Is centrism the most rational perspective?

[lamargue]

i.e if two competing theories/perspectives are held by two sides which are equally as capable and intelligent as the other, would vying for any particular cause be less rational than centrism? e.g in the palestine v israel conflict where the primary distinction is a moral one. this extends, of course, outside of moral debates.

in addition, centrism is not apoliticism where the moniker of rationalism is taken up by an insecure contrarian. i refer strictly to a suspension of judgement rather than a commitment to distance oneself from the conflict

 

[obligatoryshackles]

Most likely, no. If you went to a multiple choice question where A and B seemed equally plausible, picking an arbitrary value between A and B would lead you to fail 100% of the time, whereas picking either A or B would at least give you a 50% chance to succeed.

A lot of competing perspectives tend to be a fully 100 or 0 distinction in beliefs, where the middle ground either doesn't exist or is utterly untenable. In a lot of cases, both sides can actually be correct, so long as their policies are implemented 100% faithfully and conflict between the sides and failure to unilaterally execute is the main problem. In such a case, taking a centrist position would be the worst option.

For example: is a genocide happening in Palestine? The answer is either a yes or a no. You can't really pick a position inbetween and come up with any reasonable guidance on policy. What would your position even be as a centrist? That there MIGHT be a genocide happening? That seems like an utterly useless position to hold.

Even more problematic, there is basically no political situation in which both sides are acting in good faith, and even fewer cases where both sides are equally capable/intelligent. How do you even judge if both sides are equally "valid"? That itself will depend on the internal biases of the "centrist". Extremism on either side can easily distort what the actual "central" position should be.

 

[lamargue]

Most likely, no. If you went to a multiple choice question where A and B seemed equally plausible, picking an arbitrary value between A and B would lead you to fail 100% of the time, whereas picking either A or B would at least give you a 50% chance to succeed.

i'm not talking about logical truths, so i don't think this example is valid. sure, people are trying to prove that they are right, but they aren't indispensable truths about the world like physical laws.

A lot of competing perspectives tend to be a fully 100 or 0 distinction in beliefs, where the middle ground either doesn't exist or is utterly untenable. In a lot of cases, both sides can actually be correct, so long as their policies are implemented 100% faithfully and conflict between the sides and failure to unilaterally execute is the main problem. In such a case, taking a centrist position would be the worst option.

a good point. i wasn't talking about the implementation of policy, however. centrism probably doesn't entail an absolute center since we wouldn't be able to pinpoint what exactly that means. a lot of centrists parties, for instance, are simply those whose policies are taken from both the left and the right. centrism, to the populist, seems to be the 'rational' middle-ground between two radical opponents.

For example: is a genocide happening in Palestine? The answer is either a yes or a no. You can't really pick a position inbetween and come up with any reasonable guidance on policy. What would your position even be as a centrist? That there MIGHT be a genocide happening? That seems like an utterly useless position to hold.

in this case, your comment on policy is correct.

it is hard to define what a centrist is in this case. i think a centrist would believe in a two-party state solution, for one. in conflicts which involve moral discourse, values will inevitably revert to binary distinctions by default. from what i understand, you are able to condemn protracted conflict whilst maintaining a position of neutrality on the basis of outcomes. that is, what will result when the conflict has been resolved, and how will it be resolved? for instance, i am sympathetic towards the palestinian people more than israelis. however, i certainly would never call myself pro-palestine since this entails the destruction of the jewish state. i think a centrist's position would be far more radical in regards to this.

Even more problematic, there is basically no political situation in which both sides are acting in good faith, and even fewer cases where both sides are equally capable/intelligent. How do you even judge if both sides are equally "valid"? That itself will depend on the internal biases of the "centrist". Extremism on either side can easily distort what the actual "central" position should be.

obviously both sides of the spectrum are going to have vested interests in their favour. but i think it would be wrong to say that neither side is capable of reasoning from rationality, or that one side is incapable. true, you can't judge if both sides are equally valid, but in suspending your judgement you essentially reduce the point of discourse to something indeterminate i.e it's truth-value consisting in something unprovable. so centrists then are fallibilists. this, of course, extends outside of political discourse and can be readily applied to many things, such as philosophical discourse; in particular, philosophy of science, ethics, etc.

i'm not speaking of populist centrism but a theoretical position. so i don't believe in the inherent veneer of enlightened rationalism that comes with proclaiming yourself as a centrist. i think that many people who aren't overtly radical are in fact centrists. though i might be misusing popular terminology.

 

[obligatoryshackles]

i'm not talking about logical truths, so i don't think this example is valid. sure, people are trying to prove that they are right, but they aren't indispensable truths about the world like physical laws.

