There’s currently much talk about extremism. Even the mere word is enough to send a shiver down the spine of many people. Right-wing extremism is held to be particularly bad, but left-wing extremism is not much better. The issue is by no means as static and definitive as one might think, because experience shows that a political radical left-wing position can easily turn into its opposite. Haven’t former leftists like Joschka Fischer sometimes suddenly turned to the right, in his case, a former opponent of the Vietnam War suddenly approving of the bombing of Serbia? Extraordinarily reprehensible, of course is everything that heads in a ‘brown’ (Far Right) direction. In Germany, some people might point to the AfD as an example and say, “Resist the beginnings” (of fascism). But how can they make that claim when the AfD is the only party that openly criticises Merkel’s current senseless policies – on opening the door to mass immigration or on ratifying the UN migration pact? Or her straitjacket-like adherence to the Schengen Agreement? Why don’t the “respectable” governing parties make such criticisms on a grand scale?
It is certainly unfortunate when a basically reasonable position is represented by people who can summon up memories of bad times in Germany But was the criticism of the Versailles Treaty 100 years ago unreasonable, just because it was made primarily by the one who “was led” (J. Tautz) by dubious forces? Certainly not. But that the wrong people represent a right cause is not only a misfortune, it’s also a consequence of the failure of those who should know better but are afraid to stand against “political correctness” and who prefer to leave the necessary criticism to those who can be easily and rightly criticised for other reasons.

Political extremism can only flourish when a healthy middle is unable to gain a hearing between the extremes in the social organism. And what would be a healthy middle, especially in Europe? It is the barely visible community of people who, since the beginning of the Age of Michael (i.e. since 1879) and of the Age of Light (since 1899), have been seeking to understand the spiritual foundations of world development – right down as far as political events. The “enlightened” moderates, on the other hand, who pride themselves on being free of any extremism, sleep through the real signs of the times and think they can get along without “spirit”.

In reality, they form the breeding ground for the most devious of all extremisms. This is the narrow-minded, rigid and chronic denial of the spirit. Of all extremisms, it is really the most dangerous, because it usually prowls around completely unrecognised, paralysing all spiritual awakenings and stamping its mark on all external events. The extremism of the denial of the spirit, which encompasses the entire political spectrum, makes all the solemn speeches at Easter – the Festival of Resurrection of the cosmic Spirit of Christ – into outright, phrasemongering lies.
And where this extremism flourishes, the situation cannot be much better at Whitsuntide (Pentecost). But the true mediators, those with a spiritual will, work and speak on, unceasingly, in silence. That is reason for hope.
May not all ears remain deaf to their voices.

T.H. Meyer