15 ms·

I like this part: “The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk.” I think another way to slice

by urs 7y ago

I like this part: “The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk.” I think another way to slice this is, if you think of the Overton window shifting along the axis of time, the “accidental moderate” does not shift their opinion by the same factor as the ends of the window shift. The “accidental moderate”, in fact, shifts their opinion independent of the shifts of the window. I just don’t know 100% if I’d use the term moderate as the it’s not necessarily true that all views will equally weight a view left of center with a view right of center (or vice-versa), and moderate could be perceived as synonymous with “average.” Additionally, by even defining two types of moderate, there is a sense that the word “moderate” means something already. I don’t know, I feel like there could be a better word, maybe if you think of it as a graph there’s a graph-related term, but it’s not coming to mind!

msla 7y ago
> I think another way to slice this is, if you think of the Overton window shifting along the axis of time, the “accidental moderate” does not shift their opinion by the same factor as the ends of the window shift. You can see this with the Republicans who turned into Democrats once the Republicans shifted far enough right that there were no more Rockefeller Republicans and Bill Clinton ran as a Democrat. If you're an accidental moderate, you run the risk of involuntarily changing party affiliation. > I just don’t know 100% if I’d use the term moderate as the it’s not necessarily true that all views will equally weight a view left of center with a view right of center (or vice-versa), and moderate could be perceived as synonymous with “average.” "Moderate" means "restrained" or "mild" as opposed to "extreme" or "severe" and has nothing to do with splitting the difference between whatever you think the extremes are. As a side note, a lot of people seem to not really know where the extremes actually are, and falsely attribute ideas to people. Deliberately splitting the difference is a tactic, something done to avoid seriously offending any part of the audience in order to keep viewership and readership numbers high. It also does horrible things to the facts when one side is right and one side is wrong and the news feels the need to pretend everyone has an equal claim to being correct.
- war1025 7y ago
  > You can see this with the Republicans who turned into Democrats once the Republicans shifted far enough right that there were no more Rockefeller Republicans and Bill Clinton ran as a Democrat. If you're an accidental moderate, you run the risk of involuntarily changing party affiliation. I think this is interesting because it's been exactly the opposite for me and many of the people I know. At some point over the past ten or fifteen years, the Democrats switched their focus to the point that we've unintentionally found ourselves being Republican now. I.e. the midwest Trump vote.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    In what way do you think the Democrats have switched focus?
    - remarkEon 7y ago
      The white working class part of their coalition, which tends to more socially conservative, are not a focus of the party anymore. It used to be a bedrock part of their strategy in the Midwest. At least that is the perception - forget for a moment if a) it’s actually true, that they’ve dropped focus, or b) that voting block was ever a permanent part of that party’s coalition or merely on borrowed time.
      - zozbot234 7y ago
        This is part of a generalized development in Western politics though - it even explains why Brexit and Boris Johnson won in the UK. The "left" is now explicitly the party of managerial, globalizing crony capitalism, pushing for maximum openness and free mobility for all factors of production - not of the working classes with their petty, localized concerns, or of traditional "business" classes with their long-time appreciation for economic diversification and the value of free markets. Some people might want to map this to ethnic stereotypes of some sort, or posit that it's the outcome of some kind of intentional conspiracy, and of course this would be quite incorrect. Nonetheless the shift was very real.
hnhg 7y ago
Perhaps 'accidental moderate'='independent' and 'intentional moderate'='centrist'?
- msla 7y ago
  "Intentional moderate" = High Broderism, or at least the popular understanding of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Broder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Broder http://pressthink.org/2010/06/clowns-to-the-left-of-me-jokers-to-the-right-on-the-actual-ideology-of-the-american-press/ http://pressthink.org/2010/06/clowns-to-the-left-of-me-joker... The above has this quote, which sums it up nicely: > Journalists associate the middle with truth, when there may be no reason to… Writing the news so that it lands somewhere near the “halfway point between the best and the worst that might be said about someone” is not a truthtelling impulse at all, but a refuge-seeking one, and it’s possible that this ritual will distort a given story.
  - lowmagnet 7y ago
    I think this is a good summary of why meeting in the middle is a poor excuse for balance. The average isn't the ideal middle, as almost nothing fits the average. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/
    - dfxm12 7y ago
      Exactly. This is especially true in the context of contemporary US Politics, where the average between the Democrats and Republicans is way right of the political center. In any case, I guess it all comes down to this: “A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied” -Larry David
  - rabidrat 7y ago
    On average, humans have one breast and one testicle.
DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
> I like this part: “The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk.” I can think of one possibly valid reason to do that: When you first begin to accept the foundational beliefs of some ideological group, you initially haven't had time to think through the logical implications of those beliefs. Tentatively adopting that group's set of secondary beliefs could make sense while until you have time to think things through yourself.
friendlybus 7y ago
>The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk It's not true. An ideologue has committed to a single idea or system of ideas. Acquiring in bulk and picking and choosing is the antithesis of an ideologue.
clairity 7y ago
yes, the terminology is certainly confusing. "accidental moderate" seems intentionally "moderate on average", as in some reversion to the mean kind of claim, but is opposed to an "intentional moderate", who seems to fall into moderation by default. what's left unsaid, but i find more thought-provoking, is the notion that, as with the fringe ideologues, you can safely ignore the "intentional moderate" since they don't add to the conversation (because they don't think deeply about politics). intellectual independence seems integral to why his "most impressive people" are impressive in the first place--they delve deeper into questions/challenges to form their opinions rather than adopting them wholesale from others.

