Host: We see the headlines everywhere, including here in Ontario. Headlines about Neo-Nazi groups, about ISIS recruits. These organizations obviously have different goals and ideologies, but do they appeal to certain kinds of people with similar psychological needs? We look at why extremist groups may appeal to those who are isolated, especially men, and at what we can do more broadly to combat loneliness. Welcome to The Rundown. Neo-Nazi groups, ISIS, QAnon. They may not seem to have much in common, but they all promise connection, community, purpose. Are those things in short supply today? And if so, are we living in a world that's more and more likely to produce extremists? 'The Rundown' producer Eric Bombicino tackles those questions and more with extremism. Researcher Amarnath Amarasingam.

Host: I want to thank the delightful Amarnath here for coming to hang out in our little our little dungeon here. Thanks for coming.

Amarnath Amarasingam: Thanks for having me. It's good to be back.

Host: He is a professor in the School of Religion and is cross-appointed to the Department of Political Studies at Queen's University. So we're going to talk all things extremism today. But the first thing I wanted to start with is I think at the tippy top for folks, which is why why would someone pack their bags, fly to Syria and fight for ISIS? Why would someone join an extremist group? What's the allure or the appeal? What does it offer them? So let's let's start there. What's the first thing we should put on the table when it comes to understanding the appeal of extremism?

Amarnath Amarasingam: Well, I think a lot of people have grievances right there. They might have economic grievances, social grievances, cultural grievances, but not all of that will immediately translate to being part of an extremist group or even finding some of these groups attractive. I think that's where the ideology comes in and does a little bit of work. Right. The what ideology does is it tends to interpret grievances for you to show the to answer a few pivotal questions. You know, it's great that I'm struggling or something's happened to me economically, culturally. But who is responsible? What do I do about it and what's required of me personally to do it right, and so that it ideology gives grievance, sense of purpose, sense of meaning. And I think that that's kind of at the base of it across different groups that we've all looked at, you know, the Islamic State, al Qaeda, the far right.

Amarnath Amarasingam: So there is this quest for meaning that that is one big part of this. Is that fair to say?

Host: Yeah.

Amarnath Amarasingam: I mean, a lot of people say quest for meaning, but it's been said so many times that it sometimes feels like it's losing.

Host: What does it mean?

Amarnath Amarasingam: Yeah, like but that is the fundamental driver for a lot of people. Right? I think it is. You get to a point where just everyday occurrences in life are aren't answering the more deeper questions in your life. And being part of these movements is very exciting, very revolutionary, very utopian. And so it does infuse kind of the boredom of everyday life with with a sense of purpose. Right. And that but that has to kind of be grounded in something that you're feeling in terms of grievances and loss. Otherwise it tends to go nowhere. It has to be based in this idea that either my people's culture has been taken away, my people's rights have been taken away, socioeconomic damage has been done to me and my group, my in-group. And then all of that has to be reinterpreted with, with the, with the, with the use of ideology to kind of push people into some of these movements.

Host: You also get a bunch of buddies, you get you get a ready-made community. Is that is that a big part of this? People are feeling lonely and there's a need for community.

Amarnath Amarasingam: Community is huge. That can happen offline and online. I used to watch some of these ISIS supporters in the online space, and people always tended to dismiss the online community as less important than the real life community. And just watching them for a while, you tend to see that, oh, they're they're willing to take risks for each other. They're sending money to each other. They're doing they have friendships there. So that that sense of online bonding is just as real as the offline bonding. And even that, though, is sometimes mediated by ideology, because who who belongs in the in-group, who is part of my community, well, that's going to be determined by whether you agree with me or not. You're part of the in-group or not, right? There was a a friend of mine who's a son went off to fight in, in Syria and Iraq with the Islamic State, and she used to tell a story of how one day he would come home and say, I can no longer eat from utensils, I can no longer eat from your plates because you are part of the polluted, kind of non-believer family. Now I'm part of the elect, the elite, the selected, the chosen. And so once you create those boundaries between us and them that determines who your community is.

Host: So I think it's fair to say the world's getting increasingly dizzyingly complex. The grey area is getting greyer and greyer, and that can create a lot of uncertainty, that can create anxiety for folks. So does extremism in that black and white thinking. Is that like a way out is extremism? And this may sound a little weird to say, but is extremism comforting?

