In this chapter, we reflect on the value and limitations of how social/political psychologists tend to study political engagement and extremism. We argue that ‘mainstream’ psychological research can afford us a window onto the psycho-social processes underlying political engagement, including extreme versions thereof, even if it cannot provide the kind of prediction found in the natural sciences. Rather than following in the footsteps of the natural sciences, we argue that in as far as the political is of a symbolic nature, the study of this area of human life should include an interpretive lens. While cultural psychological critiques challenge the scientific status of psychological research and can even appear threatening in our attachment to a predictable world, they can help us to better understand the political world around us—a world that we as researchers do not simply observe at a distance, but one that we actively help to create. Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent (1907) is used as a colourful literary example of our ability to understand, if not predict, political behaviour, even political behaviour that initially appears to be senseless (as in amoral or outside ‘good sense’) or even thoroughly meaningless.