That’s the whole point, isnt it? That rationality / extremism depends on whose perspective you’re looking from. Unless you’re making the point that the perception differs even within the country itself but your examples dont seem to suggest so.

Hi Min, thanks for the response. As mentioned in my earlier more extreme example (ie the Solar Temple), I am not sure the judgment on extremism can be solely determined by what the originators intended but whether it should consider how the rest of society sees it.

Therein lies the paradox. That the originators may see it as rational but the rest of society sees it as extreme. Perhaps one needs to assess this dichotomy from a timing angle as well. The easiest example I can think of is the concept of a round world. The originators would have been regarded as rational whilst the rest of the world tot it extreme at that time and the duration it took to achieve globally-recognised rationality was quite a while.

Similarly, the concept of democracy and communism would at some points in time be considered extreme but the rate of spread is perhaps relevant to answering the question of whether globalisation facilitates such concepts. It is interesting to look at this. Communism failed when it came up against democracy (which appears to suggest that globalisation didn’t work). Similarly democracy hasn’t taken root in islamic countries.

On specific topics, I do think there is evidence that globalisation does facilitate this. The concept of pre-emption in Bush doctrine has taken hold fairly quickly despite that some do regard that as extreme. The use of balkanisation has similarly taken root (the latest being Russia’s application to Georgia) but the results are uneven.

If you’re looking specifically at the global spread of islamic fundamentalism and correlating that to the spread of Islam vis a vis, the global spread of democracy and correlating that to the spread of christianity, one might find some interesting results. The topic is very broad.

Lim has a valid point on the Iranian govt and I have to agree with him. History plays a very significant part in a government’s ideology. A good example would be when China was still communist and had a closed door policy. Min could you elaborate more on the/your Iranian example? Maybe use another example in contrast? China? Then maybe we can have a better understanding of your ‘Rational Extremism’.

Also, could the opposite exist? Extreme rationalism (Nitchze’s uberman)?
I hope Lim does not blast me for taking it a bit further. haha. It is just an equiry on my part. Either that, or I don’t understand what this article is about and am displaying my stupidity for everyone to see. Haha.

disclaimer: Forgive my usage/abuse of the language here. :/ if need be, just ignore this comment.

My stance is simply that extremist policies are not formulated out of pure obstinacy or a burning desire to oppose what is seen as the norm, but are conceived with a rational intent to achieve reasonable objectives, and that’s where the contention of what is acceptable or not typically lies – with policy outcomes.

Its just that many posts try to disassemble the definition but I’m just maintaining a fact.

I think the lack of respect for different idealogies and opinions, especially in sensitive areas such as culture, religions, races, and also economy, foreign talent etc. leads to people perceiving globalisation as a threat. However globalisation has 2 sides of a coin, the good and the bad, but the important thing is that everybody has to face it sooner or later.

I like how the article tries to show a different side of the story then what we are used to seeing about the “Axis Of Evil”. Perhaps the better way to tackle global political problems would be tryign to understand each other rather than imposing our ideals on each other.

A good way to start is to understand the topic “Rational Extremism” rather than imposing our ideal definition on the author as to what we feel is right =).

New financial product has no warranty. There is not enough regulation. They are alternative medicine. Take your own risk if side effect or no healing effect.

We can now safely say prestige bank was selling “alternative medicine” .

Where is American civilization along the Wall Street?

Why was American government (the superpower in the world) has no housing program for the worker class and the poor?

While you are right, people being people being human beings will tend to define matters in respect with their real life situation. Affected / involved parties will always have this emotional attachment (baggage ?). Unaffected parties will have the luxury to be independent and clinical about matters and words.

Now tell me what is the different among soldiers having to kill enemies, terrorists and freedom fighter.

There is no advantage to be gained by a skewed definition.

People need to understand what “extreme” and “rational” means. By definition, they are diametric opposites. Governments are either rational or extreme but normally not both at the same time, though they can swing from extreme to rational and vice versa. That is a fact not an opinion.

There is no such thing as rational extremism cos it’s an oxymoron.

In reference to the title, the term I coined, Rational Extremism, was foundered upon the concept of Rational Action (espoused within the Rational Actor Model). Essentially, the core assumption of this theory is that individuals will always make decisions which ensure self-preservation and reflect their personal values and beliefs, regardless of what the norm (external influence) is.

For example, if you felt that your life was under threat and the only way you thought you could survive was to kill your aggressor, you’d probably do just that. Killing in principle is an extreme action, but your choice to do so to ensure that you lived another day can be considered rational.