Amarnath Amarasingam: I mean, I think the the more the world gets complicated. You know, German sociologist named Ulrich Beck used to call it the Risk society, which is the idea that the world is getting so complicated that we don't even know what the parameters of that of these risks are, right? Like something can happen in Wuhan, China. And all of a sudden my kids in Toronto aren't going to school, right? There are no boundaries to current risks. You once you let it out of the bag, it's not putting it back. And it kind of takes over and it's all encompassing and you don't know where the cause is. And so within that scenario, when an ideology or a group of people come in and say, we know this is all chaos, but actually let me explain why. It's very simple, right? It's you are good and these people are bad, and they're the ones who caused this, and they're the ones you need to fight, right? It creates a very meaning out of out of that chaos and gives you a sense of purpose out of that chaos. And so that could be. So you can create those kind of in-groups out of that chaos. And, and this is where conspiracy theories are very useful. And this is where ideology is very useful, because those are the ones those are the things that do the work of molding that chaos into something that you're not just a victim of, but now you're now you can do something about it. Control. Yeah.

Host: Yeah. So would you. So in times where there is greater uncertainty, which we just went through one for about three years, the pandemic, will you see a rise in conspiracy theory, these firm handholds to feel certain about something?

Amarnath Amarasingam: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think all conspiracy theories, all conspiracy linked extremist movements come out of some form of chaos. Yeah. Or some some form of event that is, is beyond explanation. Right. And academics call this proportionality bias, which is like when big things happen, we kind of desire psychologically a big cause for those big things. Yeah. Right. And when, when, when like the, when president of the United States gets assassinated and you're like, well, it's just one guy in a book depository, that's not very satisfying. Yeah. Right. So but it's more satisfying to say the CIA was behind it or, you know, the USSR was behind it or whatever. And so that similar thing, similar dynamics happened with the pandemic, where it's just like, oh, the world came to a screeching halt, right? And you're telling me because it was some lab experiment in the middle of nowhere? That doesn't make sense. Right. And so actually, we need a man.

Host: That's chaos. That's chaos.

Amarnath Amarasingam: We need a massively bigger as big an explanation to explain explain the cause. And so I think or explain the event. And so out of that, sometimes you do have conspiracy because that's naturally conspiratorial thinking. Right. And to say who's behind all of this and why are they doing that. There's always this kind of shadowy elite who's who's out for chaos, who's controlling things. And you might think, well, that should make us more scared, but actually, at least you can identify. Yes, at least you can identify it. Right. And that that gives people a sense of comfort to say, okay, I know who's behind it, I know why they're behind it, and I know what I have to do. I have to wake everybody up to to the truth. Right. And so this kind of thinking was behind QAnon, the QAnon movement. This was behind a lot of the other pandemic related conspiracy theories and so on. So this kind of pinpointing a cause and getting involved, and sometimes that naturally leads to extremist kind of movements, because I always say not every conspiracy theory is the same. Not every conspiracy theory has a moral component to it, in the same way.

Host: As a call to action, almost.

Amarnath Amarasingam: As a call to action. Whereas if I whereas QAnon was perfect for that, right? Where it's like Hollywood and the Democratic elite are, are are operating a clandestine pedophile ring.

Host: Right.

Amarnath Amarasingam: It's not the same as saying the earth is flat or the moon landing was faked because this one has a moral call to action. You have. You're telling me kids are being enslaved and tortured? That's not that's going to get me out of my seat. Much more likely than the moon landing was faked or the Earth is flat or whatever, right? Yeah. So not all conspiracy theories can galvanize in the same way. And I think we've seen more and more the nature of those conspiracy theories shift to galvanize to those that are galvanizing.

Host: Okay, so I wanted to ask a big and unfair question. And it's sort of looking at we've I think we've been nibbling at it a little bit, but it's that I think it's really been you and I have been talking about this for over a decade. I used to as a nervous young producer on the agenda. I would call you up, I think derailment programs funded by the federal government have been around for just over a decade now. In that sweep of ten years, in terms of those conditions, we're talking about the need for meaning, the need for purpose, loneliness, the need for community has have we are we now in a world that is more and more likely to create and produce extremists?

Amarnath Amarasingam: That's a good question. It is a bit of an unfair question.

Host: I, I mean, I fairly set it up as I'm fair, which I think is fair.

