Iâm sure this has been posted elsewhere, but I feel it bears repeating.
Extremism is not a function of mental illness.
Someone who is mentally ill in any manner is not more likely to be an extremist. Theyâre not more likely to be a dangerous extremist. Theyâre not more vulnerable to the ideologies; theyâre not in any way special.
Someone being mentally ill and an extremist, are two completely unrelated facts.
Their mental illness may interact with the extremism, in the same way mental illness interacts with every facet of someoneâs life.
Most extremists are average people in a socially vulnerable position that extremist ideologues can exploit.
People who feel disenfranchised (legitimately or not.) People who are socially isolated. People who are scared, or angry, or feel cheated.
This isnât mental illness: this is a social problem.
This is exactly what happens every time social change comes to a head.
It becomes violent when someone feeling threatened by the changes decides itâs time to put the social change back the way it âshould be.â It becomes violent because these people are told by their extremist social group that the world is getting out of line because they havenât stopped it.
And the way theyâre told to stop it is violence, and that violence is their right.
This isnât a broken chemical signal in the brain. There isnât some miraculous stop-catch we have as a species against violence. We are all capable of violence if we can justify it, and justifying it is a function of social norms.
Whatâs lacking in violent extremists is the social norms against violence have been thrown out, and blamed for the loss of everything theyâre told they deserve by their extremist social group.
This is not mental illness, and blaming it on mental illness is blaming a social minority for a problem that has nothing to do with them and it needs to fucking stop.
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