by urs 7y ago

msla 7y ago

> I think another way to slice this is, if you think of the Overton window shifting along the axis of time, the “accidental moderate” does not shift their opinion by the same factor as the ends of the window shift. You can see this with the Republicans who turned into Democrats once the Republicans shifted far enough right that there were no more Rockefeller Republicans and Bill Clinton ran as a Democrat. If you're an accidental moderate, you run the risk of involuntarily changing party affiliation. > I just don’t know 100% if I’d use the term moderate as the it’s not necessarily true that all views will equally weight a view left of center with a view right of center (or vice-versa), and moderate could be perceived as synonymous with “average.” "Moderate" means "restrained" or "mild" as opposed to "extreme" or "severe" and has nothing to do with splitting the difference between whatever you think the extremes are. As a side note, a lot of people seem to not really know where the extremes actually are, and falsely attribute ideas to people. Deliberately splitting the difference is a tactic, something done to avoid seriously offending any part of the audience in order to keep viewership and readership numbers high. It also does horrible things to the facts when one side is right and one side is wrong and the news feels the need to pretend everyone has an equal claim to being correct.

war1025 7y ago
> You can see this with the Republicans who turned into Democrats once the Republicans shifted far enough right that there were no more Rockefeller Republicans and Bill Clinton ran as a Democrat. If you're an accidental moderate, you run the risk of involuntarily changing party affiliation. I think this is interesting because it's been exactly the opposite for me and many of the people I know. At some point over the past ten or fifteen years, the Democrats switched their focus to the point that we've unintentionally found ourselves being Republican now. I.e. the midwest Trump vote.
- pjc50 7y ago
  In what way do you think the Democrats have switched focus?
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    The white working class part of their coalition, which tends to more socially conservative, are not a focus of the party anymore. It used to be a bedrock part of their strategy in the Midwest. At least that is the perception - forget for a moment if a) it’s actually true, that they’ve dropped focus, or b) that voting block was ever a permanent part of that party’s coalition or merely on borrowed time.
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      This is part of a generalized development in Western politics though - it even explains why Brexit and Boris Johnson won in the UK. The "left" is now explicitly the party of managerial, globalizing crony capitalism, pushing for maximum openness and free mobility for all factors of production - not of the working classes with their petty, localized concerns, or of traditional "business" classes with their long-time appreciation for economic diversification and the value of free markets. Some people might want to map this to ethnic stereotypes of some sort, or posit that it's the outcome of some kind of intentional conspiracy, and of course this would be quite incorrect. Nonetheless the shift was very real.

hnhg 7y ago

Perhaps 'accidental moderate'='independent' and 'intentional moderate'='centrist'?

msla 7y ago
"Intentional moderate" = High Broderism, or at least the popular understanding of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Broder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Broder http://pressthink.org/2010/06/clowns-to-the-left-of-me-jokers-to-the-right-on-the-actual-ideology-of-the-american-press/ http://pressthink.org/2010/06/clowns-to-the-left-of-me-joker... The above has this quote, which sums it up nicely: > Journalists associate the middle with truth, when there may be no reason to… Writing the news so that it lands somewhere near the “halfway point between the best and the worst that might be said about someone” is not a truthtelling impulse at all, but a refuge-seeking one, and it’s possible that this ritual will distort a given story.
- lowmagnet 7y ago
  I think this is a good summary of why meeting in the middle is a poor excuse for balance. The average isn't the ideal middle, as almost nothing fits the average. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/
  - dfxm12 7y ago
    Exactly. This is especially true in the context of contemporary US Politics, where the average between the Democrats and Republicans is way right of the political center. In any case, I guess it all comes down to this: “A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied” -Larry David
- rabidrat 7y ago
  On average, humans have one breast and one testicle.

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago

> I like this part: “The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk.” I can think of one possibly valid reason to do that: When you first begin to accept the foundational beliefs of some ideological group, you initially haven't had time to think through the logical implications of those beliefs. Tentatively adopting that group's set of secondary beliefs could make sense while until you have time to think things through yourself.

friendlybus 7y ago

>The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk It's not true. An ideologue has committed to a single idea or system of ideas. Acquiring in bulk and picking and choosing is the antithesis of an ideologue.

clairity 7y ago

yes, the terminology is certainly confusing. "accidental moderate" seems intentionally "moderate on average", as in some reversion to the mean kind of claim, but is opposed to an "intentional moderate", who seems to fall into moderation by default. what's left unsaid, but i find more thought-provoking, is the notion that, as with the fringe ideologues, you can safely ignore the "intentional moderate" since they don't add to the conversation (because they don't think deeply about politics). intellectual independence seems integral to why his "most impressive people" are impressive in the first place--they delve deeper into questions/challenges to form their opinions rather than adopting them wholesale from others.