Amarnath Amarasingam: I think I think we are at a situation. I mean, this is this is kind of very bird's eye in a way, like what I've been seeing across some of these movements is what some researchers now call like the the end of modernity. Meaning means like modernity has kind of run its course. In other words, the promise of modernity is we're we're going to you're going to be middle class. You're going to have a nice house with a picket fence and a car and a wife and a child, a wife and children, and everything's going to be great. It's going to be peaceful. There's not going to be any war. It's going to be peaceful, transfer of power. You're going to have a pension. Like like that was the promise of liberal modernity is to say, we're going to make your life chaos free, right? But what I think we're seeing now is the limits of that, which is the sense of the sense of flair, purpose, meaning is all lost. And so you're you have a lot of a lot of people are fine with the, with the, with the white picket fence story. Right. They're happy in it. But there are individuals who find that that strips life of purpose and meaning and that you need to kind of go beyond it to find a purpose for yourself. Right. And so that I think when you say, are we in a situation where you might create more extremist movements when that calmness of modernity runs its course, or there are moments that pierce it, like the pandemic, which which kind of upended our sense of normalcy or what you're seeing in the United States right now, which is all of the wallpaper. Institutions of their life are being eroded, and people are realizing that, oh, I thought we were we didn't need these things because liberal modernity, what it does, it functions very smoothly. Right? It's boring, it's bureaucratic, it's institutional. It'll give you whatever you want. And what it does is it it creates a kind of wallpaper around yourself, to the point where you don't actually remember that you need these things, right? And so you start to take it for granted. You start to take the the peace and serenity for granted. And you need a kind of Trump figure once in a while to be like, let me take away your healthcare for a bit. Let me, let me send in the military and border agents to come and just show up at your Day-care let me talk about stealing elections and stuff like that. And then people say, oh, the wallpaper lives. Oh, all that stuff we took for granted. Oh, we actually need all that, right? Right. And the way extremist movements come into that scenario is they'll you need an explanation for why there's renewed chaos in Y. Right. And so extremist groups will be very good at explaining to you where this chaos came from, who's to blame, right? And what you need to do about it. And so when, when that kind of peaceful setup ends you, there's an opportunity there for violence and chaos. And extremist groups love violence and chaos.

Host: We're talking about 2026. But let's go back about, I guess, 86 years. This is from Orwell's review of a book called Mein Kampf. And I think it's a weird way of setting that up. I think it gets I think it really gets at what you're talking about here. So the fact is, Orwell writes that there is something deeply appealing about him. Hitler knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working hours, hygiene, birth control, and in general, common sense. They also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty parades. However, they may be as economic theories. Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. This was 85 years ago, so is there always been this kind of defect at the heart of liberalism? That's maybe both a strength and a weakness, where liberalism doesn't come packaged with any meaning for you. It is a container. It's a container for people to have freedom of religion in.

Amarnath Amarasingam: Yeah, I forget who said this, but the was something like liberalism will tell you how to live, but it doesn't tell you what you're living for. And that, I think, is at the heart of that quote too. Right? It's like, yeah, if you're happy with normalcy, liberalism will give you normalcy. But once in a while, if you need the pageantry, if you need the charismatic leader, if you need someone hitting the shoot at the podium, that's not what liberalism will do. It'll give you the peaceful transfer of very boring power over decades and make sure that no one invades you and you know, and it'll be nice and quiet. But there there are people. And I've heard them on TV now with the Trump administration, with the with in other parts of the world, too, where there is a thirst for kind of a charismatic leader who bursts through that boredom and gives you some kind of touches your spirit in a way that that's more than just this kind of institutional boredom. Yeah, right. Even if it's very peaceful and things are quiet and stable once in a while, you people thrive on not chaos, but something greater than themselves to feel like they're feel like they're human.

Host: All right, one more question on liberalism. I promise no more after this. Yeah, I think we're starting to see politics becoming a little bit religious for people. Politics as religion. Does liberalism need religion in general, that that contains that need for meaning without it becoming politics as religion?

