Hello Good Readers,
My name is Scott Payne and I’m happy to introduce myself as the newest author/contributor here at The Moderate Voice. You will be able to read my bio in the appropriate section before too long, but by way of introduction I’ll give you a sense of who I am and what I hope to bring to the site.
As you may have already deduced from some of my spelling idiosyncrasies, I am a part-time Canadian writer who splits his time commenting on US, world, and Canadian political, social, and cultural issues/topics. I’ve been blogging and writing online for less than a year, and like many have come to see online information generation and consumption as a powerful tool in our efforts to make sense of and operate in the world around us. I blog regularly at my personal site The Politics of Scrabble and submitted two Guest Voice posts to The Moderate Voice before coming on board as a regular contributor.
The decision to join the team here was an easy one for me. The Moderate Voice represents a style and tone of writing and analysis that very much resonates with my own preferences. At different times in my life I have occupied a variety of different identities along the political spectrum and have now come to an appreciation that all of them have something unique and insightful to provide to the larger conversation about our world and our lives.
The over-arching goal of my writing is to attempt to honour the insights of these various perspectives in an effort to paint the most vivid, robust, and informative picture of the world I am able. There are, obviously, times when I feel like I succeed in that goal more thoroughly than others, but that is my intention every time I sit down in front of a keyboard.
Which is not to say that I don’t take stands on certain issues or push a mushy inclusiveness that dilutes meaningful discourse beyond all recognition. While I see different political, cultural, and social stances and beliefs as inherently perspectival, I also believe that fashioning a functional moral compass is necessary to living a successful and satisfying life. I just don’t believe that any particular stance or ideology has a monopoly on the truth. Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, progressives — these folks are not the enemy. Dogma, that is the tendency upon which we must keep one eye trained at all times.
Granted, such a belief makes the fine tuning of our compass a little more tricky, but I also believe that the payoff in terms of explanatory power and subtlety of understanding is well worth our efforts.
So there you have it, that’s me in a nutshell. I’m honoured to have the opportunity to contribute to as professional and impressive a site as The Moderate Voice, and I hope you’ll enjoy what I offer up. As a conclusion, let me say that the journey towards a better understanding of ourselves and our world is inherently conversational, so please don’t hold back on the comments — learning is a two-way street, and I guarantee I’m always in need of your help.