Thanks to social media, I’m gangbanged with bursts of extremism. The shared and liked FB posts from my left, right, up, and down friends exhaust me. However, when I actually speak with the same people in person about their views, they switch gears. They pause a little longer… especially if they know that I’m on a different political wavelength than them. That social pressure to be polite and courteous is maddening, because I know they’re holding back–they just won’t say their true thoughts to my face. I know they have more to elaborate on than just a retweet.

This reflects a broader Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde dynamic between the complacent middle and the murderous extreme. The middle, normally complacent, becomes afraid. The prescription? An ideology. But what they don’t understand is that this can only make things worse. When the Dr. Jekyll of the complacent mass tries to get rid of their fear with the potion of ideology, they create something far worse: the Mr. Hyde of extremism.

Extreme parties exist and will continue to grow because they offer an escape from the anxiety of people’s lives. We now have the alt right and alt left. Maybe in a few years we’ll have the alt alt left, alt alt right and we’ll have to change our movement’s name to the alt alt alt… and that’s just ridiculous.

Complacent parties will never get rid of extreme parties, because the complacent never really strive to address their fear. But how can we? How do you eliminate uneasiness within our population?

Free discussion eliminates fear. Not addressing the monster in the closet doesn’t help the kid sleep. We need to have open discussions, allowing everybody to talk: free speech, embracing each other, to achieve true balance. Listen with an open mind, not just until the other side’s done talking; really get to the root of their fear.

If the complacent middle continues to separate themselves from the extreme, the bond will break and we’ll all end up like Mr. Hyde. Or, as Dr. Jekyll eventually found…

… this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made discovery. It was a fine . . . day. . . . I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. . . . I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.