To effectively counter extremism, it is necessary to fight extremist ideas as well as to make people less receptive to them. A social science and humanities education can help in this regard. There is evidence that people with a science or technical background are at greater risk of radicalization than those with a social science or humanities background.

There is also evidence that some individuals have a militant extremist mindset (MEM) that makes them more receptive to extremist ideas and doctrines and more likely to carry out acts of violence in pursuit of extremist objectives. MEM is sustained by intellectual vices such as black and white thinking, closed-mindedness, excessive certainty, arrogance, and aversion to complexity.

The most powerful antidote to extremism is critical thinking. Critical thinking is best learned by practice, and both the social sciences and humanities provide ample opportunities to think critically. Critical thinkers do not accept the crude simplifications of extremists. When presented with the arguments of extremist groups, their first instinct will be to inspect them for fallacies, and they will have no difficulty locating the fallacies in the claims and arguments of groups like Daesh. Their grounding in the humanities and social sciences will have made them sensitive to complexity and the extent to which there are two sides to most arguments.

A key feature of the humanities is their recognition that human beings have inner lives and that understanding one’s fellow human beings means understanding their inner lives, to the extent that such a thing is possible. The extent to which it is possible is another question addressed by the humanities. The greatest works of literature and philosophy offer insights into the inner lives of human beings – their motives, desires, fears, hopes, and so on – that cannot easily be acquired in another way.

The idea that the study of non-scientific subjects like philosophy, history, politics, and literature can play a role in countering the radicalization of young people has not been widely explored, and merits closer examination and further research.

University students, including those enrolled in science and engineering courses, should be given the opportunity to study social sciences or humanities and incentivized to take at least one social science or humanities course. Consideration should also be given to widening the teaching of logic. Specialization has many advantages but excessive specialization can be problematic when it results in a narrowness of focus, a lack of general knowledge, or binary thinking.