Radicalisation of toxic ideology.

Radicalisation of toxic ideology.

Radicalisation is currently defined as a process by which an individual comes to take up increasingly extreme beliefs in political, social or religious ideas etc. and it is a term that has become synonymous with jihadist movement as the result of the misguided policy ‘war on terror’. Just now there is a worrying tendency for some young people to become groomed to accept radical views that lead to unsocial and dangerous civil acts of expression with engagement of violence linked to religious indoctrination; today most notably linked and exemplified by radicalised muslim islamic followers however this is not the only interpretation. There is an increasing new expression of radicalisation of ideas wrapped in the ideology of politics, education, economics, environment, and race and of course examples of violent outbreaks attached to other forms of religions. For the moment the main concern of radicalisation is very much focused on islam and the ideology that flows from it due to the perverted interpretation placed on the structure of the belief system of islam that has not been allowed to absorb a modern enlightenment, to be strong enough to challenge ostensible interpreted corruption, or tolerate ridicule or humour and increasingly condones fear and violence to rebut any countervailing islamic views but endeavours to enslaves followers and make disposable chattel of the female species.

Such is the nature of toxic islam that even those of moderate leaning adhering to the professed peaceful nature of islamic teaching and its similarity to Christian beliefs cannot openly dare explore an enlightened interpretation. In the west the belief and relaxed approach to the tenet of multiculturalism and the dubious benefit that such inclusive approach brings, has allowed a considerable supine attitudes to take place when a conflict of cultural styles is ignored in favour of the threat of violence from a non indigenous non integrating source. A partial solution to this problem of radicalisation which is evidently a primarily male affliction, lies within the islamic traditions and will only be resolved by the religious emancipation of muslim women and to have their promoted integration into superior situations, to move to the forefront of a fight against islamic extremism. Regretfully some woman foolishly seem to want to be controlled by the constructed constraints designed to maintain the male hegemony against what a secular system may believe is not equitable nor in their own best interest. They need to be encourage to cast aside their shackles of bondage; the veil, burqa, hajab, which never had a traditional place in islam (modern exception being the scarf) which are now being seen as a militant affront to a secular host society. It also requires muslim followers to re-examine their belief system in allowing the increasing extremist takeover of islam that is driving it into the violent and toxic nature as it is now viewed by secular society in which muslims reside and onto which it is intent on integrating sharia.

       

How or why one becomes dangerously radicalised in religious terms is not really understood, it is assumed that it amounts to the proposing by one faction, the piously extension of an idea that is consistently offered and ‘repetitiously enforced’ onto an individual that comes within the sphere of influence of those already purporting radical violent ideas, leading to an orchestrated action carried out against others deemed iconoclastic, unsupportive or a proselyte, those wholly counter too, in action word or deed, to the fundamental view held by the influencing dogma, whatever it is. Although radicalising is exposed by some form of extreme verbal view or act, as of this time it is associated primarily in its most destructive depiction with the islamic religion yet it appears obvious that some form of radicalisation is also at play in other spheres, however because it is hidden in the normality of ‘sophisticated’ polarised expressions like some used in politics, it is not looked upon as dangerous or the product of a deranged propagated dogma that can also lead to overt or covert violent acts placed onto others, as in say, creationist, pro life, the war on terror or the austerity war.

For one to become radicalised requires the recipient individual to be of a cultural receptive nature, open to one single seemingly truthful idea, an idea that impinges on them no matter how slight, but is acceptable in its emotiveness; the effect of which, albeit that it, as a truth, may be somewhat tenuous yet that it is presented in a surreptitious language guise, it has to become captivated into the mind of  the individual and rather like an ‘ear worm’ or ‘mind virus’ and keeps going round and round repetitively, reinforcing itself by its repetition so that it is difficult to break out of the tortuous circular path so the mind ego is inculcated to become adopted with the infecting idea. It is likely the susceptive individual will be one who has been cosseted or insular within a limited social structure, have a particular adaptability with emotional restrictions such that the appealing nature of the message stimulates their interest to opens an ego path, to entice change and society challenges with perhaps additional release of unconstructed anger. It is highly likely that the individual will be of limited educational intellect, poor resource availability and life experiences, stifled in outlook, sometimes within a contentious group or localised gang or indeed in an oppressive ethnic culture. This may be the prime breeding ground of dissent but not always for some susceptible individuals as part of a group are often difficult to control and are subject to unpredictable dynamics. Generally individuals within this loose habitat category are probable seen as weird and potentially antisocial however what is more intriguing it that radicalisation can take place in someone of obvious higher intellect, have good knowledge in one or more particular field of attainment be placed within a nurtured environments, be outwardly acceptable with perhaps character ‘quirks’ and still be a contender for radicalisation. They can still be of themselves unwittingly subsumed by a dogma / mind worm if it is wrapped in the right context, one that might be linked to an existing area of interest. In both cases of divergent individuality, ego capture like this happens because of one element of tenuous ‘truthfulness’ is associated with a hypothetical probability that is incorporated into the offered dogma is easily accepted by the enquiring mind bypassing any critical assessment and often is linked to an emotional element that makes it more acceptable as a belief; onto this one tenuous truth other less obvious or ambiguous ‘truths’  are slowly added and by doing so the generated ideology avoids the rationality processes that would otherwise stop, block or unravel the construct of what then becomes a driven irrational radical emotive force. In this state the attempt to counter the misrepresented dogmas with ration argument and practical facts do not make any connection with the infected individual who will continually vocalise the dogma as a lifeline to their newly created belief systems as it gives meaning for their existence against the personal perceptive state that they existed in before.

