same as being radical. In the Western tradition, in France and England, where it is associated with reforms and the defense of workers, radicalism is not a bad word, as in the United States, where it is confused with violence, anarchy, and everything that the prevailing anti-communism demonizes.
In Latin America, the Caribbean, and Cuba, on the contrary, radicalism has been present since the struggles for independence. As is known, Martí recognized it: “Radical is nothing more than that: he who goes to the roots. Do not call a radical who does not see things in their depth. Nor a man who does not help the safety and happiness of other men.” As some authors have pointed out, Martí is radical because of his political goals, not because he privileged violent methods or a single voice, so the lack of democracy and dialogue did not characterize his radicalism.
Of course, neither sectarians of one sign nor those of the opposite represent a radical alternative but rather recycle extremism. Those who end each argument by reproducing anti-government morals, as in the story of the Phoenicians, are as much or more sectarian, that is, extremist than the ideologues whom they seek to challenge. Nothing to do with Martí’s radicalism, and even less with that of Gramsci, Che, or any of the icons they claim to venerate.
Returning to the ChatGPT summary, we would have a handful of traits that would be relevant here and now: inflexible positions emerging at either end of the political spectrum, without being linked to a specific ideology; rejecting compromises or negotiations, and seeking to impose their points of view; object of concern in society due to its ability to generate conflict and division; alternative forms of violence, such as those propagated by online hate movements against individuals or groups through digital platforms. Hence, promoting dialogue and understanding would be the differential proof of what is not extremism.
Considering it with equanimity and realism, it would be difficult to eradicate in the short term our innate extremism, which is not the fault of the Soviet Union, but of our own culture and mental habits.
“There is no worse wedge,” repeated my grandfather Benito, who, in addition to working in the fields, had studied in a Catholic seminary. In effect, the renegades are extremists who continue to be extremists, because they deny en masse everything in which they blindly believed; unlike heretics, who enrich the doctrine, because they expand it. The bad thing is that there are plenty of renegades wearing heretic shirts (Isaac Deutscher Dixit).
So not only are those who were members of the Communist Party of Cuba, officials, and officers accustomed to obeying are extremists; but also the believers in the philosophy of DiaMat, because they taught it or learned it as a catechism, in the most orthodox tradition of the old parties, and from those school exercises for “minimum exams” of philosophy, in pursuit of a category or a degree. They became accustomed to single answers to set questions, a yes-or-no dichotomy that continues to permeate the culture of extremism.
Although there are curious subspecies of renegades, like papa’s boys, who nourish the ranks of intellectual dissidence and journalism, there are others conditioned by circumstances. Let’s say, those who never expressed opposition or had a questioning or controversial position, and when they emigrate, they suddenly recognize themselves in the mirror of the old exile, especially when they land in an environment where dialogue and tolerance are not abundant.
As I noted before, however, it is not about doing away with the extremists, nor declaring them persona non grata. Perhaps for the moment, nothing can be achieved other than minimizing costs. Advancing a political culture inherited from civic qualities and also from atavisms, which drags extremisms and polarities, can be a longer-term distillation; a political culture in which observatories multiply and laboratories are rectified where unforeseen mutations may arise.
The first thing to look at would be the mirror of those who think differently, even extremists, to be able to recognize our own latent extremism in them.
If the fight is more against extremism than against extremists, a genuine debate should be encouraged, which listens to the other, instead of reacting with the machete raised. A debate that really alternates with the disagreement, and does not take it as an offense; that does not see a lack of respect where there is nothing more than disagreement, and that turns into a reality that of agreeing to disagreement, to maintain the dialogue, instead of confusing it with an endless exchange of rants, which enthrones rancor and struggles to have the last word.
Invoking intransigence as a patriotic virtue is not the same as exalting it as a civic condition, which blocks the domino of dialogue and replaces it with a fight of diatribes. Defending the space for democracy begins by facilitating coexistence; instead of making hatred and insults on social media and the media that share the same discourse a cheap way to achieve popularity, preaching pluralism and shooting at everything that moves, in the best style of the worst populism. I am referring to those who call themselves representatives of the people, of the people from below, confusing them with their followers on Facebook.
Wanting to distance oneself from extremism by taking the rough with the smooth, with a kind of balancing act to look good with Tyrians and Trojans, has another name, which is not extremism, naturally. This pseudo-liberal conciliation, which floats like corks in the current, is perhaps worse than some extremisms.
The first casualty in a war is the truth, said the Greek classic. The first casualty in a clash of extremisms is that their struggle clouds our understanding of what is happening to us. That is the question.
Author
Rafael Hernández
