Speaking Of Extremists...

From a source not Facebook.

Placeholder: What explains the rise of the "Woke" Left? Is the ideology coherent? What are the wisdom and dangers within the ideology?

I'll put some thoughts on this, this weekend; just wanted to put it here.

Me: Interesting question regarding the left. I think the woke movement is a natural reaction to the insistence of suppression and denial by so many Americans, not merely those on the right.  (A situation which may be finally changing in the view of what’s occurring at the moment.)

I always liken those with extremist political positions to addicts. I would love someone to actually study this. I suspect the brain chemistry may be similar. Just like addicts, every extremist thinks that their position is so obvious that they simply cannot conceive of others not agreeing with them unless the others are being willfully oppositional or simply in denial.

Ideology does not need to be coherent because it involves a true believership. All that is required is that it be as powerful as a doctrine in a faith. It is not to be questioned.

Utter frustration at not getting anyone to listen to you and see obvious realities leads you to conclude that you are completely correct on the subject and drives people into their own version of extremism. Centuries of oppression and denial have brought forth the fruit of a new true believer movement.

The problem is that extremism is not countered by an opposing extremism. At least it is not countered effectively. The two extremes become symbiotic upon each other. Each merely needs to point to the other’s radicalism to justify their own.

The situation becomes a positive feedback syndrome. Each extremist action by the one party causes an increase of extremist action by the other, which then causes… You can see how the escalation occurs.

As for me, I refer to the movement as the “woking brain dead” to express my contempt for the refusal to be reasonable or to deal with matters rationally rather than emotionally.

I also apply my teeter totter analogy. They correctly see that the teeter totter has a huge load on one side. This makes it incapable of being used as it was intended. 

Unfortunately their solution is to put an equal load on the other side. While this will theoretically balance the load, all it actually accomplishes is to put so much weight at the two extremes that the pole simply breaks in the center.  Now the teeter totter is completely useless.