Amarnath Amarasingam: I mean, liberalism doesn't need religion, but what it tends to do sometimes is create civil religion, right? And so again, name drop some more. Robert Bellah wrote this very important article back in the when ever it was called Civil Religion, where he says America, even though it presumes to not be a religious country, like a, like a state, religious country, religious freedom, etc. does have a lot of religious qualities to its patriotism, right? There's a 'In God we trust' on the currency. There's a flags, there's 21 gun salutes, there's the, the, the worship of the Second Amendment in the Constitution and all of these things. There's a kind of civil, religious component to it, which the practice of politics in the United States is itself a kind of religious impulse. Right. And I don't know that any other country really has that, except maybe like Hindu nationalism in India or where where some of that has been fused together. But the US has always been kind of peculiar for that, which is the kind of commitment that they have to their own founding. You know, the way they talk about their founding fathers or the founding documents. And it's a kind of reverence there which to to secular figures that doesn't sometimes get replicated in other countries. So that can happen sometimes with, with liberalism, where the kind of state itself is sacralized, but it doesn't necessarily require like religion unless unless that kind of thing happens.

Host: Is it good in Canada that we don't have that relationship with our founding in past? Because there are some people I know that would be like, they want us to have more of that relationship. They want us to be more rooted in that history.

Amarnath Amarasingam: Well, this is the challenge, right? Is like we're a multicultural, pluralist society. And whenever political leaders are asked what our Canadian identity is, they say our Canadian identity is multiculturalism. And that's great for some people who, like me, who arrived here during during the height of multiculturalism. But if you're kind of nativist oriented, if you're, you know, if you, again, have these grievances, that's something about Canada's being disappeared and taken away from you. That's not good enough. Right? Pluralism as an identity isn't good enough because because it's not giving you a sense of truth. It's 100 people who believe 100 different things. You're. And you're saying I should find value in that diversity. Well, what about, like, what I thought Canada stood for? And it's disappearing and people aren't assimilating and they're bringing their world views in here. Something's being eroded and we need to reclaim it. Right. And so it can lead. I think we're seeing a reaction to pluralism and multiculturalism or the lack of sophistication around it from some of these more nativist groups or far right groups that, that that there's something at the core of Canadian identity which is being lost.

Host (Dan): Obviously, that conversation is not over. Tune in next week for part two of our discussion with Amarnath Amarasingam. When we talk about a new form of extremism that's baffling researchers. Loneliness can create fertile ground for radicalization. And just generally, it can have serious effects on mental and physical health. Could something called social prescribing hold part of the answer? Let's dig into what that is and how it could boost social connection. Kate Mulligan is an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and the founding scientific director of the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing. Kate, great to have you on the program. How are you doing?

Kate Mulligan: Thanks so much, Dan. I'm doing really well. How are you?

Host (Dan): I'm doing great. Let's talk about the data that talks about loneliness. What does it show here in Canada?

Kate Mulligan: Well, at least 1 in 5 Canadians is experiencing loneliness and 1 in 4 is is experiencing mental illness or mental health challenges. And sometimes those can be really correlated. For young people, the rates are higher than average. And we know that that's partly because they're at a really formative time in their lives, with much change going on, but also a formative and changing time in the world right now, with a lot of precarity and a lot of uncertainty about what their roles are now and what they might be in the future.

Host (Dan): I want to dig a little bit into the demographics of it. We hear a lot about loneliness epidemic affecting young men specifically, are we more likely to be lonely men?

Kate Mulligan: No. The reality is that young women and young men are both experiencing social isolation and loneliness. And in fact, many more young women are experiencing anxiety and depression. But the consequences of those experiences are quite different by gender, so young women are still more likely to seek social support or health help from health systems, whereas young men are less likely to do so. And we also know that men are more likely to channel some of these experiences into things like substance use, violence, and even suicide completion, which is at about 75% of suicides in Canada, are from from men.

Host (Dan): Let's you alluded to it a little bit in your previous answer. Are there particular causes for their loneliness you had mentioned? I mean, there's a lot of if we look at sort of the last couple of years, we can point to a few things. But yeah, let's break it down.

