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The Two Kinds of Moderate

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#11

Post by ajb »

hnhg wrote: post #5

I'm intrigued by how this analysis fits in with increasingly 'tribal/team politics' - do intentional moderates try to appease every team? Thinking out loud, I think this piece misses that aspect of team-seeking behavior. I know people who will recognise a good point against their side but will strive to ignore it because it works against their sense of loyalty to the team. I increasingly believe there are relatively…

Indeed. I think a more useful definition is someone who does not exclude either side, from the set of people whose needs politics should address. Let's call that an 'ethical moderate'.

Left and right could be thought of as differing in whose behavior they think needs to change, to improve the world: the wealthy and connected, or the poor and disconnected. The more hardline you are, the more you think that that behavior doesn't just need to change, but is reprehensible and deserving of exclusion from consideration.

So you can be an 'ethical moderate' without necessarily holding centrist opinions. It may be that this means it should be named something else, but I think it's a useful way of thinking.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#12

Post by zozbot234 »

CPLX wrote: post #9

Good thing this article has been posted. We’ve been short of billionaires willing to share their opinions about why we should consider the incredible increase in concentrated wealth and the resurgence of monopoly business practices as “moderate” while the idea that maybe we should, you know, consider doing something to stop that, as “extreme” and “far left”. There’s a couple tells in the article. But here’s a pretty…

There are plenty of impressive folks who aren't especially rich. And plenty of rich folks who support increased taxation or regulation, especially as a means of keeping competitors at bay and securing their own monopoly business practices.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#13

Post by gms »

CPLX wrote: post #9

Good thing this article has been posted. We’ve been short of billionaires willing to share their opinions about why we should consider the incredible increase in concentrated wealth and the resurgence of monopoly business practices as “moderate” while the idea that maybe we should, you know, consider doing something to stop that, as “extreme” and “far left”. There’s a couple tells in the article. But here’s a pretty…

Curious: why not take the words at face value rather than redefining them in a way that annoys you?

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#14

Post by msla »

hnhg wrote: post #10
urs wrote: post #3

I like this part: “The defining quality of an ideologue, whether on the left or the right, is to acquire one's opinions in bulk.” I think another way to slice this is, if you think of the Overton window shifting along the axis of time, the “accidental moderate” does not shift their opinion by the same factor as the ends of the window shift. The “accidental moderate”, in fact, shifts their opinion independent of the s…

Perhaps 'accidental moderate'='independent' and 'intentional moderate'='centrist'?

"Intentional moderate" = High Broderism, or at least the popular understanding of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Broder

http://pressthink.org/2010/06/clowns-to-the-left-of-me-joker...

The above has this quote, which sums it up nicely:

> Journalists associate the middle with truth, when there may be no reason to… Writing the news so that it lands somewhere near the “halfway point between the best and the worst that might be said about someone” is not a truthtelling impulse at all, but a refuge-seeking one, and it’s possible that this ritual will distort a given story.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#15

Post by toyg »

This is a very American perspective, occasionally a bit flippant (dismissing 100+ years of Marx-influenced intellectuals in politics and economics as “not smart” is definitely not smart, particularly after 2008) and overall mediocre.

There is a lot of stereotyping, and it doesn’t account for the interest axis, i.e. the fact that a lot of very smart people simply do not care for organised politics in any way, shape, or form.

More importantly, it lacks knowledge of consensus mechanics beyond Overton, which is why it struggles to get to grip with the right side of the spectrum - which is, historically speaking, the most consistently successful side, at least in the short or medium term when any new political issue arises. Dismissing that as “I don’t know” shows embarrassingly poor subject knowledge.

So uhm, this piece could have been written by a 16-year-old trying to move his brain for the first time. That it comes from a much older and experienced person, somebody who holds a number of smart positions on other topics, to me is a signal that such person has done very little effort to actually study this particular field in depth.