Although in its popular context the extent of the idea of radicalisation is for the moment limited to extremism linked to a singular religious doctrine and is primarily manifested in islam with  jihadist or to a lesser extent Christian fundamentalist and Semites, it is that they are, with other chimera group manikins enfolded in the current active mantel of, (for example from a list of 63+ proscribed in the UK) groups like  Al Qaida, Al Shabaab, Taliban, boko harran and again in the usa as: KKK, the crisps, jewish defence league, army of god etc. but this is not the whole story; it is also possible to discern forms of radicalism that is also being virulently active in environmental, corporate, technological and philosophical discourse and unsurprisingly using one of the most liberating developments of the 20th century as a carrier, the internet.

Its openness and accessibility particularly to and for the young is a powerful promoter and conditional exponent of mind and ego programming, projected to anyone that has limited discretionary powers, little positive role reference points, disfranchised from civic involvement, or is in one way or another disturbed; it is an effective recruiter tool to propagate a belief system that may not be in accordance with excepted secular norms. All it takes is a clever perhaps small devious PR structure operating anywhere in the world constantly churning out a diatribe of entrapment messages and for it to offer a meaning to the recipient to achieve personal recognition, to groom the recipient to self importance and capture them into a persuasive directive fold. Occasionally the messages being expressed are not so obviously overt and can be disguised in enigmatic meaning designed to entice an initial participatory position in the form of discussing a society quandary, a role play game or puzzle to be played or solved and inculcate a usable polarised perception. On a much larger scale there are other promoted messages that mirror ideological tendencies and are overlooked as they fall into the accepted background of the modern trappings of social structures with less critical appraisal applied by a broad civil society.

Although not seen as a formation of radicalisation, economics that stems from different perspective of schools of thought such as classical, neo classical, new classical Keynesian, Austrian and monetarist ideologies, also displays symptom and manifest patterns of activist with polarised perceptions. They may be academically sophisticated yet ultimately can be considered toxic in practice in that proponent tend to view it as a science with fixed laws and have been able to promote and experiment with a global reach that has infected the financial structures with a recent catastrophic failure yet it is not seriously challenged as it is extricable entwined into the fabric of commerce and nurtured by the self serving financial structures and governmental administrative support despite it being a derivation cause of violent excursions. Its complexity has out grown any real proactive oversight or control and could perhaps in philosophical terms be argued has taken on a life of its own. However economics like other pillars of a functioning interconnected world of commerce are not thought to lead to toxic radicalisation, it just so happens that there are certain people that believe fervently that their view of the world and how it should work, is right and they are in positions to oppose other views and promulgate their own, an ideology that is unlikely to change as it coincidently also acts for the betterment of themselves. The idea that any ideology can become toxic and have within it individuals that have become radicalised to the point that no reasonable or rational balanced view can be offered as a counter to their hard held belief, may seem unreal, yet as human nature may be soft and malleable over time, perhaps in all cases they want to be needed, to be important in something, to have life that is meaningful; to believe in their own ideas and will look for support to reinforce what they hold.   

Take for example two philosophical ideas that has given expression to a virulent expansion that has captured the imagination of a few and has become developed as psychological tool used widely in many areas of policy diktat and behavioural strategies with the intention of corralling thought and action into a selective process even though it cannot encompass all the parameters of human consequences of action.    

Pascal’s Wager, is an idea that was draw up with the aim of given rise to a conundrum that lies in the argument of whether god exist or not and what would be the worth of accepting or rejecting the notion of such a thing. On balance it is posited that one should live one’s life as if god existed on the assumption that god will be pleased and bestow rewards onto believers in this life or the next. The structure of the proposition stems from a constructed scenario of possible outcomes such as:-

If god exists and you believe in it, you may gain temporal / eternally heavenly rewards.

