The Moderate Politics Thread

[bickster]

1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said:

Aha, I am reasonable and everybody else is not, butt you cannot criticise me because I do not believe in anything.

Actually, that's probably a decent working description of the moderate centrist idea (as opposed to the practised corporatism of parties we'd describe as centrist in the UK).

 

I thought it didn't exist, you just disagreed with yourself

[OutByEaster?]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

I thought it didn't exist, you just disagreed with yourself

A fine centrist view - lets argue about nothing to avoid any discussion about changing things that matter.

 

 

[Xela]

People can't be offended if you have no opinion on anything 

[bickster]

10 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

A fine centrist view - lets argue about nothing to avoid any discussion about changing things that matter.

That really doesn't appear to be the purpose of this conversation at all. You said it didn't exist, now it does. You are just proving everything said previously

[OutByEaster?]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

That really doesn't appear to be the purpose of this conversation at all. You said it didn't exist, now it does. You are just proving everything said previously

A fine centrist view - lets argue about nothing to avoid any discussion about changing things that matter.

 

The purpose of the conversation is moderate/centrist politics, not the semantics of whether saying something doesn't really exist and then trying to define it is, I dunno, whatever point that proves.

If it helps with the semantics, I don't believe that there is a true moderate/centrist position in politics, but I believe that it is ascribed to certain actors, parties or policies in order to give them weight as a 'sensible', 'normal' position and to reduce opposition to them through the effect of public opinion.

[blandy]

33 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Reasonable people still believe in actual solutions to extreme problems.

Whereas, as I see it, too many people at the extremes believe in fairy tale solutions, rather than actual solutions.

33 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I would say the main difficulty with centre ground politics is that there isn't actually a centre ground politics.

It's a myth that makes people feel comfortable.

No, not for me. Logically there has to be a middle ground between two opposites. On almost any issue. I mean take fossil fuels and climate change - “keep on drilling, there’s no such thing” v “stop drilling now”. Middle ground “no new drilling sites, but if we stop it all now then it will mean no transport or heating”. That’s obv a simplistic analysis, but I’d add that on the “feel comfortable” thing, all those middle of the road folk probably don’t feel that comfortable and they’re often the ones buying Teslas.

[blandy]

38 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Aha, I am reasonable and everybody else is not, but you cannot criticise me because I do not believe in anything.

Actually, that's probably a decent working description of the moderate centrist ideal (as opposed to the practised corporatism of parties we'd describe as centrist in the UK).

Partly because the scale isn’t a one dimensional thing left - centre - right , it’s multidimensional. Economics, social, climate, educational, international, defence and all the rest of it. Someone might be socially left, economically right, and so on and so on. Perhaps the person you describe as “moderate centrist” essentially accepts or feels they understand that while they may be fiercely anti war, but also feel that we need to help Ukraine expel the Russian Army, rather than the (say) Corbynite view of leave NATO and have a nice chat with comrade Putin and ask him to stop being nasty.

[El Zen]

14 hours ago, Follyfoot said:

Is this a new term for gingernut?

No, it’s a new term for ‘I’ll happily execute the royal family, but let’s be humane about the methods.’ 

[Follyfoot]

29 minutes ago, El Zen said:

No, it’s a new term for ‘I’ll happily execute the royal family, but let’s be humane about the methods.’ 

To the Tower you will go ei ei ei ei ei oh and  if we catch your treason we will chop your head right off….. 

[Marka Ragnos]

19 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think there's an awful lot of leeway in the definitions of moderate and centrist - and I think they're very different things.

I'd say that what's described as centrism in the UK is usually a brand of corporatism - a sort of politics that tries not to do too much that might get in the banks way.

Moderate seems to be one of those words that initially sounds very sensible and actually means absolutely nothing at all.

@Marka Ragnos how would you define the two things?

 

 

 

Great, super-interesting points. I wouldn’t disagree, probably. These two definitions may indeed be only “real” when they’re comparative, theoretical points in imagined XYZ political spaces. I like your post a lot.

All that said, today I would argue that in political rhetoric the terms moderate and centrist are often taken as provocations of some kind. People think you use them because you are critical of some kind of progressive and/or reactionary agenda? 

On a practical level, I use “moderate” usually to signal a sort of welcome to people who reject extremism in conversations? Something like that?

The definition you give of centrist seems accurate.

[KentVillan]

There seem to be two threads here. One about what centrism is, and one where people hysterically chuck a laundry list of accusations at Keir Starmer

[OutByEaster?]

6 hours ago, KentVillan said:

There seem to be two threads here. One about what centrism is, and one where people hysterically chuck a laundry list of accusations at Keir Starmer

In fairness, Starmer has only been mentioned four times in the thread and three of those were by you.

How would you define centrism?

There seems to be a very wooly sort of "well it's not being extreme and stuff" dictionary "middle" but nothing that suggests what centrism itself is rather than what it's not. There seem to be people that believe in it fervently but don't want to describe it or have it examined, like some sort of political Scientology.

