It’s both logically easy and psychologically satisfying to dislike radicals, especially the politics ones. The never ending list of ‘isms’ – Feminism, Veganism, Liberalism, Religious Fundamentalism etc., and their respective polar opposites all have a small but a very vocal radical minority. Due to this cohort, normal easy-going everyday people stay away from these movements. Or atleast do not actively participate in them.

It would be extremely naive to think that an individual needs to posses certain characteristics to take up radical positions. Like genetic predisposition or certain social circumstances. In fact, every single person in this world has atleast one extreme principle by which they choose to lead their lives. Any real or perceived threat to such sacred principles leaves the believer, bitter and confused. So everyone is a potential radical, living in a bubble.

However, usually one is labelled as a ‘radical’ only if he/she advocates violence and extreme hatred towards a specific social group. But herein lies the problem. These terms ‘violence’ and ‘extreme hatred’ are vague and not consistently defined. There is structured and unstructured, physical and mental violence and the lines between them are arbitrary.

As Aristotle famously said, Man is by nature a social animal and society is something that precedes the individual. Humans will always identify themselves in social groups. No matter how John Locke, the greatest propounder of individual rights, tries to put the individual over the social group, it just is not possible. Pure identity and pure difference are figments are imagination. They don’t exist in reality. An Individual exists only and only in relation to the society and society is nothing but an amalgamation of individuals.

Now, society has hundreds and hundreds of social groups. Some big, others small. They are all arranged in multiple hierarchies. But these hierarchies are of a special type. No social group in any hierarchy is either at the absolute bottom or at the absolute top. Dr. B R Ambedkar, one of the most influential social critics of the twentieth century, called it ‘graded inequality.’ Every social group has other groups, both above and below it. It’s an endless regression and progression on both sides. In a way, members of a particular social group are both oppressed and oppressors.

In a particular group X, a majority of the members are content (albeit unconsciously) with being the oppressors of the groups below them and utilise the derivative benefits. Though they are resentful of the oppression caused by the social groups above them, they do not turn radical because the risks are too high and the rewards not enticing enough.

However on the fringes of the group X, there is a sizeable minority for whom the benefits of being the oppressors are unavailable due to structural inefficiencies and the oppression from the above groups seems disproportionately high.

But an individual is not a part of only one social group. He participates in many and varied social groups. So if the resentment in a few groups is balanced by commensurate benefits in other groups, then radicalism is kept in check. If however, the balance shifts towards the negative, problems arise.

No one is born a radical. Most people do not want absolute power (having realized it’s a pipe dream). They only want a semblance of balance, that they are not being cheated. But when some individuals are excluded from the perks that accrue from multiple social groups in which they participate, it’s inevitable that they will turn radical. Malcolm Gladwell says that, this is because ‘the contrast is too great when they see happy faces all around them.’ This is true for radical feminists, MRAs, transgenders, coloured people, vegans, religious fanatics etc.

This leads us to the morality of radicalism. Moral relativism is an urban myth. Everyone has a basic understanding of what justice is because justice is the founding principle of society. And if the core principles are continuously violated, then it becomes nearly impossible to not be resentful.

By myopically blaming radicals for being themselves, we will only create accelerate the vicious cycle of resentment. It’s extremely important that we broaden our perspective and be ready to listen to them without being paternalistic about their predicament.

The killing machine that became the Nazi Germany and the monster in Hitler was only a symptom. The zero-sum game of imperialism played by the Western Powers was the primary, if not the only cause.