The Rational Actor Model is a popular one in Social Science and is often used as a tool of analysis for observing the trends in International Relations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_analysis
http://www.unm.edu/~gleasong/a/notes/topic2.html

Moving on to the obvservations in the article. Basically, my points are as follows:-

1. The perspective from which one views any given situation / scenario will determine whether he/she considers the actions taken to be rational or extremist, and this can be extended to the global arena to explain how states interact and why they behave in certain ways.

2. Globalisation is a force which appears to favour the more powerful nations because:

(a) It is so instrumental in promoting the values and ideology of western democratic nations.

(b) Due to the fact that it is seen as crucial to development and international integration, if states which are caricatured as pariah or non-conformist do not coorperate with the powers-that-be in the world, they lose out on reaping the benefits of globalisation until they are perceived to be a “team-player”. (eg. China’s WTO accession – it was not granted membership until it cleaned up its human rights record).

(c) The manner in which developed countries such as the United States and its allies treat nations that choose not to adopt democracy as the basis for governance does not encourage good relations between the two camps because it exacerbates tension and leaves pariah states with a high level of suspicion for developed nations and everything that is associated with them, including globalisation.

Finally, the objective of this piece was to illuminate the fact the world is often defined by the victors, whether it be in war or economic supremacy. However, might is not necessarily right, and in order to achieve engagement, governments of the more powerful nations should rely more on soft-power diplomacy premised on an understanding of alternative schools of thought. Sorry if this wasn’t clear!

Also, I think Donaldson has touched upon an interesting related issue. I’ll be writing a follow-up article, and that could be something to include in it.

Can you verify your claim?

We’re not talking about cults, we’re talking about nations and about their governments doing what they feel is necessary (though how “right” it is is very subjective) to protect their interests and their people.

Dissecting the term “rational extremism” and analysing it to your own advantage is far from the intended definition. In which case, it seems that you have a better idea of what this article is about than the author.

One case in point is the US vs the Muslim world. The Muslims are viewed as terrorists while the US present themselves as the world’s superhero. And as a result of the harsh conditions laid out onto the Muslim world by the US, they resort to things like terrorism. Why? Cause to them, there’s no other better way to ensure their own survival and that they don’t get constantly bullied.

Therein lies the difficulty in the definition. From my perspective, I am defining extremism in a very narrow dictionary context (which it rightly should be). North Korea’s protectionism is regarded as extreme to Nick but not in the context of what is actually extreme.

For example, the Order of the Solar Temple believed in mass suicide (and did precisely that). Whilst of course they might argue that their thoughts were rational to themselves, the concept of rationality in this case is clearly considered extreme by others.

Also by definition (according to Merriam webster which can be accessed by http://www.m-w.com), to be rational is to be reasonable which in itself means not extreme or excessive. By definition, it would be an impossibility for anything that is rational to be extreme. In English, the two words is therefore an oxymoron. Of course, Oxymorons do exist (as do paradoxes hence the existence of the words).

To summarise in north Korea’s case, if the regime is regarded as extreme, it cannot be by definition rational. If it is rational, it cannot be extreme.

Next, I am not getting your point. I agree with most of your writing. You have given us a few cause-effect cases. But what is your point?

Isn’t that an extremist problem in itself?

On one hand, it is about them loosing their jobs and on the other hands, their jobs are being transferred to countries which have extremely low standards of labour and welfare, so more people in poorer countries would be exposed to the modern slave trade.

The modern slave trade is best characterised by people being paid S$0.01/h for working 18h/day and if you refuse to work 18h/day, you will get fired and there is no alternative employment. One is as good as dead without a job in such a setting.

North Korea, China and Iran chose to block out foreign media and/or shun democracy and other western ideals as a natural step towards preserving their isolationistic state and thus deviate greatly from the norm where democracy and free flow of information is embraced. I think the magnitude of this deviation would categorize it as extremism already. Again, it all boils down to a matter of definition.

The Islamic revolution towards a theocratic constitution was caused by the displeasure towards Shah Pahlavi’s attempts to ‘westernize’ Iran. The resulting Shi’a Islamic ideology stemmed from the idea that Western culture was a plague or an intoxication that alienated Muslims from their roots and identity and must be fought and expelled. This is congruent to what the author is trying to say.

A recent report by The Straits Times revealed the North Koreans as people unwilling to trust foreigners easily due to the bad press received about their country. Perhaps this reflects a simpler analogy behind the extremism mentality. When people’s culture, practices and especially power over their own socio-political sphere is threatened, they tend to regard the aggressor with suspicion and switch to defensive mode.

That is the situation that becomes clear after Ms Cheong’s analysis. Perhaps other historical factors too contribute to the development of extremism but globalization would be the catalyst, the rational for the extremism.