Centrism

[AlwaysAnarchy]

When talking to "normal" , everyday non-revolutionary people, average Joe types about politics you often get the response of "well I like be in the middle. I don' t like to go to the far left or the far right but take a moderte, centrist position"

What should the response of revolutionaries be then to centrism? Should we try to re-define what centrism is? Should we openly make our case against centrism and against moderation? Or should we just ignore these people? There are many people who are non-political and just like taking the middle of the road approach to politics and I would like to hear what strategies and tactics the activists here have when they encounter this line of thinking?

[Son of a Strummer]

I'm not an expert in debate yet I would suggest that, at appopriate times, one can remind them of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their philosophical stance.

The position as you described it is committing a well-known philosophical fallacy known as the "golden mean" fallacy. For explanations of this fallacy see the following...

1. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/middle-ground.html

The activist Justin Podur has also explicated some weaknesses in the centrist position:

"The Moderate Position

"Mr Nim's view is that of the extreme left, which, like Mr. Davey's view of the extreme right, must be rejected in favor of the moderate position of the New York Times". Everyone loves a compromise. The trouble is that any view can be represented as a compromise, including the most horrendous. A common one is: "Leftists believe the disproportionate numbers of African Americans in prison are the result of systemic racism in the justice system. The right, meanwhile, believes that Africans are inherently criminal. The truth must lie somewhere in between." We could as easily argue, (as Thouless does in "How to think Straight") that the extremists of one side would have you believe 2+2=4, the other side 2+2=6, so my moderate view 2+2=5, must be the truth. This is rubbish, as you can see, and there's no argument form here to examine either." http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:eX2Fx1...lient=firefox-a (http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:eX2Fx1zmWWQJ:www.zmag.org/Instructionals/Logstats/Logstats.htm+Justin+Podur+and+golden+mean+fallacy&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a)

As we can see although centrists may have a self-perception of balance and impartiality, their position confers no immunity from ideological bias and dogmatism. One can certainly be dogmatically centrist. A stance of Centrism in totalitarian and grossly unjust socieities is obvious moral banruptcy.

Much hinges upon the facts. Thus a radical entering into conversations with anyone should have a confident grasp of the facts. A radical should also be able to clearly explain why her own values are more preferable, and demonstrate their feasability. These are difficult tasks, but at the same time they are worthy tasks because it is a humanizing process. I also feel that the approach towards centrists should generally be solidaritous rather than hostile. A radical should be catalyzing new ways of thinking for the centrist.

Insofar as the centrist espouses particular ideologies such as varieties of liberal social democracy an activist can equip herself with knowledge of the failures of social democracy. The emergence of neo-liberalism was due not only to an ideological coup perpetrated by neo-liberal intellectuals and technocrats but also because social democrats did not live up to the values that they espoused and instituted power structures than engendered passive and consumerist values in the working class rather than educating and mobilizing them for effective participation in social institutions. There are many valuable expositions of these social democratic failures that have been provided by radicals in recent years. Perhaps in the future we might dedicate a thread to the failures of liberal social democracy. In the meantime he is a link to just one of the many valuable critiques:

http://www.monthlyreview.org/1098pan.htm

[Whitten]

Tell them centrism is just the extreme of the status quo.

[AlwaysAnarchy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2006 02:52 pm
Tell them centrism is just the extreme of the status quo.
:lol: I like that one!

[redflag32]

It is my belief that "centrism" does not exsist. It is a word conjured up to make the party seem neutral or safe. But if you scratch the surface you fins that they do actually stand either on the left or right. Look at the irish Fianna fail Party who are in power today, they use this centre tag allot, but they use the PD's who they are in coalition with to do all the dirty Rightwing stuff. They are a capitalist right wing party hiding behind the word centrist.

[Enragé]

the centrism of one country is the extremism of another.
An american centrist would be right in europe, a european centrist is a leftist democrat.

[bezdomni]

Without extremes, there is no centre.

[cenv]

Hmm... the problem is, the ruling class controls culture, so they also control the perception of what exactly is "normal" or "moderate". That's an important point to understand.

[chimx]

It is an attempt to maintain the status quo. Unless there is a material reason to swing to either pole of the political arena, ultimately people will want to maintain the status quo as with it comes security.

I would suggest you give people a reason to question the status quo and their security with it.

[Demogorgon]

Actually it's a falacy to say (in any case not just politics) that when you have two opposing views by default the middle or compromise one must be the best. Simply point that out. Of curse most people are immune to logical reason but a few may notice.

[RedLenin]

Based on my experience, most centrists tend to be rather a-political. The best thing to do is simply to engage them in discussion. Use the Socratic method of argumentation. Ask them questions about their own position and point out the fallacies and moral dilemas as you go. Get them to analyse and question their own position. Then present yours and show them how your position solves the problems inherent in theirs. If you want to pursuade people toward your position, this method is the best way to do it.