Maybe it’s an attempt at showing that one can be not-smart about certain topics? If that were the case, I don’t think we really need it - Twitter and Facebook remind us every hour of every day that it is indeed the case.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#16

Post by simonh »

As a British moderate conservative, the differences between US and UK (arguably European) politics are fascinating. What moderate means is so different. For reference I’m a lifelong conservative voter that grew up under Maggie Thatcher.

We do have a middle of the road Liberal Democrat party, but to my mind they maintain their position in the middle ground by dodging the hard issues. They are intentional moderates in that respect and I just don’t trust them to tackle really tough issues effectively. So I’m a moderate conservative because the Conservative party is generally an effective party of government that often leans moderate for practical political reasons. Often enough that I’m ok with it, cripplingly badly thought out referendums aside.

Looking at the US political landscape there’s no question in the 80s I would have been a Reagan Republican, but gradually over the last few decades my respect for Republicanism has collapsed. It’s turned itself into a radical ideology that doesn’t even seem conservative, or concerned at all with things conservatives everywhere usually obsess over. The democrats have recently lurched left in response though, so while I found myself, to my own bemusement, generally cheering on Democratic candidates and presidents in the last few decades, now I’m worried they’re ‘doing a Corbyn’ and indulging in outlandish and fantastical economic policy positions that are always a temptation for the left. That leaves me in the wilderness in US political terms.

So I can’t support the Republicans because they are immoral jerks who are selling out democracy, undermining the rule of law and sold out on their international security position for partisan posturing long before Trump showed up. And I can’t support the Democrats any more because they are indulging in crazy leftist economic fantasies.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#17

Post by somberi »

To quote the comedian Chris Rock (from his "Never Scared"):

"Anyone that makes up they mind before they hear the issue is a fucking fool, OK? Everybody… No, everybody’s so busy wanting to be down with a gang – “I’m a conservative, I’m a liberal.” It’s bullshit. Be a fucking person. Listen. Let it swirl around yo head. Then form yo opinion. No normal, decent person is one thing, OK? I got some shit I’m conservative about, I got some shit I’m liberal about. Crime, I’m conservative. Prostitution, I’m liberal. "

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#18

Post by AlexeyMK »

Consider https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... for another take on political centrism/general tribalism. A bit (err, quite a lot) lengthier but it gets to some interesting ideas about the inevitability of tribes. Stephenson's Seveneves also comes to mind as a book-long meditation on the same topic.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#19

Post by noir-york »

There is a significant qualitative difference between ideologues (left or right) and, to use Graham's terminology, 'accidental moderates' or the 'intentional' ones.

Ideologues assume that there is a single version / source of the truth whether it is a religious text, or a secular one (Marx, Hayek, etc). 'Intentional moderates' are not monist (as are idealogues), but to the contrary triangulate. If anything, intentional moderates reject the notion that there is an objective position.

Accidental moderates - idealised - are actually just being reasonable and weighing different considerations, thus arriving at a considered position.

Intentional moderates may not necessarily be cowards. To take an exampe: most people are ignorant of economics and so their position on, say, the interest rate is not an informed one.

Intentional moderates use a centrist heuristic in the belief that the reasonable answer is somewhere between the two extremes. There is nothing wrong with this; one cannot expect voters to be experts or even well informed on all the posible issues of government.

Re: The Two Kinds of Moderate

#20

Post by hnhg »

toyg wrote: post #15

This is a very American perspective, occasionally a bit flippant (dismissing 100+ years of Marx-influenced intellectuals in politics and economics as “not smart” is definitely not smart, particularly after 2008) and overall mediocre. There is a lot of stereotyping, and it doesn’t account for the interest axis, i.e. the fact that a lot of very smart people simply do not care for organised politics in any way, shape, o…

It's PG's habit of using his own arbitrary measures of intelligence as a proxy for worthiness, and where these measures of intelligence are usually a function of the ability to make money.
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