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   %UNBALANCED EXTREMISTS ACCEPTANCE REJECTION LOVE 960722

     Unbalanced extremists are not interested in promoting
personal  and communal integrity---for  integrity  entails
balance between extremes.

     Unbalanced extremists believe that perfection of  one
form or another is the essence of salvation---except  that
they  cannot  conceive  of perfect  balance  because  well
balanced  people recognize  the  futility  of  seeking  to
achieve salvation through extremism.

     Extremists cannot listen to or hear each other,   for
they regard each opposing extremist other as not worthy of
consideration and trust.

     Extremists seek to define themselves in terms of very
narrow "goods".     The  more extreme they are,  the  more
narrowly  they define what is "good".   As a  result  they
alienate  themselves  from everyone who is not extreme  in
their  own  narrow way.   Thus they engender personal  and
communal  disintegration---while seeking to achieve  their
own salvation through extreme measures.

     Extremists  often  resort to  terrorists  activities,
war, excommunications, cruel punishments,  etc.  There are
religious,   political,   scientific,   and  nationalistic
extremists.   Often they focus upon what they believe  are
the  essential  fundamentals in terms of  which  they  can
achieve salvation---and so are called fundamentalists.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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