Can people be centrist in this day and age?

[AF 802]

I hear people all the time, shitpost form or not, say how centrism is dead or was never a thing, and it got me to wondering if y'all think centrism was ever a thing, and if it was, can people be truly centrist? Is it all just extremism now, or can we maintain a little bit of both ends without being labeled either side?

 

[IV 445]

I was hoping you had another article that concluded with “no you can’t fish hook theory and you’re a Nazi if you disagree.”

 

[Snuckening]

centrism = being uninformed and/or uninterested in politics... they basically just made a massive mess of things that is just now starting to really unfold.

Yeah, not like Franco's Spain, Mao's China, Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Stalinism etc; those were paradigms of succesful, functional, stable governments that totes didn't "make a mess of things".

Centrism is objectively the most successful ideology at producing lasting, stable, relatively free, wealthy societies in the modern world, by an incredibly huge margin. The only other contender even in the race is communist China, and if you want to argue that's more successful than the centrism of Europe, Nth America, Australia, etc, have at it.

Ideologues, left, right, or just plain rctarded, SJW anarcho-syndacalists, an-caps, ethno-nationalists; whatever variety of utopian LARPery, always use the same logic to attack current society. "Current society has X Y Z problems. Therefore my ideology is totes superior to current society, because we can safely assume my (completely-untested/already-failed) ideology's society would have zero problems (btw plz just ignore that country which we already fucked up, or the fact our present organizations already 100% prove that we couldn't organize a grope in a whorehouse and only appeal to dysfunctional saddo malcontents looking for a scapegoat for their failed lives kthx)".

There's a reason why 99% of cows on KF who care about politics are ideologues for one rctarded never-gonna-happen ism or another.

 

[RadicalCentrist]

y'all think centrism was ever a thing, and if it was, can people be truly centrist?

no

centrism claimed by a non-politician = uninformed and/or uninterested in politics

>making broad assumptions over terms that only have meaning in relative proportions

 

[TenMilesWide]

The political spectrum is a meme, so no.

 

[Crunchy Leaf]

nobody's a centrist on every single issue so, no

can you be centrist on some things, sure

 

[Big moth tiddies]

nobody's a centrist on every single issue so, no

can you be centrist on some things, sure

I think in this context it means people whose views altogether land them in the middle. Me for example, I am pro-choice, but I am also a christian. (not a fucking fundie before you ask) People who can see both sides and try to reach a middle ground are generally centrists.

Sadly nowadays, it's becoming more and more rare as people try to crowbar people into boxes rather than thinking that someone might have nuance in their political views rather than go, "I'm a christian, therefore I am always pro-life, I always vote republican, and guns are vital to everyone and we should give them to toddlers."

I blame it on social media and the internet which allows any fucking ree-ree to be heard, whereas in real life you'd have to hear them stutter through a multi-syllabic word and know right away that they shouldn't have dodged those coathangers.

TL;DR: Centrists exist, but you'll never know about them because they'll immediately be given a label and throw into a box thanks to hyper-partisan politics on the internet. Or they'll be called a cuck/nazi. That's what usually happens.

 

[Richardo Retardo]

I think "Centrist" is a disingenuous term tbh. What people mean by it is Western Liberal (in the greater political sense not the pop politics sense) which is just as much of an "Utopian" ideology as Communism, Anarchism, Fascism, Monarchism, Etcism. Not to sound too much like a conspiracy nut or post-modernist, but the only reason people think that they are in the centre or have "common sense" views is because they've grown up in a world dominated by Western Liberalism, undergone a Western Liberal education, and been inundated by media built on Western Liberal axioms for their entire life. This isn't to say that Liberalism is inherently "bad" or any of the other is inherently "good" or to make any type of qualitative judgment; however, anyone who thinks they're a morally/ideologically neutral entity while holding strong political positions of any kind is either woefully under read in regards to political theory, a genuine ideologue, or just being dishonest.

 

[Sir Auroras]

Sure. I think of myself as a centrist because I don't think the left nor the right are completely right or wrong. They all have flaws and benefits to them.

But in some matters I might side left or right. Doesn't mean I'm married to any one party.

 

[VinRhe0]

Sure. I think of myself as a centrist because I don't think the left nor the right are completely right or wrong. They all have flaws and benefits to them.

But in some matters I might side left or right. Doesn't mean I'm married to any one party.

I agree with this. I've been NPA since I've been able to vote. Some topics i'll go left while others i'll go right. It's also amusing watching both parties sperg out over wacky shit.

 

[Woke Blue Muttlema]

It's incredibly hard to be a centrist right now but when you put someone through the test to prove lining its quite obvious most of us are centrist even though we might be a little to much in one end.
For example for the Midterms hype I did a test that qualifies me as a socialist libertarian, pretty much the most mainstream brand of centrism.

