What all extremists have in common is the way they came by their ideology: via
emotion. My thesis is that all extremists start with hot emotion, and add the
cool rationale later. Their thinking on the "why" of the extremes they advocate
will seem organized and structured and reasonably logical only because they have
constructed it as an externality around their core reasons for their position.
For many people, their reasoning is a mask, a disguise for the fury, the
mindless emotionalism behind their extreme political direction.
* * *
It made headlines when Pat Robertson said we should assassinate the President of
Venezuela. Robertson was used to being able to get away with outrageous
statements and seemed startled when he had to apologize for advocating murder.
He added lies to irresponsibility by claiming he hadn't meant assassination. I
wonder what he really meant by "What we need is for somebody to place a small
nuke at Foggy Bottom [headquarters of the State Department]" or "[Feminism is a]
socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their
husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and
become lesbians." Or: "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians
and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing.
Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist."
These are very emotionally charged statements; they are charged with violence.
How can you call someone in league with the Antichrist or a child killer without
at least obliquely hinting at doing violence to them?
Then you have people like serial bomber Eric Rudolph and other anti-abortion
terrorists -- they're out front about the "necessity" of murdering abortion
providers. You have Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.
On the left you have the Unabomber, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Red Army
Faction, the Japanese Red Army, the Red Brigades, the Puerto Rican FALN, the
PLO.
The Symbionese Liberation Army couldn't possibly have thought, logically, that
they were going to overthrow the United States government. Their denial about
the possibilities, the tone of their communiques, their melodramatic insignia,
their flash-point resort to violence, all suggest emotionally based ideology.
The Unabomber's anti-industrial-society manifestos were sometimes suggestive of
mental illness, more often an exercise in apparent rational detachment--but the
underlying anger bleeds through, just as is it does with people like Robertson.
Here's a quote from the Unabomber's manifesto: The conservatives are fools: They
whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support
technological progress and economic growth.... Beyond that, a technological
society HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities... The Unabomber here
uses epithets--conservatives are "fools" who "whine" -- and he shouts in capital
letters. He HAS TO shout at times, to let off some of that inner pressure. He
talks of weakening family and community -- that is, there's a sense of an ongoing
threat to a what is precious and personal. It's all very emotional -- his apparent
close reasoning is a mask. Lines like those above give us a glimpse behind the
mask--just as Pat Robertson's death threats wipes away his camouflage for a
moment. The real motivator in both men is simple rage.
Earth First and PETA activists are known for lashing out with sabotage -- what
could be angrier? -- and for extremely harsh portrayals of their adversaries.
Their literature and public statements simmer with emotion.
Ask a neocon why he holds an extreme rightist position on National Security, or
why he's so adamantly opposed to regulations designed to protect the health of
children but remains hard-core against allowing abortion, and he will have a
sort of maze, a protective baffle of reasoning set up to protect this hypocrisy.
Penetrate that maze far enough -- mostly we aren't given the time to penetrate
it -- and we come to the secret at the core of the maze: it's an emotional
decision. They are angry about foreigners, about immigrants, about 9/11 -- that is
the real source of their unbridled support of the Patriot Act and torture at
Gitmo. But to get to the simple, core motivation behind neocon thinking -- anger
at anyone restricting their greed with environmental laws, anger at people who
doubt the absolute authority of their religion -- you must get past the
construction of self-serving logic, whether fallible or strong, that they've
erected around it.
If you ask Pat Robertson to defend his hostility, he will have reasons. But his
real reason is he's angry -- perhaps angry at things we cannot know. He may be
angry at his parents. Many rightists, as Randi Rhodes has pointed out, many
extremists like Karl Rove, come from dysfunctional families, alcoholic parents.
This may be what ultimately motivates people like Rove and Robertson and McVeigh.
The same will apply to extremists on the Left. They start with anger,
frustration, unsatisfied longing -- perhaps righteous anger at the often genuine
exploitation they see -- and they build up ideologies to express the anger. But
the anger comes first, the ideology exists merely to protect and support it,
even to project it -- like a missile launch system...
Emotion is not a bad thing -- even "negative" emotions have a place. But there's
such a thing as being in right relation to emotions. I discussed all this with a
scientist friend who said, "I think that one sign of successfully entering
adulthood is when someone comes to a reasonable separation between those forces
causing discomfort in their lives that are external, and those that are internal
in origin. I think that the people that you refer to (regardless of
ideological stripe) haven't done that." One recollects Bill O'Reilly, with his
"Shut up!" and his adolescent behavior toward the women in his office--here's a
man trapped in sub-maturity. His political choices seem primarily based on
anger.
Extremists are liars--though they often don't know they're lying. There's a
fundamental dishonesty to taking an extreme position for emotional reasons
while pretending it's rational. Logic is secondary to emotion, in human affairs,
whatever we pretend. So long as it remains that way, history will continue to be
a lexicon of crimes.
© Copyright 2005 John Shirley