Understanding and Rejecting Extremism

Contents. Part One: Towards Understanding Extremism - Some Notes From Personal Experience. Part Two: A Learning From Grief. Part Three: A Rejection of Extremism Perhaps Explained.

The first part contains some reflexions on, and some conclusions concerning, forty years as a practical extremist and forty years of practical experience of extremism and of other extremists. The conclusions regarding extremism resulted from some years of moral, personal, and philosophical questioning and reflexion; a questioning whose genesis was a personal tragedy in 2006, and which questioning led a few years later to a rejection all forms of extremism to the development of a philosophy of pathei-mathos, based on the virtues of empathy, compassion, and humility.

Part two consists of transcriptions of some handwritten letters sent to a friend following that tragedy in 2006. Since such personal correspondence is usually far more revealing - of personal views, motivations, and feelings - than some essay or other in which one pontificates about this or that, some readers may find this part more interesting and insightful than either part one or part three.

The third part consists of personal replies sent to individuals between 2011 and 2012 and which replies may serve to place into perspective that rejection of all forms of extremism as well as elucidate the development of the philosophy of pathei-mathos.