Still Radical: What opinions are considered controversial today?

The way we talk to each other has always evolved. But there is something strange about how it has been evolving recently.

Open any social media platform and look through some of the comments. You will quickly realise that the line between disagreement, outrage, trolling, and rage-baiting is tiny. Every issue is framed as existential, and every opponent an enemy. Algorithms reward certainty over curiosity, conflict over nuance, speed of reaction over reflection. In this environment, it gets difficult to keep track of actual meanings. "Radical" is one of them.

It is a label increasingly attached to almost anything that challenges existing economic or political arrangements. Proposals for stronger labour protections are called radical. Calls for wealth redistribution are radical. Demands for affordable housing, universal healthcare, stronger public institutions, progressive taxation, or climate justice are regularly dismissed with the same word before the discussion has even begun.

Perhaps the most visible recent example came during the 2025 mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani in New York City. Rather than engaging primarily with the substance of proposals such as fare-free buses, affordable housing, or taxing the wealthiest residents, many opponents focused on portraying the candidate himself as "too radical." Whether one supports these policies or not is beside the point. The debate itself increasingly revolved around whether advocating a more equal society had become synonymous with extreme positions.

At roughly the same time, another public debate emerged around a seemingly unrelated statement. When Elon Musk described empathy as "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization" and later referred to empathy as a "bug" in human thinking, the remark generated both criticism and enthusiastic agreement. Regardless of how one interprets the comment, its popularity among many audiences reflected something deeper than one individual's opinion. Even empathy, a value traditionally associated with democratic coexistence, had become politically contested.

These examples might be anecdotal, sure, but they are worthy of a conversation.

Across Europe and beyond, political discourse has shifted. Ideas once associated with the democratic consensus are increasingly portrayed as ideological extremes, while positions that would once have been considered politically marginal have (re)entered mainstream debates. Migration offers perhaps the clearest illustration. Only a decade ago, calls for mass deportations or proposals questioning international refugee protections were largely confined to the political fringes in many European democracies. Today, versions of these positions appear in mainstream electoral campaigns across several countries. Simultaneously, advocating for international human rights obligations or humanitarian protection is increasingly portrayed by some commentators as naïve, unrealistic, or even radical.

Political scientists describe this process as the normalisation of previously fringe positions. Normalisation does not necessarily mean that societies become uniformly more extreme. Rather, it means that the boundaries of what is considered politically acceptable gradually shift. Ideas once regarded as exceptional become ordinary through repetition and attention, and sometimes are even awarded with electoral success.

Social media has accelerated this transformation. Digital platforms reward engagement, and outrage generates engagement remarkably well. Nuanced positions rarely travel as quickly as emotionally charged ones. Complex policy discussions struggle to compete with provocative slogans or viral clips. The result is not simply more disagreement. It is a gradual reshaping of public expectations about what political communication should sound like.

This matters because the way we discuss politics influences our perceptions of it. When every proposal aimed at reducing inequality is labelled "radical," the word itself begins to substitute for argument. Instead of debating whether a policy is effective, affordable, or democratic, discussions often endbefore they begin. The label becomes the conclusion.

At the same time, the opposite process often receives far less attention.

As public debate shifts, increasingly exclusionary positions can begin to appear moderate simply because something even more extreme now occupies the edge of discussion. This phenomenon—sometimes referred to as the "Overton Window" shifting—is neither inevitable nor irreversible. But it reminds us that political norms are not fixed. They are continuously negotiated through public conversation.

This is precisely why values matter. Not as abstract principles printed in constitutions or organisational mission statements, but as practical commitments that influence how societies organise work, education, healthcare, democracy, and public life.

Solidarity is not merely generosity. It is the recognition that individual wellbeing depends on collective wellbeing.

Equality does not promise identical outcomes. It insists that opportunity, dignity, and rights should not depend on wealth, gender, ethnicity, age, or birthplace.

Democracy is more than elections. It depends upon trust, participation, institutions, independent media, and citizens willing to disagree without abandoning one another.

Workers' rights are not historical artefacts from the industrial age. They remain central questions in an economy increasingly shaped by platform work, artificial intelligence, temporary contracts, and growing economic insecurity.

These ideas have never belonged exclusively to one political party or generation. They are products of long democratic struggles whose benefits are often taken for granted precisely because they became so successful. Perhaps that is why their defence sometimes appears less urgent until it begins to erode.

Many of the rights now considered ordinary were themselves once dismissed as unrealistic or dangerously radical, like universal suffrage or an eight-hour working day. History reminds us that progress often begins as controversy.

That does not mean every new political proposal deserves support simply because it is labelled radical. Democracies require disagreement and pluralism. They require competing visions and vigorous debate.

But they also require us to ask a different question.

When did solidarity become controversial?

When did empathy become politically suspicious?

When did believing that everyone deserves dignity become something requiring ideological justification?

These questions are particularly relevant in Southeast Europe.

The region has experienced democratic transitions, economic crises, political polarisation, migration, and rapid technological change, often simultaneously. Young people navigate uncertain labour markets. Civil society organisations face increasing pressure. Public trust in institutions remains fragile in many countries. Online spaces frequently amplify division more effectively than dialogue.

Yet the region also possesses a long tradition of civic engagement, community organising, labour movements, and democratic activism. These histories remind us that progress has rarely emerged from indifference.

It has emerged from people deciding that certain values were worth defending, even when doing so was unpopular.

This year marks ten years of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Dialogue Southeast Europe office. Anniversaries often encourage institutions to look backwards. We would rather use this moment to look forwards.

Not by celebrating ourselves, but by reopening conversations that sometimes seem to have disappeared beneath the noise of politics, especially online.

Over the coming weeks, we will explore themes including democracy, workers' rights, social justice, equality, solidarity, and cooperation. We will ask difficult questions rather than provide simple answers. We will revisit ideas that shaped democratic societies and ask whether they still command public confidence or whether they have become surprisingly controversial.

If standing for fairness is now considered radical, perhaps the label tells us less about the values themselves than about the moment we are living through. Because some ideas remain worth defending regardless of changing political fashions.

Some values remain the foundation upon which democratic societies are built.

If those values are now called radical, then perhaps we are still radical.

And we will continue to stand by our values.