The Truth is in the Middle...

Post Reply New Topic

I've developed a philosophy in life I like to call "The Truth is Somewhere in the Middle"

I find in many ways, politics, religion, etc... There are people that are Radicalized, they tend to have the bigger voices, but most are somewhere in the middle...

Please forgive me for using these terms, lol
The Right paints the Left as "Commies, liberals, Snowflakes, etc..." While the Left paints the right as "Trumpers, Racists, Greedy Capitalists, etc..."

But most people are somewhere in the Middle, and maybe being somewhere in the Middle is the correct place, often one side focuses on a negative aspect of the other side without understanding what the majority actually believes...

Same thing with religion, there are some people so religious that they believe their specific sect is the only way to know a higher power, while some are so atheist they deny anything is supernatural and even believe religion should be abolished... personally, I see good and bad in all sects, but at the same time I've experienced supernatural things, often with others present... Like for example so many people here in this particular apartment building experience ghosts, including me, my apartment is so haunted... Okay not Scientific, but maybe the physical/scientific world, and the supernatural realm exist together, and lots of people believe that...

Also people that were hurt tend to radicalize, like in my religious group, people hurt by their Cultish religions will turn totally opposite, and believe all religion is harmful, and should be abolished...

Even the autism community, we tend to be hurt by Neurotypical people, so we start bashing "NTs"... but plenty of Neurotypicals are not like that...

Maybe radicalism I the true enemy of the world...

Ehhh, I think I'm like this because I majored in not only Zoology, but in a special Scientific Ethics program... Taking classes in things like the Creationism vs. Evolution debate and my Senior Seminar was the ethics of genetic testing and engineering... so I know a crap load about GMOs, the implications of human genetic testing and even the ethics of human genetic engineering...

I am also a Centrist, and can attest to what you've said.

The center varies between societies and constantly changes as the beliefs of those societies change. At one point it would have been considered extreme to support the abolition of slavery, or to say the Earth revolves around the sun. The current American center would be considered economically right-wing in Western Europe, and socially left-wing in the Middle East. It's very unlikely that you happened to be born into the one society in world history that has the correct consensuses about everything.

The problem a lot of the time is that people don't think about politics in an abstract way, and conflate the various positions on these issues with their current tribal manifestations. If they don't agree with either tribe on everything or don't like the way that they're acting, they dismiss both sides as bad even when the positions that they do have are closer to one side, or are a mix of left and right.

I'm very left-wing by American standards but I have mixed feelings about a lot of the current discourse, especially the counterproductive ways that race is sometimes talked about. For example, kicking you out of that Facebook group for using the term "African American" was ridiculous. But when one side really is racist, or at least has racists as a large part of their coalition and is tolerant of racists because of it, calling yourself a centrist on those issues is going to make it look to a lot of people like you're downplaying racism, regardless of what your intentions may be. Although the crazier PC rhetoric about race often comes from otherwise centrist liberals who try to distract from concrete policy by re-framing the conversation to be about how white people should feel about racism rather than what should be done about it.

Radicalism gets attention, while centrism gets ignored.

It makes the news when a man rescues a stray dog or shoots it.

It never makes the news when a man feeds his dog or walks it.

Uncritical centrism is, to me, throwing your hands up and abandoning personal moral responsibility. You simply go along with whatever your tribe considers "the center" to be. And there are some issues where "the middle" is unethical. Like racism vs. anti-racism. The correct position is anti-racism, not somewhere in the middle. Which isn't to say that extremism isn't a problem. I'm a socialist and have seen plenty of socialists who, say, uncritically support the USSR and deny things like the Holdomor because it's all "Western propaganda" and these are clearly people blinded by ideology.

The "center" or "moderates" are often wrongly conflated with holding views that are a mixture/compromise/sell out of left and right. While this is true of some in this group others hold strong views on issues but "left" on some issues and "right" on others.

MidnightRose makes a very good point; there are issues where the centre is not the right place to be.