Many people (extremist) fail to see that being centrist most of the times equates to keeping a balanced and uncompromised vision of things. This doesn't mean centrist are the shit but between that and being exceptional,...

 

[Snuckening]

well yeah, obviously maos china, stalins ussr and hitlers germany were complete catastrophes for the general population, but holding them up as proof that nothing except liberal democracy can ever function seems disingenuous to me when there are plenty of examples throughout history of stable and (more or less) successful societies that were nothing like modern liberal democracies. some examples would be imperial japan, the portuguese estado novo, the pre ww1 german empire, the saudi monarchy, and even austria for much of its pre 20th century history.

So you've got 6 super-specific countries, all but one of which relied on pre-industrial , pre-technological economies incomparable to the modern West, and the only one that was successful and stable enough to survive to this day is the super-restrictive theocracy who's economy produces nothing, which can only exist because they fluked on insane oil wealth at the exact right time in history?

Political systems don't die for no reason. If a political system died 40 years ago, that means it was a bad ideology, at least in terms of dealing with the modern world. Just because something worked 100 years ago, doesn't suggest it'd work now- tech has massively changed society, and you can't put the technological toothpaste back in the tube. If a system failed 100 years ago because it couldn't hack the change from agricultural to industrial, it means it wouldn't work in the modern West (unless you drop a nuke, and/or wind back everyone's standard of living to the 18th c or something)

It's not an accident that literally every country in [current year] that is stable, with a decent economy, relatively wealthy, free population, etc is democratic, capitalist, liberal, secular, with mostly the same industries heavily regulated/socialized (prisons, police, healthcare, education, etc). It's because that's the best available system. It's not perfect- it's just better than every other system thats been tried.

 

[Commander Keen]

I thought I was a centrist, but conservatives kept calling me a liberal and liberals kept calling me a nazi. Don’t really know where I end up on the spectrum, someone link me an online quiz.

 

[m0rnutz]

You can be whatever you want, but you'll always be the scapegoat of bipartisan society.

 

[Black Waltz]

It doesn't matter, people are still going to think you're a horrible piece of shit.

 

[Tranhuviya]

So you've got 6 super-specific countries, all but one of which relied on pre-industrial , pre-technological economies incomparable to the modern West, and the only one that was successful and stable enough to survive to this day is the super-restrictive theocracy who's economy produces nothing, which can only exist because they fluked on insane oil wealth at the exact right time in history?

I hope you're not seriously referring to Imperial Japan in such a matter. In a period of less than 60 years, they went from feudalism to doing battle with the Russian fleet. And in a period of less than 50 afterwards, they had become an imperial power capable of producing things like the Hayabusa my avatar is sitting on.

 

[Snuckening]

I hope you're not seriously referring to Imperial Japan in such a matter. In a period of less than 60 years, they went from feudalism to doing battle with the Russian fleet. And in a period of less than 50 afterwards, they had become an imperial power capable of producing things like the Hayabusa my avatar is sitting on.

And jog my memory: how did that end again?

The closer Imperial Japan got to resembling 'centrist' modern Western liberal democracies, the more successfull it became, allowing the advances you mention. 20th c Imperial Japan was democratic, and relatively liberal (compared to its own past, at least) in the 20s and 30s. And despite some industrialization, it was still a heavily agricultural economy until the Empire fell.

Japan only peaked, and became the high-tech, fully industrialized juggernaut it is now, after US occupation, when Japan became a Western-style, non-authoritarian, secular democracy.

 

[Anonymousshitposter09]

Yes, centrists won world war 2 and then the cold war.

Like it not, liberalism ( as in capitalism + social liberties) is more solid than people give it credit for. The fact that they keep winning over and over again triggers both the commies and the fash (aka collectivist scum)

 

[J A N D E K]

I think in this context it means people whose views altogether land them in the middle. Me for example, I am pro-choice, but I am also a christian. (not a fucking fundie before you ask) People who can see both sides and try to reach a middle ground are generally centrists.

Sadly nowadays, it's becoming more and more rare as people try to crowbar people into boxes rather than thinking that someone might have nuance in their political views rather than go, "I'm a christian, therefore I am always pro-life, I always vote republican, and guns are vital to everyone and we should give them to toddlers."

I blame it on social media and the internet which allows any fucking ree-ree to be heard, whereas in real life you'd have to hear them stutter through a multi-syllabic word and know right away that they shouldn't have dodged those coathangers.

TL;DR: Centrists exist, but you'll never know about them because they'll immediately be given a label and throw into a box thanks to hyper-partisan politics on the internet. Or they'll be called a cuck/nazi. That's what usually happens.

Well said.

I feel the same way. I’d say I am a moderate. I have views that zig zag back and forth between the right and left depending on the issues, but mostly fall in the centre. I find the idealism of both the far left and alt right equally ridiculous.

 

[Idiotron]

If you're an individual with your own thoughts and feelings, you're never going to be either on the left or on the right because those are collective ideas.