The essence of extremism is the lust for the most, such as the highest status, the most reverence, the greatest happiness, infinite power, and so on and so forth. Extremism's motto and fundamental principle is The most is the best. As an ideology of maximization it creates, or responds to, an urge whose sole bounds are those of the most positive or of the most unneutral polarity. As has been said of the acquisitive urge, the urge of the maximizer 'tends to increase in infinity'. If ultimate, it involves, indeed, the greatest alienation possible from the person's proper, neutral finality.

Two of the pillars of extremism are the highness-catenary and the negativity-negatoriness misassociations. When 'e is only able to define neutrality in terms of neither nor or not polar, and when 'e cannot dissociate negatory phrases in 'er language from negativity and what is bad, the extremist will try to get away from neutrality as far as possible. And when 'e is only able to define the good in terms of high and superior, and when 'e cannot dissociate this normative highness from factual-modal forms of highness, the extremist will try to get higher and higher in factual and modal respects as well; that is, until the wax of 'er wings melts in the heat of the infinitely bright light which is 'er final objective. A concrete example is the lust for power. The extremist always wants more and more of it for the sake of power itself. If 'e is a theodemonical supernaturalist, 'er supreme ideal is that of one all-mighty god that rules over the whole universe; if 'e is an atheist political totalitarian, it is that of one all-mighty party that rules over all peoples. For the exist power --the most power, to be precise-- is an end or ideal in itself.

The acquisitive urge of the extremist is closely related to this potence fetishism. It is the urge for property, not as a means to something nonextreme but as an ultimate end; and it is not just the urge for some property but for more and more property. A special case of this is a perpetual greed for money, not for money as a means to something nonextreme but, again, as an ultimate end, as something 'e can never have enough of. Perhaps, the extremist will justify 'er interest in money or property by referring to another end, and by explaining that property is only a means to it. But then, the other end itself is, in turn, an extremist end, such as more and more freedom (in the sense of available options) for the sake of freedom as freedom; or more and more happiness ad infinitum for the sake of happiness as happiness (like in positive utilitarianism or eudaimonism). Unfortunately, as the x-ist becomes more and more estranged from 'er proper finality 'e only becomes more and more unhappy, and as 'er positive freedom grows it only becomes harder and harder for 'im to fill it out and to remain continually satisfied.

In the spatiotemporal field extremism is the striving for the highest, the biggest, the farthest and the fastest. Extremists love to participate in competitions for such things as the tallest building (or self-supporting structure) in the world; they love weapons which can reach further and destroy more than any other weapon ever could; and they love to build on cars, trains and planes to make them run or fly faster than ever before, not for some nonextreme reason, but because speed has become an end in itself for them. When trying to jump as high or as far as possible, or when trying to ride or swim as fast as possible, or when trying to score as many goals as possible, is good for the bodily health of human beings, extremists make the means also here into ends in themselves. And once height, distance, speed and winning the race or match have become ends in themselves, they will do everything to attain these ends, however detrimental to their own or other people's health they may be. Games or events which originally were meant to be sportive have thus degenerated into extremist, nationalist and sexually irrelevantist undertakings. Being the first and seeing countrymen or -women become the first, then seems to be the sole thing that counts, whatever pushing, drugging and intimidation may be needed to attain this goal. (So far as the exclusivist degeneration of sports is concerned, the equivalent with regard to the arts is that people do not admire works of art for their own qualities anymore, but only for the name or nationality attached to them, if not for the ideology they are expressive of.)

Also in the sexual and familial field extremism is the striving for the most and the fastest. Particularly when people have just been freed from the shackles of puritanism and religion, but are still under the spell of the traditional ideology's lust for the most, fucking as early and as much as possible, or with as many different partners as possible, becomes something good for its own sake. The tradition which required that human beings would have as little sex as possible, and of one variety only, has then merely been replaced by a new fashion in extremism, namely that they must have as much sex as possible and of the greatest variety possible. At the same time it should be added to this that the traditional ideologues who attempted to restrain sexuality as much as they could on the one hand, did not refrain from stimulating married men and women to produce as many children as possible on the other.

