NUMEROUS menacing phone calls to your home. Threatening strangers approaching your wife and children. Sounds like a bad horror movie, right? This has been a reality for UCLA Prof. Dario Ringach. Ringach, who was forced to give up his research on primates because of the threats to himself and to his family, is only one example of the results of a growing extremism from interest groups across the country. Aggression, polarization and the use of scare tactics are not limited to so-called animal-rights groups but are more and more becoming a standard tactic of political activism.
According to InsideHigherEd.com,Ringach had to suffer through several demonstrations in front of his home in addition to the phone calls and the people threatening his family. Also, Ringach was targeted on numerous animal rights groups' websites, according to the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. What is truly amazing, though, and what seems to have forced Ringach to give in, is that a "fellow researcher at UCLA, Lynn Fairbanks, was the target of an attack by the underground Animal Liberation Front last month, in which an incendiary device was reportedly left on her porch."
Even though many mainstream animal rights organizations try to play down their ties to these "underground" groups, they nonetheless refuse to denounce such extremist actions. The Animal Liberation Press Office's Web site calls Fairbanks and Ringach "notorious" and atrocious. Yet they never condemn the Molotov cocktail left to explode on Fairbanks' porch or the threats to Ringach's wife and kids.
Extremism is not limited to animal right activists. Turn on Fox News or CNN, and you will no doubt hear how Americans are becoming more and more politically or ideologically polarized. This trend also explains long-time Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman's recent primary loss, which is a far cry from only six years ago when Lieberman was the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate. Apparently toeing a moderate line will no longer fly with Democrats. Not that I don't welcome Democratic infighting, but it is a development which has dangerous portents.
Even at the University this extremist trend has proven true. Though I am loath to bring up the Living Wage Campaign in yet another column, they serve once again to show what is wrong with political activism today. When a group stages a random sit-in with minimal to no forewarning to the public about their cause, one must wonder if they were simply bored one day and looking for an issue to expound upon. More telling, however, was their absolute refusal to engage in productive dialogue with the University administration. This is not a particularly good way to achieve goals, and such an attitude can only lead to even more drastic actions when their demands are not met.
To be fair, this trend toward extremism exists on the right as well as on the left, with conservative groups also taking a more and more no-holds-barred approach to activism. The problem, however, is not that right argues with left. The problem is that right and left, and even segments within each side, refuse even to talk amicably.
The apparent lesson in all of this is a dangerous one: As Ringach's case seems to show, if you press hard enough, people will give in. In other words, if there's something you want, threaten a man's wife and children, and disrupt his life as much as possible. If that does not work, leave a Molotov cocktail on someone's porch as an example.
The real lesson, however, is a far more important one: The use of scare tactics and extremism is on the rise and as yet is unchecked. Refusing to sit down and talk, to look at alternatives or to reanalyze your own position is dangerous. Unfortunately, as each side of the political spectrum and the variety of smaller groups in between hunker down behind their own ideas they lose touch with reality.
Believing wholeheartedly in something, committing yourself to a cause, and defending your beliefs are noble, but there is a thin line between being dedicated and being an extremist. Dedicated people are rational even with those with whom they disagree, and they respect the views of others even while working to change them. Extremist views and being unwilling to talk or listen only isolate and alienate you from the rest of society. Thus, when standard political tactics do not accomplish your goals, it is but a short step to more aggressive and radical measures.
I doubt that the majority of Americans are truly on the extreme left or on the extreme right, even if this is how the news media seems to portray it. Thus, it is up to that majority of rational people to take a closer look at our society. Far be it from me being able to judge for society, yet I do know one thing: Events tend to work out better when both sides sit down and are willing to negotiate.
Fear is a powerful weapon. Yet fear and unwillingness to discuss issues rationally are weapons for the weak and cowardly, and the only response left to their victims is force in kind. It is the duty of every American to hold your beliefs dear and to defend them wholeheartedly, yet equally critical is to promote rational discourse over escalation and irrational fearmongering.
Allan Cruickshanks is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at acruickshanks@cavalierdaily.com
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