Well, I guess I'm of the opinion that most political discourse is derived from how you answer fundamental binary questions. Stuff like "should we help poor people?" "should people work to earn a living?" "do minorities deserve equal rights?" etc. It's not about who is necessarily "right" - if you throw away conventional morality, you could easily create a functional system that says yes or no to any of these kinds of questions. But it'd be hard to come up with a useful answer without committing to an answer on any of these.

a good point. i wasn't talking about the implementation of policy, however. centrism probably doesn't entail an absolute center since we wouldn't be able to pinpoint what exactly that means. a lot of centrists parties, for instance, are simply those whose policies are taken from both the left and the right. centrism, to the populist, seems to be the 'rational' middle-ground between two radical opponents.

I could potentially see a good argument for taking up a mixed position, where you implement parts of either side. I personally don't like calling that centrism, since most of the time it'd be more accurate and descriptive to say you're socially/fiscally liberal/conservative, unless your mix of policy positions just doesn't make sense, in which case I would think they need more internal examination for consistency.

in this case, your comment on policy is correct.

it is hard to define what a centrist is in this case. i think a centrist would believe in a two-party state solution, for one. in conflicts which involve moral discourse, values will inevitably revert to binary distinctions by default. from what i understand, you are able to condemn protracted conflict whilst maintaining a position of neutrality on the basis of outcomes. that is, what will result when the conflict has been resolved, and how will it be resolved? for instance, i am sympathetic towards the palestinian people more than israelis. however, i certainly would never call myself pro-palestine since this entails the destruction of the jewish state. i think a centrist's position would be far more radical in regards to this.

I would broadly disagree that being pro-Palestine necessarily entails the destruction of the Jewish state, since full integration and a breakdown of the apartheid regime is an entirely viable solution, if likely very difficult to implement. But it is true that it's hard to separate Palestine as it is from more radical elements like Hamas, which does seek the destruction of Israel. Well, this isn't about our actual policy positions so I'll stop there.

obviously both sides of the spectrum are going to have vested interests in their favour. but i think it would be wrong to say that neither side is capable of reasoning from rationality, or that one side is incapable. true, you can't judge if both sides are equally valid, but in suspending your judgement you essentially reduce the point of discourse to something indeterminate i.e it's truth-value consisting in something unprovable. so centrists then are fallibilists. this, of course, extends outside of political discourse and can be readily applied to many things, such as philosophical discourse; in particular, philosophy of science, ethics, etc.

i'm not speaking of populist centrism but a theoretical position. so i don't believe in the inherent veneer of enlightened rationalism that comes with proclaiming yourself as a centrist. i think that many people who aren't overtly radical are in fact centrists. though i might be misusing popular terminology.

Hmm, I think it may be wrong to call that centrism, but I'm not too familiar with anything beyond rudimentary definitions. I think it's good to think for yourself and find your own positions on every issue, but such a theoretical position - in my opinion - is unlikely to ultimately fall into the centrist space, which I think as you suggest, is typically what you would call populist centrism.

 

[lamargue]

Well, I guess I'm of the opinion that most political discourse is derived from how you answer fundamental binary questions. Stuff like "should we help poor people?" "should people work to earn a living?" "do minorities deserve equal rights?" etc. It's not about who is necessarily "right" - if you throw away conventional morality, you could easily create a functional system that says yes or no to any of these kinds of questions. But it'd be hard to come up with a useful answer without committing to an answer on any of these.

fair point, but differences in these sort of opinions are determined by policy. so questions like "should we help poor people?" can differ in terms of the degree of the outcome i.e "to what extent should we help poor people?" so a centrist position would be suspending one's certainty that an act is inherently good, accounting for the demands of practical reason.

if you throw away conventional morality, you could easily create a functional system that says yes or no to any of these kinds of questions. But it'd be hard to come up with a useful answer without committing to an answer on any of these.

with the aforementioned example, we can take a question such as "should we help poor people?" as a kind of primitive root which underlies the basic premise. the degree to which the outcome is relevant par modern policy i think is where discourse lies. it's purely functional.
this is just my own biased view, but i think a conventional morality does allow us to appeal to practical reason (i.e some kind of functional system like you stated). i think of a 'conventional morality' as a norm of sorts over some kind of logical space where moral facts are derived. if we bar all assumptions on the views of a moral agent, then, if he possesses the same capacity for language as us, we can safely assume that he is at least aware of facts that are contained within our conventional morality.

