The best cure to extremism is cultivating uncertainty

"For it was the loyal, the idealistic and the brave who did the real damage. The devout and patriotic leaders of Jerusalem sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to the cause of freedom. Vespasian and Titus sacrificed tens of thousands more to the cause of civil order. Even Agrippa II, the Roman client king of Judea who did all he could to prevent the war, ended by supervising the destruction of half a dozen of his cities and the sale of their inhabitants into slavery. How much better for everyone if all the principal figures of the region had been slithering filth like Josephus."

-P.J. O'Rourke, "The Two-Thousand-Year-Old U.S. Middle East Policy Expert" 

The military, apparently suddenly aware that its ranks include those who dream of taking up arms to protect the country from all enemies, including itself, is enacting a "stand down" (break in routine to conduct training) on extremism. While acknowledging the training is not a panacea--Really? All those safety stand downs on drunk driving before long weekends don't stop people from driving drunk? Then why did we have to do them before every long weekend ever?--the Department of Defense looks upon this as an important first step.

The training is available online, so even if you're not in the DoD, you can still treat yourself to the thrill of a dry-as-dirt, utterly uninspired and uninspiring look at "the meaning of the oath" to the Constitution both the military and civil servants take. It's likely to be what all DoD training is: a dull preaching to the choir to nearly everyone, and an invitation to rebel even more to the few intractable outliers. 

I was talking recently with a friend about the "Flight 93 Election" piece arguing for supporting Trump prior to the 2016 election. Published by Claremont Institute member Michael Anton under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus, it argued that conservatives who weren't thrilled about Trump should get off the fence and support him. That's because the 2016 election, in his view, was a last stand against encroaching liberal views that would sink the republic. 

There's an underlying premise to the argument, which I would term the "if I am right" premise:

If conservatives are right about the importance of virtue, morality, religious faith, stability, character and so on in the individual; if they are right about sexual morality or what came to be termed “family values”; if they are right about the importance of education to inculcate good character and to teach the fundamentals that have defined knowledge in the West for millennia; if they are right about societal norms and public order; if they are right about the centrality of initiative, enterprise, industry, and thrift to a sound economy and a healthy society; if they are right about the soul-sapping effects of paternalistic Big Government and its cannibalization of civil society and religious institutions; if they are right about the necessity of a strong defense and prudent statesmanship in the international sphere—if they are right about the importance of all this to national health and even survival, then they must believe—mustn’t they?—that we are headed off a cliff.

It's tempting to laugh this off as marketing. Every political backer in my entire lifetime has called every election "the most important election of our lifetime." But there's something about Anton's tone that is different. He really means it. 

The stability of society rests on people lacking the strength of their convictions. No, really.

It's easy to be terrified by Anton's reasoning. In his view, America is a war between opposing ideologies, and there is no reconciling the two, however much we really do seem to make an uneasy compromise work day-to-day, even if it's a compromise held with ill will by both sides. There is no choice but full-scale resistance by any means necessary. Conflict is inevitable, even desirable, and perhaps it's better to bring the conflict to a head sooner rather than later. 

What makes Anton scary isn't what he believes, it's the certainty and strength with which he believes it. Every "if we are right" has an assumed, unwavering "and we are" to it. The reason a particular brand of conservative has troubled the councils of the great isn't that they believe in something they're naming "originalism," or that they don't believe there are thirty-seven genders, it's how much they believe in it, enough that some are willing to "charge the cockpit." They're ready to overthrow the generally good thing we've got going, because in their minds, it's not good at all, and the day after tomorrow, it's going to be a literal hell on Earth unless they act and act now. 

Wouldn't many liberal beliefs be equally dangerous if held with the same strength? Wouldn't any belief that's willing to interrogate an "if I'm right" proposition unflinchingly to its logical conclusion without entertaining at least a sliver of doubt that it might not be right? For example, if all the liberals who like to fob off the axiom that "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" really believed that to their core, they'd be physically attacking the system every day of their lives. Or, if they didn't want to firebomb oil rigs or assassinate heads of banks, they'd at least take their own consumption out of the equation by killing themselves. If you really believe every economic decision you make in a capitalist society is inevitably unethical, then don't you have a duty to at least stop making all decisions? If you don't want to kill yourself, you could at least go try to live in the woods.

But very few liberals who claim to believe in the fundamental rot of capitalism take these kinds of actions. They might claim to respect the few who do, but ultimately, most are going to shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, whattareyagonnado?"

Ah, Hormone Monster Rick, you truly are the spirit guide we need in these troubled times.

Conservatives are wont to chide liberals for being hypocrites. To which I say, "Yes, you're right, and that's why I'm with them." If liberals are, on the whole, marginally less likely to take their beliefs to extremes, if they are troubled enough by doubts--or just apathy, because after all, there's a latte with your name on it about to finish being made--then that's the group for me. I'm with the group willing to consider it might be wrong, even if it only acknowledges that possibility in a practical sense while still verbally asserting its certainty it is never wrong. 

I imagine a reader might be troubled by how glibly I seem to be endorsing indifference, which I understand. A reverence for an uncertainty that makes our convictions lose the name of action could easily lead to a compliant population, one unable to stand up for its own rights. But of course I'm not a stickler for hardcore political agnosticism anymore than I'm a hardcore proponent of any belief. I'm agnostic about being agnostic. If you are generally resistant to agitprop because you realize that taking the tenets of said agitprop seriously would have unsettling intellectual consequences, then you're exactly the kind of person who can start to trust herself when you feel a situation really does require strong action. Even Hamlet, the patron saint of self-doubt, roused himself to strong action when he realized that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were taking him to his death.  

Furthermore, I'd say there are probably one or two issues on which every person is likely to be deeply educated enough to merit sustained and deep engagement. But if your whole life is taken up by one life-or-death struggle after another in issues ranging all over the political spectrum, then it's likely you have an addiction to heroic action, not a reasoned commitment to a limited proposition based on your tenuous determination that it is the right course. 

A world of people humble enough to doubt their own positions isn't a dystopia. Self-doubt strong enough to make radical opposition rare is something you can't build a stable society without. Imagine if everyone really did believe whatever they believed with the strength of conviction the "Flight 93" essay is calling for. You couldn't get a zoning law passed in the smallest city council in America. 

Being willing to put your own security aside in an emergency for the sake of others is, without question, heroism worth admiring. It's human behavior at its most sublime. But being willing to put your doubts aside to more or less let a thing operate, even imperfectly, is only slightly less admirable, because if that weren't the default position of nearly every human being on the planet, there might not be human beings on the planet.