Joichi Ito Quotes

We cannot sway extremists with rational thought or with our ideas of right and wrong.

Ideological amplification happens when like minded people deliberate…they push each other to extreme points of views….The argument pool in a group of liberals will be only liberal. Likewise with conservatives, the other way…. Most of us on most issues do not have a ton of information…we might be steered away from moderation…. Political correctness is a good example of ideological amplification.

The extremists are talking too loudly, and everyone is convinced that only he is on the right side.

People are so quick to demonize and stereotype those on the other side that they often say that it's impossible to work with people on the other side.

I always think extremism is basically a reaction out of fear. What we seem to be experiencing is polar extremism that keeps people from coming together.

Extremists and populist movements are exploiting people's fear of those who are not like us. We can see the consequences in the form of terrorism and racially motivated violence.

A wingnut is someone on the far-right wing or far-left wing of the political spectrum - the professional partisans, the unhinged activists and the paranoid conspiracy theorists. They're the people who always try to divide rather than unite us.

Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.

Who defines terrorists? Today's terrorist is tomorrow's friend.

Each side had its uninformed fanatics. And each side had political leaders who fanned the flames with their rhetoric.

It’s a fact that minds are poisoned throughout the Middle East.

When it is over, if it is over, this war will have horrible consequences. Instead of having one Bin Laden, we will have 100 Bin Ladens.

Terrorism springs from sources other than the form of government of a state. There is no reason to believe that a more democratic Arab world will, simply by virtue of being more democratic, generate fewer terrorists.

Ignorant and illiterate people cannot understand democracy. They are prey to religious extremists.

Religious-based and ethnic-based schools act as points of division in society, often breeding prejudice and fear …

Terrorism cannot be fought successfully without news media that are free to enquire into the causes of terrorism, and the political and social condition in which it thrives

With the fundamentalist Islamic fanatics of today, there is no dialogue possible either, because for them all others are “infidel dogs”. As soon as the Other becomes a wrongdoer or an infidel, dialogue becomes impossible.

The real problem is that Saudi Arabia is bogged down by deep-rooted Islamic extremism in most schools and mosques, which have become breeding grounds for terrorists. We cannot solve the terrorism problem as long as it is endemic to our educational and religious institutions. .

When a state embroils its citizens in an “either you are with us or against us” argument, every dissent is at risk of being equated to treason—or in an Islamic country, blasphemy.

The Middle East is a region where extremists go all the way and moderates just go away.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the middle.

Observe, in politics, that the term extremism has become a synonym of "evil," regardless of the content of the issue (the evil is not what you are extreme about, but that you are "extreme"—

Too often, we have failed to enforce international norms when its inconvenient to do so. And we have not confronted forcefully enough the intolerance, sectarianism, and hopelessness that feeds violent extremism in too many parts of the globe.

All extremists derive from one pool. This extreme mind-set is nurtured by religious rhetoric that needs to be reformed.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.