Moral Extremism In The Age Of Mass Psychosis

Extremism in its current usage is a word I don’t like because it’s pretty much meaningless.
It is used in a way that implies that being an extremist is morally bad. Usually it is used to paint critics of the current status quo or conservatives as dangerous, morally condemnable people. The people using the word in this way are often themselves the most radical, extreme people in the history of mankind, calling for the abolishment of fossil fuels, radical changes in diet like eating insects and other radical changes in society. The German magazine “Stern” went even so far as to ask “Is breathing damaging for the climate?”

The word extremism has no moral quality. The definition of extreme:
a: existing in a very high degree
b: going to great or exaggerated lengths : RADICAL
c: exceeding the ordinary, usual, or expected

In a slaveholder society the one who calls for an end to slavery is the extremist.
In a society which accepts apartheid as the norm, the one who calls for desegregation is the extremist.
In a society which brutally punishes those who break the law in even the smallest way, the one who calls for proportionality is the extremist.

If we want to be able to derive moral judgements from the degree of extremism, we have to redefine the word “extremism”.
To better understand how we have to redefine extremism I strongly encourage you to watch the video below.
Please, ignore the cheap shots and the condescension. I promise you, you will still learn something valuable.

The speaker identifies five basic, universal elements of morality:

1. Harm/Care (Care for other humans. Negative view of harm.)
2. Fairness/Reciprocity
3. Ingroup/Loyalty
4. Authority/Respect
5. Purity/Sanctitiy

While both Liberals and Conservatives care both equally about Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity, Liberals care much less about Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect and Purity/Sanctity.
This poses a problem because all 5 elements are needed for a functioning society/civilization.
I redefine extremism thusly: Extremism is the assignment of a higher priority to few aspects of any system while assigning a lower priority to all the other aspects.
Liberals are morally more extreme than Conservatives because they prioritize 1 and 2 over the rest. There is an imbalance of priorities.
Now, let’s look at some examples.
First, a morally neutral example.
We design a car with the highest priority on speed and with the lowest priority on all other aspects. We don’t care about fuel efficiency, environment, weight etc.
We design the car with this priority in mind at the expense of all other aspects. This is an extreme design.

Second, an example of moral extremism.
Let’s say we have won a war against a foe who has comitted unspeakable crimes against humanity and who has comitted a genocide.
Our highest priority is to punish all who are guilty. Not one criminal shall escape punishment. Nothing else matters.
How do we do that? Well, the only way to ensure that no criminal goes unpunished is to kill all adults of the enemy’s population.
Extreme, you say? You’re damn right. This is absolute moral extremism but it follows logically from our moral priorities.

Now, let’s get away from the hypothetical and deal with real world examples.
If your highest priority is to prevent a virus from killing people at the expense of all other aspects and moral values, you are a moral extremist of the highest order. You don’t care about nuking your economy, traumatizing children, psychologically damaging adults, damaging the health of your population, installing a tyranny and a surveillance state, abolishing liberty, brutalizing protesters and even causing people to die. Yes people will die from vaccines or because draconian measures drive them into suicide but what do you care? They didn’t die from the virus and that was all that matters.

The whole climate insanity is another example of moral extremism which I won’t go into detail.
Instead I want to deal with the more pressing example of the Ukraine war.
You see, the moral extremists who have as their sole aim to defeat Putin don’t care about ruining our economies in the process, impoverishing our populations, causing hunger in the 3rd world, killing thousands and thousands of soldiers and civilians, damaging the environment, depleting and emptying our arsenals of weapons, ammunition and equipment, thus making us incapable of preventing Iran from going nuclear, aiding Israel and help Taiwan against a Chinese invasion/blockade.
Because Ukraine cannot defeat Russia they escalate more and more and they don’t care about risking nuclear war.
All these nutjobs care about is defeating Putin, no matter the costs.

We are living in extremely dangerous times because we are still in an age of mass psychosis. Many wo had bought the moral extremism of the pandemic hook, line and sinker and who fell victim to the irrational insanity it demands have switched seamlessly to the next moral extremism, the war against Russia. The more morally extreme someone is, the more, by necessity, they become irrational. Coupled with the mass psychosis which still exists this is a very dangerous cocktail that makes these people capable of doing the most insane things.

The only way out is a radical exposure of everything that happened during the pandemic, the lies, the crimes, the victims and the offenders.
For only if we deconstruct the pandemic craze, can we bring people back to sanity.