We polarize and run to the far left or right of an issue, because things are neater there. Things are figured out at the poles, packaged nicely, and easier to understand. Extremes provide core values that answer all of our questions, and the answers are easy to accept because they are black and white with all the rough edges already worn away. Extremes seem elite, and they are always endorsed.
But the truth is seldom in the extremes. Truth reposes somewhere in the middle, which we avoid. We avoid the middle of an issue, because things are gray there. The answers aren’t easy, and they sometimes can’t be understood. In the middle, “right” and “wrong” seem to contrast with “good” and “bad,” and this causes confusion and tension. We do our best to avoid confusion and tension. We don’t like mystery, and we don’t like it when everybody’s equally a little bit right and a little bit wrong.
Because we can’t stand to live our lives in a place of mystery or tension, and because we’d rather have an answer than have the truth, we default to oversimplified pictures of reality–extremism and ignorance–in the name of having an opinion and being right.
This applies equally to politics, spirituality, and morality.
I’d argue that foolishness, ignorance, and herd-mentality lead us to rush to extremes. It isn’t a positive thing to jump to an extreme side of an issue–it reveals our own inability to come to terms with both sides of a complicated, human problem, and it reveals our tendencies toward preferring being told what to think and believe. I’d argue that wisdom, prudence, and discretion lead us to the middle of an issue. We might not land in the middle of an issue in the end (indeed, wisdom might push us toward one of the poles), but the wise are unafraid to wade around in the tension of gray areas. The wise are unafraid to wrestle with all the shouting voices, to test them, to come to their own conclusions, and to grow because of it.
Extremism in any arena–spirituality, politics, morality–allows no room for the mystery that is inherent in God & humanity.
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