By Haddon Libby
So far in 2015, 462 people have been killed and 1,314 wounded in mass shootings in the United States. Dr. Jeffrey Simon of UCLA states that there are no common themes or ideologies across the 209 shootings that have happened this year.
The shootings in San Bernardino are the latest examples of religious extremism gone deadly. Events like these confound those of us who believe in freedom and tolerance for all.
Whether it is Tashfeen Malik and Sayed Farook in San Bernardino, the Tsarnaev brothers at the Boston marathon, Robert Lewis Dear on the Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs or Wade Michael Page and his murderous rampage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, extremism is not limited to a race, religion or ideology.
Psychologist Michelle Roya Rad has written on the topic of ordinary people going extreme.
Rad states that extremists are not typically psychopaths as psychopaths are often charming people who look absolutely normal to the outside world.
Extremists often have these ten characteristics:
- Absolutism: The extremist does not believe in tolerance and diversity in society and have a distorted, nonconstructive and irrational belief that their values are absolute.
- Righteousness: Extremists believe that only they know the truth and base their beliefs on contaminated, one-sided information that they have a weak and incomplete grasp of.
- Confirmation Bias: Extremists only believe in information that fits their thought process and dismiss everything else even if the other information is historically based, scientifically sound and logical.
- All knowing: Extremists know how life ‘should be’ and any opinions that differ are wrong.
- Dehumanize non-believers: Extremists dehumanize those who do not agree with them and feel that it is okay to kill or harm those with differing views.
- Idealize history: Whether it is a person or a story, extremists recast the past to fit the future that they want.
- Certainty that they are right: A rationale mind knows that facts and circumstances can change one’s opinion. Extremists believe what they believe no matter what the facts prove.
- Unwillingness to compromise.
- Overly focused on life after death.
- Psychological defenses against anything that challenges their mindset.
It is clear that the group referred in the media as ISIS exhibit all of these characteristics.
Worth noting, most Muslims believe that calling this terrorist group ‘ISIS’ is offensive as the group is not a ‘state’ and therefore should not be referred to as the Islamist State of Iraq and Syria. Muslims prefer the term ‘Daesh’ (al-Sawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham) which also means “one who crushes something underfoot” and “one who sows discord”.
It is also important to note that most Muslims have very unfavorable feelings toward Daesh. Daesh has a favorable opinion amongst 14% of Nigerians, 11% of those living in Malaysia and Senegal, 9% in Pakistan and 8% in Turkey. (Sidenote: 9% of Americans give Congress a favorable rating.)
Looking domestically, white supremacist Wade Michael Page killed Sikh’s in their Wisconsin temple because they looked Muslim. Sikhs are not Muslim but the Islamophobic Page did not know better when he killed six and wounded four others.
The reason why many people dislike Fox News and find their reporting dangerous is because they present opinion as fact and lie or mislead on news facts with regularity. Punditfact, a partnership of the Tampa Bay Times and Politifact found that 60% of facts reported by Fox were false. Whether it is Page or Dear, Fox helped fuel the extreme beliefs of these two killers via their reporting.
To be fair, MSNBC/NBC has done their share of lying with 44% of their facts being false. The difference between these two ‘news’ organizations is that there are no known killings done by MSNBC enthusiasts.
Fight extremism by staying educated and showing tolerance toward all whether you agree with their opinions, religious beliefs or lifestyle choices.
