A friend of mine in early College was making a “Pros” and “Cons” list concerning Geneticially Engineered Food Crops. As a very environmentally concerned person, her “Cons” list had grown substantially larger than her “Pros,” and she was asking me to describe additional benefits/problems of GM Foods.
One concern I voiced was the introduction of genetically modified genes appearing in the bacteria of human digestive tracks, but I didn’t quite feel comfortable relegating this to the “Con” column because we don’t know what effect those genes would have. Then on the “Pro” side was the immense potential GM Foods had to bring nutrition to famine-stricken countries, and while this was a single “Pro,” it also carried enormous weight. At the same time it was conditional on the implementation of GM Food technologies being closely scrutinized by the scientific community to ensure safety.
I realized shortly after our conversation, that my position on the issue was far too nuanced to fit neatly into a stack of “Pro” and “Con” bullet points, but rather required a flow chart of conditional statements to articulate what positions I found acceptable and unacceptable on the matter.
Human beings love to dichotomize things, but the real world does not work that way. We divide High School debate teams into “Pro” and “Con” on a myriad of issues, completely denying the gray zone that most real-life people must live in. Debates are framed as zero-sum games, where commentators decide who won and who lost while pragmatically there can be no such thing in disputation, only an ever-shifting ideal mean.
Those who recognize this reality are known as “Centrists” or “Moderates,” and most people take a dismissive attitude toward our political perspective. We are accused of trying to have things both ways, of lacking strong convictions, and of being ineffectual. The “Centrist” is the favorite kick-around of inflammatory pundits, who are trying to shame moderates into taking a side… theirs.
Yet who was it that brought compromise on the filibuster debate? It was the moderates of both parties, who bravely came across the aisle to negotiate an equitable solution. This tiny minority of less than a dozen politicians was able to break the disputational stalemate.
For this accomplishment, the Moderates of both parties were demonized by both sides. They were called “Democrats/Republicans In Name Only,” DINO and RINO respectively, accused of lacking principle. The hardliners on each side were attempting draw attention away from the implications of such an awesome demonstration of political power. They did not want the public to see the obvious: centrists are the ones who rule our government.
Each election cycle the two parties have rallies to motivate their respective bases. They whip their supporters into near religious fervor, trigger their flocking behavioral instincts, and herd them into ideological compliance in preparation for the battles that lie ahead… and then they forget all about them.
During the “crunch time” of the political campaign, politicians reach out to the most powerful base in the country, they are the only ones invited to all of the debates, they are the ones the polls focus on, they are the ones that leave the election outcome in doubt up until the votes are counted, they are the “Undecided.”
Party loyalists have very little political clout because of their fanatical devotion. Whenever a politician has the choice between satisfying the party base or pleasing everyone, they will try to please everyone. It’s the undecideds who put them in office, the party loyalists are mere ideological slaves with nowhere else to go.
Hardliners make ridiculous claims about moderates and centrists being wimbly and unprincipled because making outrageous claims is what hardliners do to everyone who fails to share their irrational absolutist ideals. News cameras and blogs are drawn to their antics, which give the appearance of primacy but are actually pathetically sycophantic in their efforts to please their constituency of sheep.
Meanwhile, the Centrists continue to quietly wield their power, holding greater influence over our government then the saber-rattling majorities. In moderation lies political power, because everyone knows you have the potential to change your mind.