Understanding how to deal with extremism and intolerance

By Ande Jacobson

For several years now Teri Kanefield has been trying to help people understand how we got to where we are in the U.S. and the world, and more importantly, what we can do about it. After taking another deep dive in a lengthy blog post written over the course of several months explaining why extremism and intolerance happen, Kanefield decided to take a another look at the material with the intention of further focusing her presentation. Over time, she rewrote the piece and ended up with a crisp book of around 100 pages. The blog post now contains the content of the book, Why Intolerance and Extremism Happen: Understanding Our Deepest Divides.

Kanefield has given the public a great gift by offering the book through multiple outlets for free. She lists those outlets at the top of her post. She also offers readers a downloadable PDF version of the book through her website if they prefer to read it in that format. She’s not trying to profit off of this effort but is instead attempting to help the widest possible audience better understand the country, the divides we face, and what we can all do to improve the situation.

Kanefield makes a crucial point at the start – the divisions we face are not uniquely American. They are a disturbing part of being human. The rise of extremism and intolerance happens all over the world at different times. Some societies have guardrails in place to stop it before it gets out of hand, but sometimes those safeguards fail, and the result is a period of authoritarianism. Historical examples abound, and Kanefield shares a personal story from Chile to illustrate the point that support for an extremist or an extreme ideology isn’t just the domain of fanatics. When people are frightened, they don’t necessarily react rationally and focus on finding safety however they can. When there is significant inequality, many people want quick action despite there not being an easily implemented solution. When situations are extremely complex, not everyone can cope with that complexity, so they seek easy answers. Extremism and intolerance often result pushing even strongly democratic societies toward authoritarianism and conformity.

Kanefield has written numerous books, articles, social media posts, and created YouTube videos with detailed explainers on how democracy in the U.S. has reached a crisis point because of extremism and intolerance. Drawing heavily on Dr. Karen Stenner’s work, Kanefield explains that a lot of people have difficulty dealing with complexity, and democracy is a complex system that requires significant effort to maintain. Ideologies on the other hand are far less complex, and governments based on ideologies, particularly extreme ideologies, are simple. They provide easy answers with little engagement on the part of the masses. Unfortunately, although they are easy, they are not necessarily beneficial to most people. Kanefield clearly and succinctly illustrates the concept with this diagram:

She elaborates on the many reasons for why an ideological view is attractive to some people particularly in times of stress. There are multiple influences that affect how a person perceives and copes with the complexities they face. Some are biological in origin, while others are more environmental or situational.

Kanefield uses numerous charming examples from her own life, as well as from history, literature, science, popular culture, and even musical theater to illustrate her points. In one intriguing segment, she raises the idea that rather than art imitating life, in some ways it’s actually the reverse because the artist has given people a context for viewing reality. Her example of how people’s impression of nature has changed over time because of how artists have presented it is striking.

The inescapable fact is that for us to bridge the divides that we face, we have to understand why they happen, and this book clearly lays that out. Once we understand why and how extremism happens, and how this pushes various groups toward authoritarian structures to establish order, we can better work toward helping people push past their more primal instincts and instead engage with one another in a more enlightened way. It comes down to moving past our tribal instincts and instead working to embrace a more diverse society. Our tribal instincts seek sameness and conformity. Diversity allows for expansion and exploration on multiple levels, but it’s not easy.

Kanefield shows readers how modern technical advances have greatly complicated how we deal with the world. The advent of things like social media have given us great power to influence others much as other innovations have changed the course of public discourse over time. The advent of the printing press changed how people got their information and created a social upheaval. Social media is rather like the modern version of the disruption that the printing press caused in its time. New industries have come into being including a very detrimental one – the rage industry. Keeping people in heightened emotional states pays, and the rougher the emotions, the more money there is to be made. Social media amplifies this through its algorithms to keep people angry and engaged. That creates division, intolerance, and allows extremism to thrive to all our peril. As consumers, it’s on us to sort through the mountain of information we consume, retain the truth, and discard the fallacies. Again that raises the issue of complexity. It takes effort to be a responsible information consumer, and for those who haven’t the will, the skill, or the patience to deal with the complexity, many find themselves pulled into the trap of extremism. More to the point, this information overload has created a situation where society as a whole no longer shares the same concept of reality. Without a shared view of reality, deep divides are inevitable.

At the end, Kanefield provides readers with an extensive bibliography and notes section for those wishing to dig deeper into her source material across philosophy, history, politics, science, and the arts. She covers a lot of ground in this one, and it is well worth reading and keeping for future reference. She even links her own “Over the Cliff Notes” version in her post, although it’s well worth reading the full book to enjoy her colorful examples and detailed discussions of the concepts she raises. The cliff notes version is a much higher level summary which by necessity loses much of the nuance of the book but is a good reminder of the key points from each section.

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