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by K0SM0S 2447 days ago
Agreed. This is how we use the term in political science anyway. Even if an "extreme" opinion becomes majoritary, it remains just as extreme on a supposed "spectrum" of possibles. "More" than "extreme" usually takes you off-spectrum, e.g. anarchy (which is often considered beyond extreme right, at least in Europe) or "hive mind" would fit beyond extreme left ideas of collectivism (a sci-fi concept of unified minds and thinking, like colonies of ants but next level. lol.) Both are off the political spectrum though, can't describe them using the same elements.

Reality is obviously much more "blurry". Most political experts would argue (rightfully so, imho) that most "extreme" views are in fact not "left" or "right" of moderate ones; they sit in a different "plane" so to speak, a third space distinct from left/right (you'd indeed find a lot of right-ish and left-ish ideas mixed in with most "extreme" ideologies; you also find lots of moderate and extreme views in otherwise 'normal' (statistically) parties).

Left/right itself, or moderate/extreme, are also pretty poor and unsubstantial ways to define any idea or anyone, it's a poor man's shortcut to summarize a context, not ideas themselves. Most people today would sit far left of anyone in past history, for instance, while being much more individualistic at the same time.

Reality is complex. The media don't like complex (is media plural? shall I call it something else in pronoun?). Hence, theatric storytelling of the left versus the right, and/or moderates vs. extremes, iced with a general misunderstanding of statistics. I will now refrain from making any conclusion.

1 comments

> e.g. anarchy (which is often considered beyond extreme right, at least in Europe)

Anarchists are leftists, Ancaps are on the right.