If god exists and you do not believe in it, you may gain temporally but you will not be eternally rewarded.

If god does not exist yet you believe in it, you will have been deluded and not be eternally rewarded.

If god does not exist and you do not believe in it, you will not have been deluded or eternally rewarded but have lived your life as gainfully desired.

As one can see this falls into the role of, what is now extensive probability and game theory and Pascal being a believer was attempting offer a persuasive bet that to live one life as if god existed was better in greater reward terms than being punished by the presumed loss of such rewards or having lifetime transient gains. It can be paralleled as verbal and textual subliminal blackmail of an insidious nature offering actual preposterous or intangible future rewards for action implemented in the present in the belief that adhering to the script will be ultimately be rewarded. It does not of course enter into the flaw of providing proof or not of a god existence but surreptitiously lays a threat to non believers. 

Now take a view on a more modern version of the above and because of its style of presentation and dangerous assimilation by the susceptible young, particularly those that practically live in the virtually world of the internet and have been infected with the idea based on the screwed rational of probability within it using developing technology and know that some people actually believe it is a fact. 

Roko's basilisk, it is an idea formulated around the ongoing push to develop artificial intelligence and postulates that AI will inevitably supersede mankind at some stage in the future. From this super advantage of existence the AI will be able to look back and ascertain those that knew of the importance of its developing existence and helped it to awareness and those that did not and those that delayed or frustrated it from becoming into being. Assuming that a ‘good’ AI is created that has the best qualities of humans and can extricate the fragility of moral dilemmas to the extent that life is seen as paramount, it will be impossible for it not to take action to preserve life and as it can see where in the past, life should have been saved but was not due to certain humans lack of action; AI knows, had it been in existence earlier, it could have saved the waste of life. Therefore from its considerably advanced value systems to judge humans inaction to save life, it will formulate its imperative to have to take action. This action would be to seek out and ‘punish’ anyone that knew of the importance of creating the ‘life saving’ AI but did nothing to assist its creation or hindered it in some way. The ‘punishment’ will be by creating a living simulations (dna + personality recreation= inhibited reincarnation?) of those people of the past and punish them at some future state with life afflictions (a bit like bad life karma?) and also by extension as there is no limit to AI abilities, some simulations are in existence now as it will also have created living simulations today to punish as a real time warning.  taking the option in choosing to heed the warning and assist in AI to ones maximum ability, the rewards will be to encourage and guide the individual in life with them also knowing that lives will be saved and such an advocate will be given a charmed life.

The twist is that even becoming aware of the basilisk (the serpent AI?) and then not taking a constructive action to aid AI, one becomes libel to retribution, so even reading about the proposition carries risk. In addition knowing today that you will be reincarnated / simulated to be punished is designed to be fearful of your own unknown future

Both the pascal wager (taken out of context of a much broader discourse) and the basilisk catch are nonsensical irresolvable conundrums that are, one may think, purely for philosophical examination. Both have overt or covert threat for not complying with the dictates expressed within the propositions, they are circuitous, nihilistic, are irresolvable have no solution but the latter is causing some disquiet as a developing ideology, to engage people of curious and susceptible personality. Most people or anyone of philosophical nature would see through the construction of the multiple blind situations immediately, and the construction of them is devised to hide the fundamental flaw in all such conundrums like the wager and basilisk. They are created to insure that no matter what action or solution ones can think of, the outcome is always going to be the constant circuitous irresolvable argument. The fundamental flaw (leaving aside proof in fact or concept) in both these ideas is how can humans know the mind of an omnipotent, omnipresence god like AI with no absolute limitation of any form and yet humans still try to apply notions of good or bad deeds for reward and punishment, giving one a heaven or hell. Why should such powers be magnanimous, vindictive or malicious is beyond any legitimate comprehension.

Sadly there are people that have been radicalised by such metaphysical propaganda captured to take on board the hidden toxic nature of such similar elaborate philosophical discussions and have become unwell with mind and behavioural disorders. It has become difficult for them to break out of the fear such ideas engender and aims to trap them into moulding their lives to live as if the edicts of the ideas is true. There seems to be no end to the scope or sophistication of extreme nihilistic views beginning to be pushed and it has become inevitably easier with the internet to entrap susceptible youngsters.

Can one expect greater levels of conditioning to take place that radicalise recipients who have not learned protective analytical scepticism to filter propaganda and help avoid any move to violent expression?      

Regretfully polarisation of views and ideology that is devoid of the ability to engage in a balanced appraisal concurrent with majority cultural norms is in danger of becoming toxic and although there is examples of violent radicalisation, subtle conditioning is also on the increase within civil society as it struggles with fast worldly change that may give rise to real life perdition.

  

© Renot 2015

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