I could potentially see a good argument for taking up a mixed position, where you implement parts of either side. I personally don't like calling that centrism, since most of the time it'd be more accurate and descriptive to say you're socially/fiscally liberal/conservative, unless your mix of policy positions just doesn't make sense, in which case I would think they need more internal examination for consistency.

you are right. i intended to say something like this but forgot. a lot of these positions are nominal, which is to say that a party can be fiscally conservative while voicing liberal social views. on that note, i think that something like the four-quadrant political spectrum might be inaccurate in portraying centrism. centrism doesn't entail something close to the middle, since the factors for determining variance in social views dont seem to be consistent with economic ones i.e to pinpoint an exact center seems very hard (graphically), and it is thus sufficient to consider views nominally.

I would broadly disagree that being pro-Palestine necessarily entails the destruction of the Jewish state, since full integration and a breakdown of the apartheid regime is an entirely viable solution, if likely very difficult to implement. But it is true that it's hard to separate Palestine as it is from more radical elements like Hamas, which does seek the destruction of Israel. Well, this isn't about our actual policy positions so I'll stop there.

i can agree with this. i don't think it is a radical position to say "the jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are not permitted by international law", though it is pretty clear what is meant by "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." i don't think that there are many Palestinians who condone the actions of Hamas, but still share the same sentiment. it is, again, a matter of outcome-dependence that i think is more important (a failing perhaps of my realpolitik).

Hmm, I think it may be wrong to call that centrism, but I'm not too familiar with anything beyond rudimentary definitions. I think it's good to think for yourself and find your own positions on every issue, but such a theoretical position - in my opinion - is unlikely to ultimately fall into the centrist space, which I think as you suggest, is typically what you would call populist centrism.

agreed. i don't call myself a centrist but from what i've described in my other post, i think i somewhat align with it. but you are right, i am probably misusing language again. i just wanted to know if such a theoretical position was tenable in the current political climate.

 

[vitbar]

imo there being two opposing parties says nothing about whether either or the middle path is more rational. All three could be totally irrational. The most rational would arguably be the positions reached when applying reason to the questions of the day.

Just look at the countries of the world today and through time. The centerist position of the past can be an extreme position today. A centerist position in a given country could be extreme in another.

 

[lamargue]

imo there being two opposing parties says nothing about whether either or the middle path is more rational. All three could be totally irrational. The most rational would arguably be the positions reached when applying reason to the questions of the day.

Just look at the countries of the world today and through time. The centerist position of the past can be an extreme position today. A centerist position in a given country could be extreme in another.

of course. i was appealing to some theoretical observer who feels that both sides are, to some degree, speakers who can convey their points in a rational way without waxing their courtroom rhetoric. we often like to rely on technics and those who we perceive as more knowledgable than we are for our opinions. we often use these people to source and justify our own claims. but if both sides consist of these types, then it may be rational to suspend our judgement completely.
that's a very good point though. i suppose rationality isn't a claim to objective truth but rather a mentality. yes, it isn't certain if a feeling of being rational entails that said person is truly rational, but i'd like to have faith that people aren't swayed by mere rhetoric and have practical reasons for choosing between two poles and, more importantly, not jumping on a nominal bandwagon.

 

[Pessimist]

For example: is a genocide happening in Palestine? The answer is either a yes or a no. You can't really pick a position inbetween and come up with any reasonable guidance on policy. What would your position even be as a centrist? That there MIGHT be a genocide happening? That seems like an utterly useless position to hold.

Why does it have to be so decisive? I'm aware that Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, but whether or not it's a genocide is up to the ICJ ruling. There's also a debate to whether or not the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel constituted a genocidal massacre. You can also take examples from the past: was the American "Operation Meetinghouse" a form of genocide? Because it killed 100k in a single night. And what about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? It's not that simple, the answer isn't "either a yes or a no".

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Of course it isn't. I consider myself a centrist and I'm the furthest thing from rational.

 

[unabletocope]

It likes to portray itself as if it is but once you can see flaws in it then it falls apart and people get very edgy. I see it as an extension of capitalism, it functions as an extension of capitalism masquerading as some kind of rational status quo, as if to question it or disagree with it is to say you oppose the status quo. At least you can disagree with capitalism. The problem with any kind of ideology that works like centrism does is that it leads to dictatorships and fascist states, no matter how objective and compromising it likes to present itself as, it's actually in a lot of ways more intolerant than many other ideologies and suppresses rational disagreement of it. I grew up in the UK from the 1990s, I remember Tony Blair and things were good under him. I've since come to understand how our system works in a way that has made me realise how a lot of what I thought and how things work was actually based on a very flimsy system, a very flimsy way of working that works fine if you aren't too out of step with it but ultimately isn't sustainable, is very rigid and is actually reinforcing issues, we can't control our health services, our housing, our borders, our immigration system, our economy. No, I think centrism has become something that is not sustainable and is more to do with maintaining a rigid system, maintaining the interests of the elite and keeping democracy as controlled as it can be, for the sake of keeping people apathetic and lazy, to some extent a lot of people are happy to maintain this as people are lazy and boring and don't want to change much but the issues are still going to come through, no matter how much we try to wrap ourselves into bubbles

