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Its enlightened centrism and a place of profound privilege to be comfortable in the world as it exists thinking all of those "extremists" advocating for change
by zanny 6y ago
Its enlightened centrism and a place of profound privilege to be comfortable in the world as it exists thinking all of those "extremists" advocating for change are just being too emotional and partisan.
Centrism is de-facto the status quo. Which, in current times, means support for the police as it exists, supports for business regulation as it exists, supports greenhouse gases and military conduct as it exists, supports the behavior and election processes of politicians as they exist, etc.
Its simply the privilege of the majority to be the "moderate" ones. To be radical is not to be good or bad, it just to be outside the norm. And it makes sense that those in the norm find those outside it dangerous and threatening, because... they want to be. Thats the whole point. Their time is wasted if the goal is not to become the new moderate, the new normal, the new center.
- shirakawasuna 6y agoIn addition, this "centrism" isn't actually "center", ideologies don't actually fall neatly along a single dimension. These are just handy ways to reference and group ideologies. The "center" people are referring to here is a United States-centric form of liberalism. It's not any less "extreme" than communism, it's just the dominant political force and, as you say, has the privilege of positioning itself as the comfortable default. In reality, it's a fairly extreme commitment to a different set of principles.
- natechols 6y agoHow is the US style of center-liberalism extreme, as compared to an ideology that demands total control over the economy and its citizens? Or do you think concepts such as "rule of law" are extremist?
- shirakawasuna 6y ago- Extreme individualism. - Heavy militarism. - Strong national chauvinism that is exploited by all major parties. - A commitment to policing / hegemony, destroying, destabilizing countries while convincing themselves that it's "for democracy", etc. The bar for destroying another country is very low and usually based on lies, but the forces leading to it are never questioned. - A 90% commitment to laissez-faire economics with token controls thrown in to prevent the economic system from destroying itself every ten years. - The moralization of poverty: the poor deserve it in some sense. - A conviction that problems are solved through the "marketplace of ideas", not class conflict or a return to former glory, tradition, etc. - A hard ideological divide between civil liberties and economic inequities. - The equation of laissez-faire with freedom. - The cultural acceptance of white supremacy as the norm, even to the extent that it's frequently unnoticed. etc etc
- zanny 6y agoAt the very least the commodification of absolutely everything is pretty extreme.
- Nasrudith 6y agoIt isn't absolutely everything for one. If it was then you could legally buy slaves, nuclear weapons or foreign nations could buy New York in its entirety based upon a market cap would be far closer to commodification of everything. Commoditization is just a fundamental result of math basically. Fundamentally there is still a cost to a commodities no matter what party pays for it to provide it or bar access through certain methods as illegitimate like it being illegal to buy organs from a donor for transplant.
- Nasrudith 6y agoYou call them priveledged but are they necessarily always wrong? There would be a bias towards more extreme passions to try to go towards extreme changes and would feel a temptation towards partisanship feeling so outnumbered. Given that norms say nothing about it doesn't mean they are always but the possibility exists that the extremists really are too emotional and partisan, and getting what they wanted would be the proverbial dog catching the car and not knowing what to do with it or crashing it immediately.