9th December 2025
How the law can (attempt to) regulate extremism, but it can really do nothing about conformism.
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Let us start with this thought-provoking passage:
When I visited Auschwitz many years ago, someone in our group said that this is what happens when extremism flourishes.
Our tour guide replied:
“This place is not explained by extremism. It is explained by conformity.”
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That exchange was in a recent post by Ian Dunt, which you can read here.
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The state can have a good go at regulating extremism.
The state can seek to define it, for definitions are often the starting point for law and policy.
In the United Kingdom we have the following official definition of extremism:
Extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to:
(1) negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or
(2) undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracyand democratic rights; or
(3) intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2).
The types of behaviour below are indicative of the kind of promotion or advancement which may be relevant to the definition, and are an important guide to its application. The further context below is also an essential part of the definition.
If you look at the government’s webpage, you will see that this definition even has footnotes:
A definition with its own footnotes that define terms within the definition: this is serious stuff.
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The term “extremism” is even used in statutes and statutory instruments:
And once you have a term defined officially, and used widely in legal instruments, you can do legal and policy things in respect of that term:
And so we have things like the Prevent Strategy which seeks to stop extremism becoming terrorism:
And we have Crown Prosecution Service guidance which refers to extremism:
And so on.
Extremism is a bureaucratic category and, as such, a government can have laws and policies that deal seek to deal with it.
Those laws and policies may have limited or no effect, or indeed counter-productive effects, but at least the state can have a good go at addressing extremism.
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Now let us turn from extremism to conformity – the thing which the passage quoted at the head of this post warned us against:
When I visited Auschwitz many years ago, someone in our group said that this is what happens when extremism flourishes.
Our tour guide replied:
“This place is not explained by extremism. It is explained by conformity.”
What can law and policy do about conformity?
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There is perhaps nothing the law can do to counter conformity.
This is because – maybe literally, maybe logically – the law actually requires conformity.
Maybe a law against conformity is even a contradiction-in-terms, if you think about it.
One premise of law is that, well, people comply with it.
A law which sought to counter conformity would no doubt be rather self-defeating.
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The same can be said about policy: again one point about policy is that officials and the public are supposed to abide by it.
Policy, in general terms, provides what officials and the public should and should not do in certain situations. There may be exceptions in specific circumstances, but policy provides the general thrust of public action.
And on this basis, a policy against conformity is perhaps also a contradiction-in-terms, if you think about it.
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There is probably nothing law and policy can do to counter the threat of conformity.
Indeed, once illiberals and authoritarians have public power, and so can determine law and policy, conformity will reinforce illiberalism and authoritarianism.
And, as and when illiberalism and authoritarianism slide into extremism, then conformity will reinforce that extremism.
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The problem of conformity cannot thereby be solved by law and policy.
The danger needs to be addressed by other means.
And that other means is, of course, politics.
One may not be able to have a law or a policy against conformity, but one can certainly be politically opposed to it – to campaign and vote or otherwise mobilise against extremists who want to take control of the state.
And this includes resisting the temptation to conform – that is to nod-along with what is happening.
There are always extremists.
But what gives them power is not the appeal of their extremism, but the comfort others have in conformity.
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When I visited Auschwitz many years ago, someone in our group said that this is what happens when extremism flourishes.
Our tour guide replied:
“This place is not explained by extremism. It is explained by conformity.”
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So confusing. If you count the number of States, with whom the UK has diplomatic relationships with, that fall under these definitions you wonder how to deal with the real extremists!
Currently re-reading Steve Coll’s “Ghost Wars”, covering a time when you thought you knew about extremists. (But didn’t really ….)
So confusing!
Since the example given is conformity to extremism, the problem should be covered by defining and regulating extremism. The more pressing issue is what to do if the extremists gain control of the legislative process and normalise their extreme views. That’s the problem that wasn’t solved in 1930s Germany, and it’s the same as the one faced in too many Western societies today.
Many thanks David for highlighting something so easily overlooked and taken for granted.
Conformity is a blessing and a curse; a comforting set of earmuffs, blinkers and rose-tinted spectacles which for the most part, allow us get on with our day to day lives
On the other hand, conformity has not only been an enabler for the evil of Nazism but also many religious institutions & cults, some of which have only come to light in recent times
There may not be legal means by which “conformity” can be challenged. However there are policies which can be created to help people open their eyes and better understand the risks and threats they face in an increasingly online as well as physical world around them.
Finland is a great example of how the national schools curriculum can be adapted successfully to help people learn the essential skills of critical thinking. It’s not a cure but it’s a great start and something we could all benefit from.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/fact-from-fiction-finlands-new-lessons-in-combating-fake-news
Very interesting – and perhaps true that conformity – in the sense of doing something one might otherwise not wish to do in order to ‘fit in’ – is in some ways more dangerous than extremism. The problem is that conformity, at least to some degree, is essential to allow us to live together.
Perhaps the only answer is education: teaching young (and older) people to think through their ideas and reactions, and to express and stand by them once formed.
It isn’t to be relied upon, nor their only effect, nor a panacea, but I think juries can be a counterweight to some conformity or pressure to conform.
Perhaps there are reasons other than that for the proposed and intended reduction in access to juries.
It’s a great exercise to be considering how extremism can flourish unchecked in modern society.
