Extremism is the Problem

Every time there is a vile extremist attack which the perpetrators claim to be a response to some feature they denounce, there is a tendency to jump in and defend that feature as sacrosanct.  

So, if the extremists rant about a cartoon or a book that has so offended them that they set off to kill the people responsible, the public reaction is filled with the championing of free speech, the freedom to offend, the freedom to express whatever one wishes to express, and so on.  If the extremists attribute their violent attacks on a place of worship to their disgust with certain religious practice, we will hear that there must be absolute religious freedom, no limit on what people can do in the name of their faith, etc. Or if the extremists have set off explosions at some business facility because it was used for commercial purpose which has ‘undesirable’ consequences, there will be an outcry that corporate freedom must be protected, and nothing can justify any interference with the work of free enterprise.

There are two things wrong with this type of reaction. First of all, it takes the public focus away from the real issue – how to tackle extremist behaviour.  We can debate what is and what is not offensive with certain text or picture, the merits of a particular religious custom, or the acceptability of certain corporate activity.  But regardless of those debates, the central point is that extremist behaviour cannot be tolerated and must be stopped. What we are concerned with here is the threatening, injuring, and taking of others’ lives when those people have not in any objective sense, intentionally threatened, injured or taken anyone else’s lives. It is a serious deflection to get bogged down about where the line should be drawn in terms of possible provocation of extremist behaviour, because nothing can justify extremist behaviour, and reference to provocation is irrelevant when the priority is for potential perpetrators to be watched and actual offenders prevented from harming others again [Note 1].

Secondly, the tendency to regard ‘absolute freedom’ for expression, religion, business, or anything else for that matter, as a riposte to extremist behaviour is misguided. Imagine someone shouts the nastiest abuse at their children repeatedly, and an extremist shoots him dead. Should the response be that we should recognise the absolute freedom for parents to express themselves to their children? Or after an extremist runs over a person who has been giving out leaflets stating how drinking bleach can improve health, should that lead to a championing of the absolute freedom to give ‘medical’ advice?  The last thing society needs after a terrible extremist attack is the promotion of a false notion of ‘absolute freedom’ which can then be invoked to justify the spreading of lies, hatred, discrimination, pollution, and other forms of harm.

We should not forget that a distorted conception of freedom has dangerous affinity with extremists’ conviction that they are free to do whatever they believe is right.

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Note 1: How to prevent re-offending through incarceration, restitution, rehabilitation, etc is a separate issue to consider.