Personally I can't see how it can be defined, it seems to me to be one of those odd labels that means whatever you want it to mean whilst not actually saying anything - sort of the political version of the word 'okay' and one that's used mostly to protect a particular status quo.

That's possibly true of lots of political terminology I guess, the small and big C conservative and the idea of Conservative values vs Conservatism vs the current Conservative party and so on, but I think it's possibly the most flexibly wooly political grouping and as a result one of the most susceptible to misuse.

 

[KentVillan]

2 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

In fairness, Starmer has only been mentioned four times in the thread and three of those were by you.

There have been loads of very thinly veiled criticisms of Starmer that haven't mentioned him by name, so no, not the gotcha you think it is.

[OutByEaster?]

1 minute ago, KentVillan said:

There have been loads of very thinly veiled criticisms of Starmer that haven't mentioned him by name, so no, not the gotcha you think it is.

I'm not looking for a gotcha - it just seemed a very strange thing to bring up - he's hardly been mentioned, it just seems that there's a real keenness to defend accusations that aren't there. 

 

[KentVillan]

Just now, OutByEaster? said:

I'm not looking for a gotcha - it just seemed a very strange thing to bring up - he's hardly been mentioned, it just seems that there's a real keenness to defend accusations that aren't there. 

 

He really has been brought up, there's a strong undertone of Corbyn v Starmer in this thread which totally misses the point of what centrism is in the grand scheme of things

[OutByEaster?]

4 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

He really has been brought up, there's a strong undertone of Corbyn v Starmer in this thread which totally misses the point of what centrism is in the grand scheme of things

I don't think there is. I think Corbyn was raised once as an example of an extreme view on the politics of the war in Ukraine, and Starmer mentioned once as an example of how sometimes politicians will back out of a bold proposal in a way that might be seen as a centricist move - with any bold proposal having the potential as being labelled or mislabelled as extreme.

I'm sorry about the word centricist.

[TheAuthority]

13 hours ago, Xela said:

People can't be offended if you have no opinion on anything 

This was the tactic I had to adopt to survive with my ex-wife.

[bickster]

4 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Personally I can't see how it can be defined,

Why do you need it to be defined? It’s not a political philosophy as such. It’s usually a victory of pragmatism over ideology to achieve a defined end point.

[blandy]

6 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

There seems to be a very wooly sort of "well it's not being extreme and stuff" dictionary "middle" but nothing that suggests what centrism itself is rather than what it's not. There seem to be people that believe in it fervently but don't want to describe it or have it examined, like some sort of political Scientology.

To an extent that’s maybe right, because by, er, definition the centre is defined by being neither extreme of the Overton window, so its place is defined by what it isn’t. But for me at least if I look at either extreme I see almost zealous belief in crackpot ideas/theories/dogma and absolutely no recognition or acceptance of, bluntly, reality. I think at least centrism is founded on an acceptance of reality and looks at what is practicable - so it’s less about dogma and more about “how do we fix this” or how do we make it better?

Speaking personally I’m not a centrist, but (I think) I do look at practicality. Two examples where this really applies for me are the NHS and universal basic income.  So the right wing is always trying to sell or privatise the NHS and would never contemplate anything like UBI. The left insists the NHS must be wholly state owned and run and seems (currently) to believe in UBI as an idea whose time has come.  Me personally (on these 2 issues only) I’m with the centrists. If I’m sick I want to be well treated. I don’t care if my MRI scan is done by a private medic in the local NHS hospital, or by a practitioner in a local privately owned place. I’ve had both. Interestingly the one in the local NHS hospital was one I paid for (to get it done in less than 6 months), and the results process was slow and clumsy, the one in the local private place was on the NHS, and while the booking process was an inefficient mess, the rest of it was brilliant and fast…until it came to analysis of the results, which was another inefficient mess. So basically “just make it work better” I don’t care who runs the service. I don’t want to wait 6 months for a brain scan and I don’t mind if my knee scan is done super quick in a contracted local place who give me the results within minutes.

Same for UBI, I’ll happily support it if someone can explain and answer some very obvious flaws, until then, then it’s (for me) just flakey dreaming left wing stuff that’ll never solve anything.

So basically centrism’s acceptance and recognition of pragmatism and reality is its strongpoint. Its weak point is that on some things, it really needs to choose one of two things, to pick a horse but will try and fudge it instead.

[VILLAMARV]

On 18/06/2023 at 07:08, blandy said:

That’s interesting. I agree it’s no more or less intellectual. I’ve never heard or felt it is claimed to be more intellectual, though.

 

19 hours ago, blandy said:

Whereas, as I see it, too many people at the extremes believe in fairy tale solutions, rather than actual solutions.

 

9 minutes ago, blandy said:

for me at least if I look at either extreme I see almost zealous belief in crackpot ideas/theories/dogma and absolutely no recognition or acceptance of, bluntly, reality. I think at least centrism is founded on an acceptance of reality and looks at what is practicable

To use a term from upthread I'm not going for a gotcha moment, but Is it not this "you can't have unicorns!" type argument that @Chindie was referring to?

crackpot fairytales not based in reality screams less intellectual to me.