Are you now, or have you ever been, an Extremist?

"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'—i. e., consistent)....

    "Of all the 'anti-concepts' polluting our cultural atmosphere, 'extremism' is the most ambitious in scale and implications; it goes much beyond politics. Let us now examine it in detail.
    "To begin with, 'extremism' is a term which, standing by itself, has no meaning. The concept of 'extreme' denotes a relation, a measurement, a degree. The dictionary gives the following definitions: 'Extreme, adj. — 1. of a character or kind farthest removed from the ordinary or average. 2. utmost or exceedingly great in degree.'
    "It is obvious that the first question one has to ask, before using that term, is: a degree — of what?
    "To answer: 'Of anything!' and to proclaim that any extreme is evil because it is an extreme — to hold the degree of a characteristic, regardless of its nature, as evil — is an absurdity ... Measurements, as such, have no value-significance — and acquire it only from the nature of that which is being measured.
    "Are an extreme of health and an extreme of disease equally undesirable? Are extreme intelligence and extreme stupidity ... equally unworthy? Are extreme honesty and extreme dishonesty equally immoral? Are a man of extreme virtue and a man of extreme depravity equally evil?
    "The examples of such absurdities can be multiplied indefinitely — particularly in the field of morality where only an extreme (i.e., unbreached, uncompromised) degree of virtue can be properly called a virtue. (What is the moral status of a man of “moderate” integrity?)
    "But 'don’t bother to examine a folly — ask yourself only what it accomplishes'....

    "This brings us to the deeper implications of the term 'extremism.' It is obvious that an uncompromising stand (on anything) is the actual characteristic which that 'anti-concept is designed to damn. It is also obvious that compromise is incompatible with morality. In the field of morality, compromise is surrender to evil.
    "There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.
    "If an uncompromising stand is to be smeared as 'extremism,' then that smear is directed at any devotion to values, any loyalty to principles, any profound conviction, any consistency, any steadfastness, any passion, any dedication to an unbreached, inviolate truth — any man of integrity.
    "And it is against all these that that 'anti-concept' has been and is being used."

~ Ayn Rand, combined quote from her essays 'The Cult of Moral Grayness' and 'Extremism: The Art of Smearing'