Quassim Cassam: Extremism – A philosophical analysis

Extremism can be understood in ideological, methodological or psychological terms. My focus in this lecture will be on extremism in the psychological sense. Extremism in this sense is best understood as a mindset. A person’s mindset includes their preoccupations and attitudes. The extremist mindset is constituted, in part, by a preoccupation with purity, virtue and victimhood. I will propose an account of these preoccupations and their role in extremism. A key extremist attitude is hostility to compromise. Since hostility to compromise is also characteristic of a person of principle, there is the challenge of differentiating the uncompromising attitude that goes with being principled from that which goes with being an extremist.