The Myth of the Middle?
The Washington Post today has a commentary about The Myth of the Middle
The writers observe that there is a wide disparity of opinion on controverisal issues between liberal, conservative and even independent voters and that their representatives are merely reflecting this divide. Centrism and bi-partisanship is a myth.
This is a recurring topic because it is a comparison of apples and oranges: Policy and process. Most negotiations begin with the parties in opposition. But the possibilities for progress are a function of the genuine commitment of the parties to discover common interests.
Many of us in the middle want to preserve the second amendment right to own guns but prefer that it be harder for predators to get them. We prefer that woman have a right to choose but that we do what we can to reduce the number of abortions and facilitate adoption. We want a cleaner environment but are willing for industry to make a profit in that pursuit. We want universal health care but also recognize that a large part of our society makes its living by providing health care services. All controversial issues can be looked at similarly and, for the most part, viable solutions exist.
The “middle” is more about the commitment to collaboration – not about where we start.
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10 Responses to “The Myth of the Middle?”
[...] UPDATE Paul Silver wrote a must read post for The Moderate Voice about this very column. His last line: The “middleâ€? is more about the commitment to collaboration – not about where we start. [...]
[...] Added: Paul Silver has also posted about this WaPo article, and his view (happily) is far less defeatist than Polimom’s. [...]
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This quote should be the official tag line for this website after you do the redesign
“The ‘middle’ is more about the commitment to collaboration – not about where we start.”
What would be interesting though, would be to survey people who self identify as centrists on various issues and find out just how far they would take that commitment to collaboration. I feel that a lot of people identify as centrists because they lean one way on one issue and another way on another issue, but the degree to which they lean may still be pretty strong. It averages out to a centrist position and it’s not partisan, but it can still be resistant to compromise in a lot of cases.
Take abortion, for example. Paul says:
OK, sounds good, but what do we mean by “do what we can to reduce the number of abortions”? Does that strictly refer to promoting education and availability of birth control (and does abstinence education for kids play any role there?), or are we also talking about restricting certain forms of abortion? How about more vigorous informed consent so that women seeking abortions are advised to think through what they are doing first? Would those who want to “do what we can to reduce abortions” feel that was too much of an infringement on the “right to choose”?
These are difficult questions, and the devil’s in the details.
There are a few things I don’t think you’re taking into account.
First, for all the people who don’t have what you’d call moderate views on a given topic (and there are more of them than of you), compromising means having to abandon the pursuit of their genuinely held views on that issue. Is it any surprise they don’t compromise? If someone really truly feels that abortion is evil or that it should be available wherever and whenever someone wants, or vice-versa, that it is evil and should never be allowed, good for them that they stick to their guns. If a wife was opposed to her husband beating her, would you expect her to compromise by agreeing to let her husband beat her, so long as he agreed to not do it as often? Or should she stick to her guns and do everything she could to keep him from beating her at all?
Second, the biggest disputes involve issues on which one side can be viewed as being in control, with the other side trying to take away from the first group. Abortion-rights and gun-rights folks are both trying to protect what they have from those trying to take it away. Compromise ‘might’ be possible if, in return for giving up some of what they have, those who had control received a promise from the other side that they wouldn’t keep trying to nick away. As an example, perhaps the gun rights side might agree to nationwide registration if the anti-gun groups swore to not then try to restrict gun ownership, or perhaps the abortion rights side would agree to parental notification if the anti-abortion side would stop trying to put further restrictions in place. But with there being absolutely no possibility that any such group would agree to call off the hunt, the group with power justifiably sees absolutely no benefit in giving away even a little bit of the control of an issue that they have… and thus, no compromise.
Third, reaching compromise means finding common ground on which a majority can agree… and I don’t think that position really exists. The devil is in the details and while you’re willing to give up X in order to get Y, somebody else would rather give up S to get Y… and it turns out that you’re very much opposed to giving up S. Compromise sounds good in principle but the reality is that you really can’t split the baby in such a way that satisfies 51% of the people.
C Stanley:
Funny, that’s the way I view this blog. There aren’t too many mushy middle types here, they’re all pretty much (can’t tell for Joe) solidly on one side of the aisle or the other. And I don’t see too many of them willing to cede any ground on their pet issues in order to compromise.
oh, and I hadn’t yet seen your post as I was typing out ‘devils in the details’… what’s that about great minds?
There can never be a centrist party because centrists don’t have a different platform. We exist on both sides of the isle. We just want our politicians to quit acting like assholes, and frankly you can’t make a party platform out of that.
stevestrum,
Excellent points; your post dovetails nicely with mine and yes, great minds do think alike, don’t they?
Paul,
Brilliant post, brilliant re-orientation of the debate. This line: “The ‘middle’ is more about the commitment to collaboration – not about where we start,” should be in Bartlett’s. I don’t think anyone has said it better or more succinctly. Thank you.