181. EXTREME LANGUAGE - Governmental Warning
Once again the government who brought us the Prevent Duty as an Islamophobic and discriminatory wolf in the sheep’s clothing of anti-extremism legislation, and who, a few years ago, attempted to ban any critique of capitalism from entering the classroom because, again, it was deemed too ‘extreme’ a view, are returning with a new oppressive definition of extremism designed to silence criticism and suppress public discourse.
Michael Gove, a man who has already taken an arguably ‘extreme’ wrecking ball to British education, has presented the following definition of extremism, moving from Prevent’s focus on action to a focus on mere ideological thought. Extremism, under Gove’s new definition, is
“The promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to: 1 negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or 2 undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or 3 intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2)”.
It is a definition which, if met, will prevent (there’s that word again) organisations who meet it talking to, or getting funding from, government ministers or civil servants. A move which, though not statutory, and applying only to government bodies, will likely spread - as such things do - to forms of ‘best practice’ outside of government too. Certainly in those institutions, such as schools, overseen by government ministers and government funding bodies already operating on those norms. A move which creates a ‘hostile environment’, if you will, for those whose ideas the government’s new definition deems as ‘extremist’.
While I am sympathetic to the definition of ‘an ideology based on violence’ as being something we should all consider ‘extreme’, identifying those based on ‘hatred or intolerance’ become far more susceptible to politically motivated ideological bias.
Racist or misogynist groups who hate other groups of people are vile and, yes, extreme…but what about those who ‘hate’ current forms of accepted practice? Those who ‘hate’, say, structural and systemic racism and sexism that lead to the hatred or intolerance - often unconscious - of certain races or genders? Or those who ‘hate’ a government happy to take donations from racist misogynists and happy to impose crippling austerity cuts on those in society who are already suffering?
The problem with hatred is it is a word used loosely. Many say they ‘hate’ when what they really mean is that they have ‘negative feelings towards’. Many also say ‘hate’ when they don’t really mean it. An emotive outburst - non-cognitivist in nature. A roar of disapproval. Yet others say it wrapped in a supporting ideology. Their ‘hate’ a cipher for what they really mean: violent intent. ‘Hate’ that dehumanises rather than ‘hate’ which merely denotes a perceived absence of love in the target of their alleged ‘hate’.
Hate is also a word which can be flung onto groups and individuals to intentionally misdescribe their ideas and actions. The critique of Israeli actions in Gaza, for example, being shown as an alleged instance of anti-Jewish hatred when it is anything but. A critique of structural racism and calling out of ‘white privilege’ perceived as hatred against white people and a form of racism in its own right when, again, it is anything but. Think of the feminists intentionally misdescribed as ‘hating men’ when their critiques of patriarchy show the myriad ways that men have themselves been victims of it and the ways in which a different world would be better for women and men.
When ‘hate’ can be flung around so easily, and such accusations can deny a group or individual a seat at the table, the multiple examples we can already think of where the label of hatred has been weaponised to shut down and discredit discourse shows how open to abuse such a fluid label can be.
Likewise ‘intolerance’. Another fluid term coming from a government so obviously intolerant to protest, to criticism, to sharing compassion with the ‘wrong’ people. Our government who shouts that we must ‘stop the boats’ and send desperate asylum seekers to countries like Rwanda, despite the possibility of abuse there, seem deeply ‘intolerant’ of refugees and others in need of our help. Dare I say they even seem as if they ‘hate’ the migrants who they store like cattle in offshore boats, rundown hotel-prisons, and eventually deport regardless of whether or not such deportation might mean death. If not full hatred, there is certainly a deep absence of love. Our ‘hostile environment’ remained even without it being official policy. Another way of describing the environment left behind might be ‘intolerant’.
I am intolerant of such intolerance myself, and find it sickening how easily our government devalues life. From the migrants they turn away and turn into political capital, to the people without homes they choose to criminalise rather than house. I am intolerant of the intolerance our government seems to show for the rights of transgender people, especially children, to be their authentic selves. Of the intolerance they regularly show, as they dismiss as ‘woke’ those seeking a more tolerant world. How intolerant they are to crime, despite doing little to undo the causes of crime. And then, once arrested, how intolerant they seem to the rights of the prisoners their own inaction and intolerance is responsible for creating.