Extremism is not just a nonneutralist attitude; it is the most unneutralistic attitude there is. Altho the old distinction between quantity and quality is an obscure one (especially when exploited by antonymical dialecticians), one could say (since we have the instruments to clearly explain the difference) that extremism is the ideology of quantity, whereas neutralism is the ideology of quality. A but too revealing symptom of extremism is, for example, the the world's most sickness. This is a disease cities, countries and other territorial or social units suffer from which claim to be 'the world's fastest growing', to have 'the world's foremost or most famous cultural centers', 'the world's most exciting sights', 'the world's largest such-and-such' and 'the nation's' or 'the world's longest so-and-so', and so on and so forth. Obviously, it is here not the type of urban growth which counts, not the kind of culture which flourishes, not the sort of buildings which are constructed. If there are nonextreme goals and objectives at all, they are entirely immaterial.

But now --it might be objected-- if the goal is formulated in evaluative terms like in the (world's) best, the (world's) nicest or the (world's) finest, there is nothing against it. Doesn't the neutralist 'imself also aspire to what is best or most neutral? Why then not the best or most neutral in the world? The correct reply to such an argument is that it makes use of a terminological trick and confuses original and derivative catenas. Neutralism and extremism refer to the neutrality and extremity of an original catena. Extremity is then what is most positive or, if negativity is included, most (bi)polar. It is only in this original context that most means extreme. The term most neutral cannot refer to the original catena, because with respect to this catena something just is, or is not, neutral. It is when the neutrality-difference catena is considered that something is more or less neutral or unneutral, and thus also most neutral or most unneutral. The difference is now that on the extremist account the greatest positivity, or positivity and negativity, of the original catena is good or best, whereas on the neutralist account the neutrality is good or best. This difference is not only big -- it is plain as well. So far as evaluative words like nice and fine are concerned, the use of these words in an extremist way is more symptomatic of local, national and other forms of territorialism, and more symptomatic of contempt of the principle of truth than of extremism itself.

Our catenical definition of extreme could easily be marked by a considerable departure from the neutral, but a traditional definition of extreme is radical or marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional. From the point of view of an original catena this latter definition is, of course, preposterous, for the usual or traditional might be extreme itself, for example, extremely inequitable. It is, then, neutrality which is marked by a considerable departure from the traditional. To make any sense at all, the traditional definitions of extreme and extremism must implicitly refer not to an original catena but to a positivity-difference, differentiation or time-differential catena. (We shall not consider the use of extremism in some sense of terrorism, for terrorism is, first of all, a serious violation of people's rights of personhood. Extremism may encourage such terrorism, but a particular person could be an extremist without ever becoming a terrorist, or without ever supporting terrorism.)

The implicit reference to nonoriginal catenas is quite apparent in definitions of extreme and radical such as tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions or institutions. Those who are opposed to such extreme changes are not opposed to these changes because they are extreme or great, nor because they are changes; they want to leave the situation ('exist' or not) as it is, simply because it is in their own personal interest, since they benefit themselves from the inequalities which are existing or traditional. As it is fallacious to let a differentiation catena have priority over an original catena, it is those who want to maintain traditional, extreme or great inequalities and those who want to make nonextreme inequalities bigger who are the real extremists: they are the ones who hold views which are as far from being moderate as possible. Those who want to maintain traditional, nonextreme or smaller inequalities are lesser unneutralists. And those who strive for equality in a relevantistic way, however much this equality may deviate from what is usual or traditional, are the neutralists.

Some exponents of traditionalism who are afraid of joining either neutralism or extremism might instead suggest a 'compromise' between the two. In a similar way this would have to be a 'compromise' between inclusivism and exclusivism. But people who seriously argue for such a settlement will merely demonstrate a complete lack of catenical insight. There simply is no 'compromise' between neutralism and extremism, for neutralism itself is the compromise between negative extremism (or lesser unneutralism) on the one hand and positive extremism (or lesser unneutralism) on the other; and there is no 'compromise' between the need of inclusivity and exclusivist demands, for inclusivity itself is, as it were, the compromise reached between abnegational exclusivism on the one hand and aggrandizemental exclusivism on the other. Those who suggest a so-called 'compromise' between abnegational exism and neutral-inclusivity are in favor of nothing else than abnegational exism; and those who suggest a so-called 'compromise' between aggrandizemental exism and neutral-inclusivity are in favor of nothing else than aggrandizemental exism. There is no compromise between neutralism and extremism, because neutralism, as founded on the norm of neutrality, is itself the compromise.