How to Define Extremism

[Volokh, Eugene]

    None of these definitions, it seems to me, support the original
suggestion that endorsement of Roe v. Wade is extremist, or that
affiliation with the ACLU is extremist (unless one takes the view that
because abortion involves "force and violence," any support of abortion
rights is "extremist," even when the great majority of the public
supports some degree of abortion rights -- and such a definition, it
seems to me, would be so far removed from the common understanding of
"extremist" that it would distract more than it would enlighten).

    Eugene


-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of JMHACLJ at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 1:17 PM
To: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: How to Define Extremism


For reasons why the invitation is misdirected, see the end of this post.

Eugene has given me a task/challenge:
I invite him to offer a helpful definition of "extremist" that would
cover his usage of the term, that would have some connection to what we
normally think of as "extremist," and that would be useful to academic
discussion.  I doubt that one exists; one certainly can and should
criticize majority views that one thinks are wrong, but labeling them
"extremist" seems to me unhelpful -- argument by epithet, rather than by
substance.  And I would like to see the discussion in this forum to be
focused on substance, not epithets.
I think that there have to be at least two dimensions covered by the
term extremism:  idealogical and methodological..  

Idealogical considerations lead to evaluation of whether the broad
middle of the population shares a view or opinion on the subject; this
was Eugene's exercise in finding an opinion poll on the question of
abortion (setting aside factors that improperly weight or distort such
polling).  If such a broadly held opinion or view is found, then the
next step, I surmise, evaluates the view or opinion to be described as
"extremist" to discover how it relates idealogically to the broadly held
one.  To qualify as extremist in this context, I suppose that suspect
view or opinion most be at odds with and removed in meaning by a signal
distance from mainstreams of thought or opinion.

Methodological considerations, I suppose, evaluate how extremism
functions (or is that dysfunctions) in the population.  For example,
while all Fergusians might believe that Fergus is the one true God to
whom all devotion is due, they may not go about taunting and hitting
those who fail to wear the Tartan Plaid, or otherwise fail to
demonstrate their devotion to Fergus.  In the idealogical sense, all
Fergusians might be extremists (or just looney).  But in the
methodological sense, only those Fergusians who go about using force and
violence to spread their views would be categorized as extreme.
Importantly, even persons who were idealogically mainstream would, by
employing methodological extremism to maintain the orthodoxy, be
appropriately labelled extremists.  

For the Ginsburg/Alito/Republican/Democrat discussion, a methodological
approach to defining extremism would lead, possibly, to characterizing
any Democratically led filibuster as extremism (never been done before,
an unheard of abuse of minority privileges), and to characterizing the
constitutional option (the so-called nuclear option) in the same way for
the same reason.  Yet opposition to particular nominations on
idealogical grounds might well not be appropriately cast as evidence of
idealogical extremism.  

Tempering these considerations is the thought that it is too easy to
pretend that some things are not "extremist" when they don't affect me,
even though categorically they obviously are; claiming a right to have
your bread earned by the sweat of another man's brow doesn't seem to
affect me since I am not that slave whose wealth is being stolen.  Thus,
if enough folks share the view that slavery is socially acceptable, then
an idealogical approach that relies on mainstream concensus prevents
viewing the support of slavery as a form of extremism, unless the
idealogy is married to some extremist methodology.

Jim Henderson 
Senior Counsel
ACLJ

The reason the exercise is misdirected is that I did not chip in the use
of the term.  It came from Doug, indirectly, as attributed by him to
Republican supporters of Alito who claim that his appointment balances
the appointment of IN THEIR TERMS another exrermist, RBG.  His logical
fallacy, in rebuttal, was that her service as an appeals judge proved
otherwise.  That was a non sequitur.  It carries all the same weight as
Marge Schott's opinion about the value of punctual German
transportation.

Doug's conclusion, precariously resting on his non sequitur, was that
the charge of extremism was "phony."  I looked "phony" up in my
Dictionary of Epithets and there it was!  My responsive post simply
suggested that before he concluded that a phony argument had been
offered he ought to be sure what basis was being offered for the tag of
extremism.  I didn't even endorse the "extremism" label.  I discussed
it.

As often happens in conversation, who said what gets lost in the
shuffle, and for some people, it is unimportant who said what (at least
until they are sued for defamation based on something said by another
than themselves.)  So, I have bitten on defining extremism in the way
Eugene invited me to do.