Good Extremism Is Needed — Ed

HELLO FOLKS! — My good friend, Herman Gruis, Jr., suggests that I write something concerning the extremism of such men as Adolph Hitler, Castro and Khrushchev. I think it is a good idea, so here goes.

As I see it, evil always seems to end up in extremism. It either starts moderately or else it just seems to. But unless it is checked it ends up in extremism. I believe it to be a truism that evil always destroys itself. For a long time, evil breeds more evil, but it eventually ends up destroying itself. Human nature will put up with a certain amount of evil for a long time, but eventually it tires of it and mistrusts it until good extremism rises up and replaces it.

How did the extremism of Adolph Hitler get started? As I recall history and understand it, there were too many moderate politicians in Germany at the time.

The saying, "All that is needed for evil to prevail, is for good men to do nothing," certainly proved true in the case of Germany's Hitler. There are so many seemingly "good" men who think it wrong to step out of the role of moderation. They seem to be consumed with the idea that to be a good Christian or at least a good fellow they have to be a moderate. I think that idea is a complete fallacy. I need to go no further than the word of the greatest authority that ever lived to firm up my convictions.

When Jesus Christ wanted a message to go to the Church at Laodicea he revealed it to John the Revelator and said, among other things, "so then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."

The modern church leader who is now dead, Ralph W. Hardy, put it this way: "The gospel of Jesus Christ was not placed upon the earth to make ordinary human beings."

So I believe that the very reason we have such men as Castro, Khrushchev, Hitler and many others of their kind is because we have so few good extremists. Too many want to sit back and read history rather than make it; or worse yet, they don't even want to study it.

If we are ever to have peace on earth — and I am certain we will some day — we are going to have to make it. The only was to make it is to live extremely good lives.

Good extremists are generally misunderstood. Their thinking is geared far in advance of the average person and, therefore, they are generally not called to great positions until extreme evil has forced the public to accept them. If, then we are going to be wise enough to place these men where they can do the job that needs to be done, we all have to be somewhat the good extremists ourselves. When we do not understand an extremist we are quite apt to conclude that he is evil, whether that is true or not.