J.M. BergerYesterday, @ctecmiis.bsky.social published the latest Lawful Extremism paper, by @bdaviess.bsky.social and me, examining recently passed anti-trans legislation in Florida. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/lawful-extremism-floridas-anti-trans-laws 1/x
Our first two papers on Lawful Extremism examined relatively uncontroversial examples from history, using the opportunity to define and justify the concept and its specific terms and dynamics.
Most definitions of extremism specifically exclude lawful or dominant movements. Working with the definition I put forward in "Extremism" (MIT Press, 2018), we argue that the academic field is meaningfully incomplete if we don't study dominant extremist movements.
The first paper looked at the Supreme Court's Dred Scott Decision of 1857, which ruled that Black people had no rights under the Constitution, even in free states. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/ctec-publications-0/lawful-extremism-extremist-ideology-and-dred-scott-decision
Lawful Extremism: Extremist Ideology and the Dred Scott Decision
Can legal codes and court rulings function as extremist ideological texts? Academics usually define extremism as a set of beliefs that fall outside the norms of the society in which they are situated, but entire societies have at times been organized around recognizably extreme beliefs.
The second paper looked at the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which set a racial barrier on immigration to the United States in the interests of preserving White supremacy https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/lawful-extremism-chinese-exclusion-act
Lawful Extremism: The Chinese Exclusion Act
The first paper in the “Lawful Extremism” series considered whether the 1856 Dred Scott decision that denied Black people citizenship and constitutional rights functioned as an extremist ideological text. This paper uses the same framework to examine the Chinese Exclusion era, covering roughly 1870-1943, and the anti-Chinese movement that traveled from the fringes to the mainstream, becoming the driving force behind the enaction of the Act.
Many proponents of slavery characterized their views as non-extremist (i.e. not hostile or harmful). Some pro-slavery ideologues ludicrously argued slavery was a "positive good" for Black people, who they said were naturally suited to servitude and well-cared-for by benevolent enslavers.
Some advocates of Chinese exclusion also tried to position themselves as non-extremist, arguing that lawful exclusion was necessary to prevent unlawful violence from the more-violent extremists who joined "anti-Chinese clubs."
In our new paper, we can see the same dynamic at work, with proponents of anti-trans legislation passing laws that they claim in official proceedings are not targeting trans people, while their statements outside of legislative chambers say otherwise.
We dived into how these laws were drafted to avoid accusations of extremism, and just as importantly, to insulate the laws against being successfully challenged in court as intentionally discriminatory.
Extremists love to argue that they are not hostile or hateful toward their chosen out-groups. Even many neo-Nazis attempt to argue that racial segregation is better for non-White people than integration.
Mainstream political extremists in participatory democracies have even more motive to dress their proposed actions up as neutral or benevolent, since they have to manage tricky electoral coalitions that may be turned off by extreme rhetoric.
Understanding these dynamics is an important part of understanding extremism. We hope these papers are an important contribution to the field, and we hope you will check them out. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/lawful-extremism-floridas-anti-trans-laws