Extremism: A Philosophical Analysis

which Goldsmith is concerned (in about five years, Alinsky tells us). Or Alinsky will himself become the prophet of a new age with fanatical followers. Nihilism is nihilism is nihilism. On this, I’m with Dostoevsky: the solution to the problem of fanaticism is not a more reasonable, less impassioned, less abstract, less violent nihilism. As Quentin Tarantino shows us, even though perfectly calm and perfectly reasonable while killing human beings, Lt. Aldo Raine is no less a fanatic than the Gestapo officer Hans Landa— he’s still an inglourious basterd. Landa, as if written by Dostoevsky himself, sums it up: “I’m aware what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.” An uncomfortable truth.