Przhilenskiy V.I. The logic of extremism: explanation vs. understanding

Abstract: The subject of this research is the specificity of extremist thinking, structure and contents of targeting of the extremist oriented individuals. The article examines extremism as a special type of attitude of an individual towards the processes and phenomena taking place in the surrounding world, in other words, in social, cultural, and ethno-confessional environment. The author explores the two types of main sources of the modern extremism (archaic and modern), by the reaction upon which the emotional and value-hued antagonism of the events encouraging individuals to search the way out from the situation in hand, are being determined. The author substantiates the thesis on the insufficient efficiency of classical means and methods of the analysis of specificity of the extremist thinking, such as historical materialism, positivism, and structural functionalism. The article presents two types of social techniques, with the help of which the modern world finds a “solution” of the problem of an individual and a group captured by the extremist attitudes. The author proves that there is a connection of these techniques with the spatial-temporal localization of values that unites the historical-geographical, ethno-confessional and sociocultural determinants of self-identification. The threats of the external interference into this process, as well as the need for the effective countermeasures against its manipulative technologization, are being demonstrated.

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