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I think #3 is a little unclear on the concept.
March 11, 2008 — 4:46 pm
Comments: 32
So what’s halfway between a pickle and a hammer?
I don’t know, but it’s hard and it’s sour.
The language of politics is unhelpful. Left and right. Conservative and progressive. Red and blue. There are places halfway between these two things, aren’t there?
No. There are not.
Let’s stop and bold that sucker: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS HALFWAY BETWEEN CONSERVATIVE AND PROGRESSIVE.
Each side has a coherent philosophy, a whole set of ideas about how the world works and the proper role of government. The individual issues they address are, for the most part, different. Not on a continuum. You either understand and buy in, or you don’t. You can believe something totally different, but you cannot blend left and right and make a convincing picklehammer.
Zo! A centrist isn’t a mild variety of lefty or righty. A centrist is someone who, at some level, doesn’t get the central argument of either side. They are some combination of
Confused. Intellectually lazy. Not possessing an underlying philosophy at all, approaching every issue individually. Cafeteria style.
Opportunistic. Seeing R and D purely as a branding issue. When one or the other parties has an exceptionally strong election, these are the people who discover whole new worlds of conviction and cross the aisle to sit with the popular kids.
Idiosyncratic. I’m a bit in this camp, myself. Most of us are. There are some parts of the platform I don’t buy. It’s okay to differ from a political orthodoxy, if you can explain how it still works. Ideologies are whole structures; if you pull out that one plank, explain why the the building doesn’t fall down. If you pull out a bunch of planks, you’ll have to use the lumber to build something new.
I’d rather argue with a leftist than a centrist any day. The leftist at least has a structure to push against. Arguing with a ‘moderate’ is like snot wrestling.
— 10:54 am
Comments: 78