REPEATEDLY, I AM SEEING THE WORD “EXTREMISM” cropping up in many different contexts, as an epithet which people hang on anyone who they do not understand or whose behaviour seems hyper-unconventional. Most recently, I have observed that many on the social media application known as Facebook (what I call Fakebook) have been receiving one or other of two announcements which look like this:

There is something disturbing about these images. They are claimed to be counteracting the kind of “extremism” which one sees culminating in bomb attacks in public places. But it is highly unlikely that these images would make any difference whatsoever to that kind of evil behaviour. I have noticed that social media organisations appear to be lumping in anyone with unconventional thinking or actions with terrorists and accusing them of peddling hate. Recently, I made a comment on a friend’s post which was tinged with irony about men and women and Fakebook suddenly deleted it and flagged me as someone promoting “hate”. There isn’t a hateful bone in my body. I have never hated anyone or anything (except sago pudding 🤢) throughout my entire life! The word “hate” has become so loaded that it now refers to anything which offends people. Added to that, the so-called “factcheckers” on Fakebook wouldn’t know a fact from a fart. Facts, for them, means whatever is being promoted by ‘authorities’ and governments acting on behalf of the power-elite. Now, it seems, to be a hardline “anti-vaxxer” or “conspiracy theorist”, truth-teller, or a medical professional who does not agree with the lies of the WHO is as bad as being an Islamic terrorist!

Before I analyse the phenomenon relating to this particular word, “extremism”, I’d like to contextualise it in terms of the suffix used at the conclusion of the word; namely “-ism”. In recent decades, a number of trendy words with that suffix have been coined in order to label a person or groups of people derogatorily. It seems that in much the same way that the victors get to write the history, tendentious special interest groups get to use their “-isms” as labels on those who they have demonised. Two of those words which spring to mind are ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’. The former morphed into its current use of the term in the 1960s. (Previously, it had been used primarily in relation to a description of Nazi doctrine). The word ‘sexism’ emerged in the mid-1960s in feminist circles. While there may be some merit to the words when considered objectively, they are now rarely used in such a manner. Today, they have become a convenient label to pin on anyone who says or does something with which one vehemently disagrees in relation to the subject at hand.

I saw a poster recently which said, “In order to stop being racist, stop seeing people as ‘black’ and ‘white’”. This is what I have believed for a long time. Everyone in the world is just one hue or another, or a variation of one or another shade, tint, or tone. The world of skin is one vast swatch-card of infinite variety. I see variations on a theme of pink, or ebony, or golden, or you name it. Hardly anyone is really stark white or jet black. Race defined by skin-colour is a complete red herring. But for those with a vested interest in derogatorily labelling others, it provides the perfect cover. A person may well be acting nastily or prejudicially towards someone because of the way they perceive their tint of skin. That is not really ‘racist’ but downright screwed-up nastiness. It is unlikely that such a person only has that kind of prejudice, but it will be part of a whole raft of prejudices, a total mindset. Such a person needs a complete ‘brainlift’ (cerebral version of a facelift). I could say so much more on this but I will be digressing from the main subject of the text.

As for the word ‘sexism’, that has become a loaded epithet to such an extent that it is virtually meaningless. It is now apparently sexist for a man to flirt with a woman, but, interestingly, not if the woman fancies the man flirting with her 😉. Neither apparently is it ‘sexist’ for a woman to flirt with a man. The mind boggles. It is apparently ‘sexist’ for a man to look at a woman’s legs, but not for a woman to glance at a man’s bulge in his penis area, which most women do unconsciously anyway, as I have observed on countless occasions 😉. Okay, enough of that ludicrous term ‘sexism’!

Now back to the use of the word “extremism” in the manner in which it has been coined in recent years. A definition I have seen of extremists is, “people whose beliefs are far outside the mainstream of society” and of extremism, “political, religious, etc. ideas or actions that are extreme and not normal, reasonable or acceptable to most people”. Firstly, what on earth is wrong with being “outside the mainstream of society”? Secondly, “normal, reasonable and acceptable to most people”, hahaha! 🤣 ‘On that basis, I am a complete extremist! My mindset and lifestyle are so “far outside the mainstream of society” that I am virtually in another dimension. And quite right too! What mostpeople find “normal, reasonable or acceptable” involves mediocrity, stupidity, and gullibility. Mostpeople believe that their governments care about them and exist for the good of all. 🙄 Mostpeople take part in the most farcical theatre in the world: voting at elections, without even realising they are being used as patsies in an experiment of engineered consent. Mostpeople do not know the difference between music and manipulated sound to generate money. Mostpeople would do as they are told by authorities, even if those authorities are proven to be corrupt, deceptive and mendacious. Mostpeople can be induced to perform horrendous acts if they have an official stamp of approval, as Stanley Milgram proved many decades ago in his experiments concerning obedience [see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdrKCilEhC0 ]. Mostpeople I wouldn’t trust to make sensible decisions on a jury if I was before a court of law! Mostpeople subsist in a fog of delusions, conditioned reflexes, educational brainwashing, and decades of successfully-applied social engineering. I use the term ‘mostpeople’ in this portmanteau form as the poet ee cummings did in the scintillating introduction to his 1938 set of poems. He wrote:

“The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople — it’s no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootofminusone… Life,for mostpeople,simply isn’t”.

Exactly. Edward Estlin Cummings was — according to “normal” society — an extremist and I thank God for him regularly. In fact, on the basis of the above definitions of an extremist and extremism, I thank God for the relative handful of people I know who do not go along with what mostpeople believe is “normal, reasonable or acceptable”. The fact that mostpeople believe what they do to be “normal, reasonable or acceptable” is to me highly disturbing! Mostpeople, in fact, are programmed by the state to persecute the unconventional and non-conformists. Could that be classed as extremism?

There are many aspects of ‘extreme’ which I greatly love. Extreme passion. Extreme authenticity and integrity. Extreme commitment. Extreme diligence. The music of Gustav Mahler! Good stuff cannot be extreme enough, as far as I am concerned. Give me an extreme firebrand with love in his or her heart over a lukewarm cold fish any day of the week! But governments take things to extremes which are of extreme harm to humanity, such as waging endless wars and supporting their friends in the corporate world of business so that extreme poverty exists everywhere. Recently, I read that the Pentagon will in 2023 be activating a new intercontinental ballistic weapons system which is called “The Sword of Armageddon”, at a cost of 61 billion dollars. Talk about extremism! It has been estimated that it would cost around 11 billion dollars per year to end world hunger. Yet, spending 61 billion on a weapons system with an end-of-the-world title is considered to be normal, reasonable, and acceptable! That, my friends, is extremism.

It seems to me that what the world thinks is ‘normal, reasonable, and acceptable’ is extremism and what the world refers to as ‘extremism’ is reasonable and acceptable. So, the next time someone calls you an extremist, count it as a complement. 😊

© 2021, Alan Morrison / The Diakrisis Project. All Rights Reserved. 
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]