Modern extremism: tendencies and sociocultural modification

Extremism occupies a conspicuous place in modern scientific and social discourse. In the present article attention is paid tothe tendencies of modern extremism such as modification of goals and emergence of informational extremism. These tendencies are fundamentalfor understanding modern extremism and for making effective methods of counter-extremism. The first tendency of extremism is the answerto the question of why modern young people join extremist communities so willingly. It is the seeming attractiveness of extremists' aims. Aims,goals and reasons of extremists can be absolutely different, but in theory we can sort out three types - forced diplomacy, war for the ideal andthe forerunner of the new world order. With regard to the first tendency, we can single out two main levels of extremist consciousness targeting- internal and external. The first level satisfies psychological features and personal interests of extremists. The second level corresponds tothe ideological base of extremist groups. Investigation of these levels can help the counter-extremist movement to make effective oppositionmethods foreseeing the conduct of extremist groups. The second tendency of modern extremism is the emergence of informational extremism.The previous type of professional extremists, who are guided by ideology, aspiration for national liberation and specified political goals, andfinanced by governments, has disappeared. There is informational extremism instead, where a single person - the carrier of extremist concessions- can be more destructive, than most numerous extremist groups. As a result of these tendencies extremists develop into new, nonhierarchical groups, where the backbone is often formed not by professionals, but amateurs - young people, who joined extremist groups forsome reasons. Knowing these tendencies counter-extremists' methods can be applied, such as elimination of axiological crisis of modern society,which appears as a result of transition from previous values (forms of interaction with the generally accepted standards and models), to thenew ones, when previous values do not work anymore, and new values have not been produced. Therefore, extremist groups, which can givevalues and stable belief in them, are so popular at present time, especially among the youth. Creation of new values is a single method to changethis situation. And this is the main task for modern mass media and government.

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