It’s time to be radical about radicalism.
Author: Mark Erbel
Is “radicalism” necessarily “bad”? After years of centrist policies and a dilution of agendas between the major players and parties, most of what’s on the fringes of any given spectrum has become unacceptable. But is a person advocating a libertarian-style small state beyond the acceptable spectrum? Or are people who believe in absolute bans on animal experiments whackos and therefore not to be considered legitimate participants in specific debates? We should free the word “radical” from its almost exclusively pejorative connotation, which does not mean that this connotation is to be reversed, but rather that “radicalism” should stand only for what it really means, and not what has become associated with it.
The major catch-all parties across Europe have been consistently losing votes. In Germany, for example, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, who used to combine 90% of the electorate, now stand at less than 60%. The rise of parties like the Greens is only an insufficient explanation. It was, more importantly, the major parties’ crowding of the centre, and consensus-politics, that led people to vote for alternatives which in turn naturally stood on what had suddenly become the fringes. Now, with even those parties being drawn to the centre more recently, really “radical” politics, such which question the mainstream and the centre, conventions and other sureties, have become utopian visions. (A forthcoming book edited by Jonathan Pugh, What is radical politics today?, which Counterpoint will launch on November 25th, digs into this.)
Are centrism and consensus-building the worst of all forms of policy-making and communication, creating a need for redeeming radicalism? Or are they just the worst except for all the others (Churchill never goes out of style)?
I don’t think radical groups should be driven out of the debate – but I don’t think that’s ever been the case. Some way or another, usually through direct action, they get into the headlines and chatter.
The danger is when radicalism leads to extremist activity, surely?
They might get into the headlines and chatter, but not necessarily as equal, and much more importantly, potentially equally legitimate participants as the mainstreamed centre. They rather serve as deterrent or as the odd fish than as representatives of a potentially valid standpoint.
But obviously yes, the danger is extremist activity which unsettles societal security and cohesion where it exists. But this is not the kind of radicalism which is to be redeemed here as I had written.