I would like to offer the following personal observations for further evaluation if this topic:
During the Anschluss 11-13 March 1938 there was an immediate outbreak of violence and oppression of the Jews in Austria -noticeably in Vienna where there was a large and mostly integrated Jewish community – and there were many incidents of Austrians courageously standing up against the brutality of the Nazi regime, to protect their neighbours. However an apt description of the behaviour of the general population is that there were “Zu wenige Gerechte” (too few righteous) people who stood back and did nothing.
The second example was something I noticed while visiting the Dachau memorial sometime in the late 1970s – having myself been deeply affected by reading a placard commemorating the execution of the four SOE women at that location, I emerged from the small building out into bright sunshine and found a German family with their picnic lunch spread out on a blanket over the grass.
So I agree that it’s the ability to ignore extremism surrounding us that is most disturbing, though it may not be a new phenomenon.
How to instill critical thinking and « moral fibre » without falling into other potentially dangerous types of conformity such as rigid religious belief?
Isn’t the underlying issue one of self-interest? Many, if not most people will go along with what appears to be a majority view, or a line taken by those in power, if they see an advantage in it for themselves or a group to which they belong. What might stop them is realising that any system that seeks to marginalise, exploit and/or even destroy a particular group of people could easily be turned against their own group if and when political power changes hands. Of course, in the meantime that also increases the need to ensure that those with different values never again come to power…
Reasonable rules – to start with – as they progress and refine one suspects a bit stretchable too. Thoughts of Richelieu and his six lines from an honest man.
Alas the game is not even handed. Looking around I think of the reasonableness and honesty of the goings on in NI a while back. Then of the dire necessity to have police spies keep an eye on shouty ladies even unto their pillows and maternity beds. And all that fuss over what lavatories I may or not use. Shades of a Violet Elizabeth Bott approach to legislation. Cynical souls might also suspect Prevent of being a bit abstemious with its psychiatric hospital budget, a bit of random harm across the populous cheaper than ongoing hospital bills.
More recently I feel a bit ashamed of being so conformist and not getting myself a criminal record over certain matters of Realpolitik. Matters one may not even whisper of nor wave bits of paper.
I do wonder over the morality and wisdom of these interpretations of the rules and ask just what was/is the point. The real point, not the publicly stated version. None of this encourages a feeling of confidence and straightforwardness. Makes me a bit rebellious within my soul and I dislike my conformism but there it must stay. Government, a dirty job but someone has to do it.
Conformity, and what Snyder calls ‘obedience in advance’ surely is the danger. It always has been in states moving towards more authoritarian governance.
There’s a saying in German from the National Socialist era: ‘Weh dem der aus der Reihe tanzt’. Whoever doesn’t dance in line is going to have a hard time. And there’s the saying that it’s the nail that protrudes that gets the hammer. Conformity surely comes largely from the wide awareness of those things.
Surely the thing that the law can do is protect people who don’t stay in line. One obvious category would be whistleblowers. Another might be people who claim constructive dismissal when they find it impossible not to resign over an issue of conscience. Or are attacked by managers (seeking to obey in advance) for letting their sympathy for a belief be known (as in people taken through a disciplinary process for, say, wearing a crucifix or a badge with a national flag).
At the moment, the law protecting whistleblowers or those who resign on issues of conscience is weak, and its application even weaker. Whistleblowing or resignation can be career-ending. People can be subjected to lawfare, journalists can face SLAPP suits.
The definitions you cite really only give token assent to freedom of speech and conscience. Until there is practical law defending those things, and actively prohibiting (or at least inhibiting) the aggressive use of managerial / administrative means to shut down free-expression, I suspect the great majority of people will make sure they dance in line.
We have nothing, effectively, that is proactive against attempts to close down freedom of expression. Aside non-state groups like Liberty or the Good Law Project, there seems to be no state-supported proactive effort to defend freedom of expression; something that would have to be established by statute or statutory instrument. There is nothing, if you like, to mirror Prevent.
Nor is there much by way of effort to counter violence at a more individual level across all its forms: where there is, like the Glasgow Violence Reduction Unit, it tends to come from local authority initiative, and to be precarious particularly in funding. It has no statutory basis.
What recurs in definitions of extremism is violence or support for it. So long as most people think violence is the best way to get what they want, they’ll use violence to try and get what they want. If they see the state, given all its powers ultimately rest on its ability to use force, using violence to close down non-violent freedom of expression, they’ll be strengthened in their view that violence is the way to achieve their goals.
Sorry, I know that’s in effect two separate themes; defence of those who don’t dance in line, and violence-reduction. I can’t help feeling that they’re connected, but mapping the connections isn’t easy. Maybe the simplest way to put it is that if you’re concerned with violent ideologies, you should be putting all your weight behind the delegitimation of violence itseslf, which must surely mean proactive defence of non-violent protest.
In the back of my mind with all this is Hans Litten, getting AH in the dock for several hours in a case of what we might nowadays call ‘stochastic terrorism’. Litten is one of my heroes from that time, but he paid a hell of a price for his work.
One of my questions, first thought of many years ago is, from the perspective of Germans, living and acting under German law, in Germany (or German ruled territories), what was the legal status/basis of what we know as the Holocaust or Shoah? A crime; promulgated state policy (that even if secret) laid down by some law or other (or not) that should be executed; or what?
“The axiom, fear; the method, logic; the conclusion, despotism”.
With thanks to Lord Dacre and Thomas Hobbes
We must remember the fundamental purpose of government is not to make the trains run on time but to preserve the perquisites and privileges of government.