Extremism will always be a thing in the world, people will always come up with extreme solutions to problems and act extremely in certain situations however, we currently live in a world full of extremism from countries with extremist leaders to populations preaching extreme ideas and it is taking it toll on society.
It isn't surprising that society currently has so many issues because we really are still in the early stages of modern society, for thousands of years humans have built societies, though they are usually quite brief because of war, natural disaster or whatever else it may be, because if this the modern societies we live in really are young and we are only starting to understand the mind and how to fix peoples broken minds.
Although this society is young and has its issues I think people are doing a relatively good job at working out the issues within society and making efforts to fix them, however many people that see issues think they can solve the issue through extreme methods and then over time being involved in extreme groups completely warps people’s minds and they become part of societies problem.
What makes extremism:
One of the main creators of extremism is trying to solve extremism, it sounds relatively contradictory however when people see extremist groups that are preaching extreme views and committing extreme acts many people think they have to also do something extreme to quickly stop them however, we have seen many examples recently from local to global events showing us that extremism doesn't solve extremism. It often just makes it worse as an already extremist group will do a lot to stop another group from shutting them down and because of that the group formed to stop them using extreme methods will think they have to use methods just as extreme to stop things. The issue with this is that once you live a certain lifestyle for a long time, in extreme groups it seems to work as time runs faster, it is very hard to change the way you live.
For example, we see many people who create businesses in the aims of becoming super rich, retiring young and spending their time in their ideal location however, to get to the point where you are considered super rich you have to work very hard and you have to be selfish, you can't put everyone first or you won't make money. It also usually takes a big chunk of people’s lives to get super rich and in doing so it changes peoples mind set. People get so used to working hard for years trying to reach that next goal when it comes down to the point where they aimed to get to at the start they often move strait past it, they don't retire, and they don't live that relaxed life because over the years their mind has had to change into always getting to the next goal and working however many hours to get there. They get so stuck in working hard gaining money and assets that it becomes harder to just stop working and relax all day than it is to just relax all day because the mind has become geared to work and it almost needs that stress and hard work to feel comfortable.
This is why it is so hard for people in extremism groups to leave because they get used to that type of lifestyle, the people they are around and how they react to situations, that when it comes down to getting out it can be extremely difficult. So, when you try and solve and issue or get rid of an extreme group/leader through extremism it likely won't make change because the people involved in making change can become stuck in the extremist mindset of fixing problems with extreme methods so nothing really gets fixed.
How to make a change:
So, if extremism doesn't stop extremism then what does? To be honest at this time I don't think anyone entirely knows that answer because on a small scale stopping extremism is a lot easier than on a large scale. In many causes when you are dealing with extremism on a smaller scale some things can be solved by just talking, time and exposing people to things they haven't seen or understood before. There are many documentaries around where a non-white person speaks to someone in a Nazi or similar organization, left or right wing, and just through a few conversations and a bit of time many people realise the error of their ways and change for the better, but some people will need more help leaning toward therapy. On a small domestic scale issues can usually be solved more easily.
When it comes to a larger scaled, so people in large terrorist organizations that have been involved in war and have seen awful things the issues then becomes harder to solve, as not only are these people often brainwashed on top of that they have seen what would only confirm their beliefs. They are told 'x' person is bad and then they actually fight in war against that type of person, immediately it takes a lot to convince these people they are wrong, or maybe they are too scared of who is in charge to change. But I still think on this scale if enough time, money and effort was put in most of the people in these groups could be helped.
Usually on these two scales extremism can be stopped by sharing knowledge with someone or showing them how their life could be better and happier if lived a different way, because most people join extremist groups because they are missing something from their life and they are unhappy about certain things. However, it is harder to show people living in a war-torn country a better life, though not impossible.
Then on an even larger scale where you have dictators like Kim Jong-un or the leaders of large terrorist organizations. How do you go about changing their minds? They have vast amounts of power, people at their beck and call 24/7 and are often generations deep into extremism, how do you solve this issue? This is the point where I don't think anyone really knows what to do because as much as doing good gives people pleasure so does power and when someone’s mind is so twisted it is extremely hard to change because they think they are better, smarter and more powerful than anyone trying to change their mind and even if you were to prove they were delusional they may well still hold on to that delusion because it is what they know and they have vast amounts of power and people worshiping them because of it.
Methods currently used:
I think it shows that no one has any clue of how to deal with extremism at such an extent as we have seen many western countries attempt to stop extremism in other countries and they have always failed miserably, made the country a worse place and then claimed they helped. One main method governments like to use is to identify a group find the leader and snub them out, kill them by any means possible however, we have seen that this only creates a power vacuums and the more powerful the leader the larger the vacuum. When a leader of a terrorist organization gets taken out it allows a new leader to be appointed who is often more extreme to start to garner respect through fear, or it gives room for even more groups to pop up. Then when it comes to killing the extreme leader of a country it just has a more extreme vacuum of many small organizations coming to take power by any means all over the country sending it into a state of chaos. So just simply killing a leader doesn't work.
When on such a large-scale isolation or divide and concur they also don't work anymore as we can see going on currently, North Korea is almost completely closed off from the outside world, governments don't work with North Korea and for generations the country has been, well, fucked and I don't think there is a much better way of putting it without writing in detail the many issues the country and population suffers from. It is also extremely hard to fully divide any group as if you can physically separate them there are still many ways to communicate and for these people to spread their messages globally.
A different approach:
Peacebuilding seems like a good approach however on a large scale it is always done wrong as it works along the lines of, 'Be peaceful because we have a lot of guns and you will lose this fight'. But then do you want to send people without guns into extremist run areas, not really. I think the only way to stop extremism on a large scale is to approach it similarly to how you would small scale however understanding the process will be a lot longer and need a lot more effort and will likely involve the death of people trying to help. This is the main issue, you can't go in with guns because it doesn't promote peace, and the message however sincere is lost as the threat of violent reaction is always there. On the other side you can't send unarmed people into a war zone because even if it worked in the long term some of the people you send in would be killed which isn't an option. So there needs to be a way that over time people can go into a place riddled with extremism and slowly make efforts to talk to and educate people and to help build infrastructure and begin to slowly change enough minds until whoever is at the top has to change, although again if the extremist leader wanted to, they could just destroy any efforts made through bombing and imprisoning anyone an outside force tries to educate.
It seems that the only way to stop extremism mostly is time, to realise that things can't and won't be fixed in any short period of time, to educate and help those involved on a smaller scale and make efforts to hold out an olive branch on a larger scale, slowly trying to build a relationship and promote change and hope within time things get better. Although it seems almost a wimpish way saying hope that time and small efforts will fix things but we have tried every other method that involves violence and it has only made things worse, so surely the only logical step to take is to take a more peaceful approach.