Any "minorities Vs bigots" issue is the most obvious one. Minorities want equal rights, while bigots want minorities dead (extreme, but there are very obviously people like this). The middle is clearly not the right position here.

If you think about every single issue and genuinely fall in the centre on most of them, that's fine. If you decide you are always in the centre, no matter what, that's a failure to engage.

No, I'm not at the center of EVERYTHING... But well it's also important to realize that almost nobody is at one radical extreme or another...

Certainly, but most of the time I hear the "but both sides" argument it is usually from someone trying to defend the current status quo. Besides, there's nothing inherently wrong with radical positions. Back in medieval times the concept of representative government would have been seen as extreme. Still, you're right Angnix, nobody is a perfect representation of a political side.

I both agree and disagree with you (here I am being in the middle, LOL). I agree with you from the point of view that common sense implies that truth is in the middle. I disagree with you because "if" religion (in its extreme form) is right then I, personally, would go to hell if I say it is in the middle, so I better not say it.

The funny thing is that, back as a teenager, I used to be an atheist, and back then I did not believe in the truth being in the middle. Yet, after I started to see how it can be in the middle, this very belief is what allowed me to consider the possibility of God and, once I made that step, then the fear of hell pushed me to the extreme religious site.

But the irony of this is that the "truth is in the middle" sits far better with atheist worldview than with religious worldview. An atheist might not be so "In the middle" when it comes to God, but at least they can be "in the middle" when it comes to everything else (be that politics, science, philosophy, morals, or whatever). On the other hand, a Christian can not be in the middle because fear of hell scares them away from it.

Yet, on the other hand, "seeing gray areas" is the exact thing that enabled me to consider Christianity and, therefore, be subjected to that very fear of hell that scares me away from the middle. Back in my teens, I would have said "scientific evidence contradicts the Bible, so Bible must be wrong" and leave it at that. But then in my 20-s I was like "no, it doesn't necesserely imply Bible is wrong, there are always two sides to every story, so what if the Bible is right".

So to sum up the irony, at least in my case, it was like this:

a) Black and white thinking leads to atheism while seeing gray areas leads to considering religion

b) Atheism allows me to see gray areas without fear, while religion scares me into thinking in black and white terms

It seems like "a" contradicts "b". I guess it doesn't: "a" talks about worldview ==> faith while "b" talks about faith ==> worldview. So these are different directions of thought. Talk about necessary or sufficient.

I'd put a twist on this maybe for the sake of keeping it safe from getting overwhelmed by the caveats:

If you're hearing something that's not in the middle be highly skeptical. It doesn't mean it's not true but the evidence required increases the more extreme the implications are.

I think it's important to make that distinction because there are views on things that might sound remarkably sheer or extreme (perhaps not politically) which are nevertheless accurate and can be vetted - so the trick is keeping central tendency from turning into comfort bias. There are also cases where there's no overlapping ground or where the best solution for both sides of a problem is an either or and cutting down the middle because it feels good actually does more harm - which is something that also needs to be watched out for (like the biblical story of 'cutting the baby in half').

To say the truth is always in the middle or that centrism is always better, is a logical fallacy known as:
'Argumentum ad temperantiam'.

It is as false as any other logical fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

Aspies should know better than to throw such a stupid mentally ret*d argument.

It's a ret*d argument, actually. It's really, really stupid to claim that everything should be moderated. That's not how the real world works. If something is true or false, it will always remain true or false, no matter what.

The truth can NEVER be moderated.

Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

The essence of what is "good" lies in moderation between extremes; one of excess and the other of deficiency.

I've always been very much a "centrist."

I just don't believe in the Trump nuttiness......and I don't believe in the PC nuttiness, either.

I admire someone like Dwight Eisenhower----a great general who was able to criticize the "military-industrial complex." He was a man of morals.

Colin Powell is similar.

The truth occupies no political space. It simply exists on its own terms.