Even the extremism of violence might not always be unimaginable or unjustified. Like all extremes, something is only extreme relative to whatever the current norms are. Consider self-defence. Yes, it is an extreme act unusual for the majority of our lives, but entirely appropriate in the situations where it is warranted. Situations which are, themselves, extreme. Consider the violence our nation regularly commits during warfare. Consider the casual violence enacted each time it kicks someone off benefits and leaves them to the streets, or denies them timely access to healthcare, or to affordable housing, or to affordable utilities, or to asylum when fleeing persecution. Violence is extreme, for sure, but it is also seemingly justified by the definition-peddling government itself when violence is what it desires. It has simply normalised its extremist violence and made it invisible. Indeed, the legitimacy of government, according to political theorist Max Weber, lies, precisely, in its monopoly of violence. Our government, historically, has promoted its ideology of western liberal democracy through violence in wars of supposed liberation (Iraq? Afghanistan?), not to mention its violent and bloody empire, which has long been something it refuses to honestly confront. Such an ideology of colonialism - on which the British empire was built - absolutely aimed to negate the fundamental rights of others (indigenous or native populations) and, through its violent policing regimes, intentionally created a permissive environment for others - its chosen leadership - could achieve the continued negation of those rights until overthrown. Not always violently overthrown, but sometimes, yes, violently. Or alongside violent wings of non-violent political movements.
The entire UK political system operates, arguably, on a mission to intentionally create a permissive environment for the perpetual violence of the state, for its intolerance of disorder and dissent, and for its hatred of alternatives. Yet we do not see it as such because in the world of ‘ideologies’ we tend not to pathologise as an ‘ideology’ what is simply an everyday norm. Instead, by using words such as ‘ideology’, we can bracket out whole groups of people as being similarly dangerous, despite their varied and diverse viewpoints. Label someone as being wrapped up in ‘woke ideology’ and you’re no longer listening to their specific ideas or critique. Label someone a ‘communist’ and you can point to the historical failings of the Soviet Union as some sort of evidence that their entirely different proposals are doomed to fail. Label someone an ‘anarchist’ and, perhaps, you can dismiss them as a violent and dangerous bomb-throwing extremist despite the fact they have never advocated such violence and, in fact, actively oppose it.
And, yes, label someone’s ideology as ‘mainstream’, or ‘statist’, or ‘conservative’, or ‘liberal’ and you are doing the same disservice to the true range and diversity of actual viewpoints people hold despite their commonalities with others on certain core principles.
This is the fundamental problem with policing thought. Thoughts are unruly and hard to pigeonhole into simplistic categories like ‘ideologies’. And as soon as governments start trying to delineate which ideas are worth listening to and which are not, which thoughts are socially acceptable and which aren’t, they lose the forest for the trees. Of course we want to do everything we can to minimise, or even eliminate, extremist violence, but the problem with extremist violence is that it isn’t attached to one specific set of thoughts. Extremist violence comes from the right and from the left, from religious groups and political groups, from individuals and from organisations, and it comes from everywhere because extremist violence is simply any violence deemed extreme by those in power at the time. Note, for example, that part of the new definition is to deem as ‘extreme’ anyone seeking to ‘undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights’. But this operates on the assumption that the UK system is beyond reproach. I, myself, have written a book about just how undemocratic the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy is. Have argued, in fact, that it is deeply undemocratic and have made a moral case that it needs to be replaced with an ‘authentic democracy’ which is anarchistic in nature if we truly care about so-called ‘democratic rights’. Is that argument ‘extremist’? Or is it a legitimate critique of the daily failings of the current system to uphold its end of the social contract? The difference in perception depends on who holds the power to label the idea.
A crucial democratic right, essential to a truly functioning democracy, is the ability to freely express and share ideas, so that the voting public are fully informed critical thinkers able to vote and participate in their democracy clearly and with true autonomy. The true extremism comes from any government who seek to use fear-mongering tactics to silence open debate and discussion of ideas they are intolerant towards. Ideas they hate. It is an act of intellectual violence that can only create a permissive environment for more repressions to come.
Author: DaN McKee (he/him)
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