What a time to be alive! Everyone is offended, everyone is a snowflake, and everyone is an extremist. And if you’re nodding your head in agreement right now — just know that I’m talking about you, too.
Every dying soul on the planet points out and acknowledges these things in others. They see it in their family. They see it on their social media. Their friends. But they never see it in themselves.
This is mostly because nobody wants to admit to being irrational. No one wants be labeled as “radical” or “single-minded,” even when they so obviously are. People, by and large, prefer to view themselves as if they are in “the middle.” You know, like Malcolm and Jimmy Eat World (my pop culture references clearly died in the early 2000’s).
Nearly every hardcore Republican or liberal I know typically makes the claim of being in the middle. Sigh.
But what does it mean to be in the middle? The term “moderate” has come to hold a negative connatation in today’s edgy society. So people just say “in the middle,” pretending that they carefully weigh all issues and opinions based on their own merit.
I could not call bullshit any louder. But I understand that we exist in a time of universal hypocrisy and narcissism. And I truly wish that more of us were in the middle. Or to be more exact, I wish more of us were centrists.
Centrism is sometimes seen as wishy-washy. As if a person who refuses to own a singular dogma is somehow terrified of taking a real stance on something. Petrified of having an actual opinion for fear of being ostracized by the community! Which couldn’t be further from the truth.
It’s even often perceived as being some halfway point between “nazi ideas” and “not-so-nazi ideas.” Again, this misses the point completely.
Centrism is a point of logical thought that actually exists completely independent of that grid. It’s a realm where skepticism and truth trump any kind of concrete ideology. It’s a position that rejects the principle of ideology in general: be it conservative, liberal, Christian, Muslim, ANTIFA, white supremacist, vegan, or Guy Fieri fan.
A centrist observes the folly of ideologues labeling all their counterparts as sheep or conformists. It’s a person who face-palms while screaming into the wind, “Everyone who disagrees with you isn’t Hitler!”
I believe it was the great Jeff Foxworthy who said: “If you get called a liberal by conservatives, and a conservative by liberals… You might be a centrist.” Wait, Jeff Foxworthy didn’t say that, I did. Also Jeff Foxworthy isn’t really that great.
But I often do get into heated debates with people on both the right and the left. This tells me I’m doing something correctly. This tells me that critical thinking and questioning everything is the healthiest route I could choose. Even if it means arguing with everyone.
Centrism will never be for everyone. But in these days of polarized people, I wish it were for more of us. Ideology can be a dangerous thing if you allow it to dictate your decisions before you’ve really weighed them with diligence. There are no absolute truths in any one philosophy.
And if you really do consider yourself part of a collective middle, then ask yourself: when was the last time I argued with someone from my own political party? Because no one should ever agree with anyone on everything.
If you do, check your body for wool.