 

[lamargue]

It likes to portray itself as if it is but once you can see flaws in it then it falls apart and people get very edgy. I see it as an extension of capitalism, it functions as an extension of capitalism masquerading as some kind of rational status quo, as if to question it or disagree with it is to say you oppose the status quo. At least you can disagree with capitalism. The problem with any kind of ideology that works like centrism does is that it leads to dictatorships and fascist states, no matter how objective and compromising it likes to present itself as, it's actually in a lot of ways more intolerant than many other ideologies and suppresses rational disagreement of it. I grew up in the UK from the 1990s, I remember Tony Blair and things were good under him. I've since come to understand how our system works in a way that has made me realise how a lot of what I thought and how things work was actually based on a very flimsy system, a very flimsy way of working that works fine if you aren't too out of step with it but ultimately isn't sustainable, is very rigid and is actually reinforcing issues, we can't control our health services, our housing, our borders, our immigration system, our economy. No, I think centrism has become something that is not sustainable and is more to do with maintaining a rigid system, maintaining the interests of the elite and keeping democracy as controlled as it can be, for the sake of keeping people apathetic and lazy, to some extent a lot of people are happy to maintain this as people are lazy and boring and don't want to change much but the issues are still going to come through, no matter how much we try to wrap ourselves into bubbles

interesting view. this is what i would call populist centrism. honestly i don't think its very practical to adopt centrism as a political model, since it only holds certain theoretical value for independent observers. but that is like many political systems which are unable to be implemented but sound nice in theory. but i'm not sure if centrism would be most likely to lead to something like fascism. centrism would be a sort of realpolitik, whereas fascism is literally everything but that. but the same is true of fascism, in that adopting the aesthetics of fascism is nice in theory but not practical for maintaining a stable society.

i'm not really trying to defend centrism proper. i just think that rejection of centrist thinking is kind of rhyme-or-reason, in that it's a common sense view that it is too problematic and impractical. that might be true in a lot of cases, but i personally think it to be utile in some. though i am a very naive political thinker so i will have to do some research on past policy.

 

[obligatoryshackles]

Why does it have to be so decisive? I'm aware that Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, but whether or not it's a genocide is up to the ICJ ruling. There's also a debate to whether or not the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel constituted a genocidal massacre. You can also take examples from the past: was the American "Operation Meetinghouse" a form of genocide? Because it killed 100k in a single night. And what about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? It's not that simple, the answer isn't "either a yes or a no".

I disagree. If you're formulating policy, you need to decide if you think it was a genocide or not. This isn't about whether there "objectively" was or was not a genocide, it's a matter of what you're basing your political decision making on. You can't make good policy based on "I'm not sure if there is a genocide happening here". You decide based on what you know and believe and then make a decision.

 

[unabletocope]

interesting view. this is what i would call populist centrism. honestly i don't think its very practical to adopt centrism as a political model, since it only holds certain theoretical value for independent observers. but that is like many political systems which are unable to be implemented but sound nice in theory. but i'm not sure if centrism would be most likely to lead to something like fascism. centrism would be a sort of realpolitik, whereas fascism is literally everything but that. but the same is true of fascism, in that adopting the aesthetics of fascism is nice in theory but not practical for maintaining a stable society.

i'm not really trying to defend centrism proper. i just think that rejection of centrist thinking is kind of rhyme-or-reason, in that it's a common sense view that it is too problematic and impractical. that might be true in a lot of cases, but i personally think it to be utile in some. though i am a very naive political thinker so i will have to do some research on past policy.

I think populism is starting to become regarded as a dirty word but to me that just reinforces how centrism is mobilising to try and suppress legitimate and objective disagreement of it which in turn only mobilises and reinforces the far right, seems we are heading in a direction where we are moving towards fascism by stealth or fascism as a form of democracy, there are no choices and democracy doesn't really exist

 

[lamargue]

I think populism is starting to become regarded as a dirty word but to me that just reinforces how centrism is mobilising to try and suppress legitimate and objective disagreement of it which in turn only mobilises and reinforces the far right, seems we are heading in a direction where we are moving towards fascism by stealth or fascism as a form of democracy, there are no choices and democracy doesn't really exist

yea, it's why i don't generally like to call myself a centrist. touche