Extremism and why we need to avoid it!

Those who feel that they do very nicely from the UK being in the EU or are fearful that their life may be made worse or are more ‘One-World’ than ‘Nation State’ in their view, are full of doom and gloom; they see their opponents as either stupid or evil or both. 

Those that feel that the way the EU operates is undemocratic and contributes to their life &/or our country’s life in a negative way just want out no matter what the consequences; they see their opponents as either stupid or evil or both. 

Both extremes are wrong as extreme views usually are because life and modern societies are massively complex.

In contrast, extreme views are very simplistic; they lack nuance or issue-specific judgement. Hence, they are often hypocritical and/or contradictory and therefore produce injustices of their own.

Convincing yourself either that a complex problem is in fact simple, or that simplistic unnuanced ideas will properly solve complex problems is just ridiculous; but worse it’s dangerous.

Dangerous because you either don’t change anything at all, including things that need to be changed; or you change too much and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

All or nothing style views/ideologies must be avoided whenever possible and strongly resisted when they arise. 

Of course, it’s much harder to think non-ideologically, open-mindedly, treating each issue on its merit and doing our best to tread a careful path through a maze fraught with dangers, but the alternative, simplistic extreme ideology, always leads to authoritarianism, then dictatorship and gulags/concentration camps and the loss of human rights and individual freedoms.

It would be retreating back into the past where 90% of people were serfs at the beck & call and whim of a small number with all the power; your only freedom is the freedom to do what you're told, on pain of imprisonment, torture or death.

So let’s make the effort not to go down this path, shall we?
Let's strongly resist the extremists, whether they be governments, large corporations or powerful lobby groups and get back to good faith reasonable interactions where we disagree.