Kate Mulligan: Yeah. So loneliness is it's not an individual failing. It's a policy problem. And it comes from the structures that we've created for ourselves in this world. It used to be a bit of a tough sell for me to talk about loneliness and social disconnection and lack of social cohesion as health issues prior to Covid and then during the pandemic, we all experienced for ourselves what it is like to really live in more socially isolated circumstances, and we've still never really fully recovered as a society in terms of the level of social participation and interaction that we had prior to that time. And of course, that's only just one of the drivers. We don't have the same levels of community engagement and support that we once had in things like faith communities or service clubs. We have a lot more use of screen time by young people, who are also increasingly turning to things like AI chatbots instead of other humans for help with their mental health and social challenges. So it seems to be accelerating. There are a number of different reasons and causes, but really one of the most important underlying factors beneath all of those is the feeling amongst those young people and many people of other ages as well, that we don't matter. And we see this in Canadian health care systems, for example, when we sort of feel like maybe we're imposing when we go for an appointment or we think we might have something of a need because we know how strained and stressed our health system is and that it's something shared between us. But that adds up to a level of sort of bureaucratic indifference that really, really impacts us. And for young people, young men at that formative time in their lives, they want to feel that they matter. They want to feel that they're making a contribution to the to this society. They want to feel that they have some competence and mastery over their own lives and some independence and some choices that are going to make a difference for themselves. Those are those underlying reasons that we need to change some of our structural supports for these young people, including young men, to give them a place of belonging and mattering. Again.

Host (Dan): With that, I want to put the public health lens on here. How are people's failures to maintain close connections, relationships hurting society? What is the trickle down effect look like?

Kate Mulligan: I think there are a few things. I mean, one, there are increased health care costs. So we start going to our health care providers because we lack other places to go to express our social needs. We also go because our social needs are being literally expressed in our bodies. So we have higher rates of all cause mortality, all reasons for death that are that because of extended and growing loneliness and social disconnection, we're biological creatures. We are meant to be around other people. We have higher rates of these mental health disorders, as I've mentioned, but also higher rates of physical health challenges, heart attack, stroke. Many kinds of brain disorders, and other challenges that are either caused or exacerbated by this loneliness. So it's showing up in our bodies, it's showing up in our health systems, and we can treat it, and we can prevent it much more effectively in other places. It's also showing up in our lack of sense of agency that we can take care of one another as neighbours, in our own communities, in our own societies, that we don't need to rely on big external institutions for some of those basic supports that used to just be in community.

Host (Dan): Well, let's talk about some of those supports. You are the founding scientific director of the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing. What do you do?

Kate Mulligan: Well, I look for good practices where people are connecting these health care and social issues, and I try to surface them and share them around the country and the world to make them part of our regular health care system and our regular government practice. And so far, it's been amazing to see the growth of social prescribing all across the country. We started with a pilot project in 11 community health centres all across Ontario back in 2018 and 2019. We now have social prescribing happening in every single province across the country, often government funded, but not always so. A big part of what I'm doing is helping to build the evidence base, helping those innovators to find one another and helping to get their story on the record so that we can make this a regular part of our health system.

Host (Dan): One of the conversations that we're having, especially on this episode, is sort of the connection from loneliness to radicalization, extremism. I'm curious, could it help prevent radicalization?

Kate Mulligan: Well, I do think so, yes. So some of the things that we focus on in social prescribing are around, again, intervening so that people feel that they matter, and intervening for young people means a lifetime of prevention. Right. We can intervene upstream and help young men stay engaged in their communities, in their employment and in their own sense of health and care, saving millions of dollars in those upstream health costs, but also increased social and economic participation, being part of everyday life, which is really underlying all of this, what it's really about getting people back engaged into community so we can get to them, you know, younger men feeling that sense of not mattering. They're going to have two options. They can hear from this hopeful, in-person, hands-on vision, or they can hear from the algorithm that takes them to a much darker path, but also offers them a sense of agency and a sense of belonging. And many of those same factors that I've been talking about. So we do need to intervene. We can intervene earlier, and there are many good examples of this happening all across the province and the country. So in Sturgeon Lake, for example, there are programs for young indigenous men to reconnect with culturally appropriate sense of masculinity and identity and heritage early on to connect with their culture. We've got black focused social prescribing programs across the province that are helping young black men, and other members of the black community use Afrocentric principles to underpin their collective and individual health. Many other examples are happening all across the province, but what we really need to do is knit those together into more of a system, and that's what we're on our way to doing now.

Host (Dan): That sounds very hopeful, Kate. I really appreciate your time on the program. Wish you all the best and thank you for your insights.

Kate Mulligan: Thanks so much.

Host (Dan): I'm Jayan thanks for watching The Rundown. We want to know what you think and what you'd like to see on the show. Send us your feedback at TVO.org/rundownfeedback or leave us a comment on YouTube. Until then, see you tomorrow.