“or as System Of A Down once so elegantly put it “You can’t afford to be neutral on a moving train.””

I’m not neutral.

I’m also not on a train.

I have opinions. Being a centrist means that your political alignment falls in or near the center. It doesn’t mean that on every point you take a neutral stance, it doesn’t mean that in every argument you go “We must find the middle ground”. It means that you’ve got political opinions, possibly from varying places on both sides, possibly mostly from one side, possibly entirely in the middle, whatever - but overall you’re in, or very close to, the middle.

“And that’s what it often boils down to is simply avoiding commitment to a perspective to avoid criticism or pissing people off”

I’m committed to certain things and not to others. I hold certain beliefs strongly, but others less so. I get criticized and piss people off all the time… and I never hold a political opinion just because I think it won’t piss people off.

“or just to appear more diplomatic and reasonable”

Being diplomatic and reasonable are good traits for any kind of leader that has a population with a diverse array of political opinions. It’s not why I hold the positions and opinions I hold, but it’s not a bad trait to have.

“If you don’t piss anyone off chances are you’re not really saying anything worthwhile”

That’s literally not true, even in political discourse. The amount of people it pisses off doesn’t determine the value of what you’re saying. “Kill all fags!” will piss off people a lot more than “We should open a charity-funded homeless shelter in this city to decrease the number of people sleeping on the street”, yet the second one is a lot more worthwhile.

“I’m a firm believer in the if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything saying”

And I’m a firm believer in the “You can say I’m just a fool that stands for nothing, well to that I say you’re a cunt” saying.

I do stand for things. I have my morals and ethics and beliefs and opinions, I’m willing to change on most things if convinced effectively that I’m wrong because I’m not an idiot. The difference is that I don’t form my opinions by going “Which side has some points I like? Okay I’m with them now.” I form my opinions on topics and situations individually.

Take gay marriage, I don’t go “Well I’m a centrist so I guess they maybe have the right to marry idk” - I reviewed the arguments and opinions from both sides and decided that gay people should have the right to marry, but individual churches should not be forced to do a wedding if they’re not comfortable with it (that said, I’m not a fan of the status quo that to validate your relationship and give yourselves certain powers as a couple the government and sometimes religion have to be allowed to stick their noses in it and set up rules for your relationship, but that is a long winded rant about polyamory and the legal rights of couples and the mess that is divorce and the abuses men face in divorce proceedings and this isn’t the time or place). I stand for things, I just stand for things that I’ve decided to stand for and not the things that whatever club I’ve joined tells me to stand for.

That’s kinda why I’ve thought I’d like to call myself an eclectic centrist since I first heard that, but unfortunately I rarely see it used.

“But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist”

We fundamentally differ here - I don’t view loyalty and revolution as necessarily admirable or good things. I’m loyal to myself, I’m loyal to my loved ones, I’m not loyal to an ideology. I respect that other people have different perspectives than me that leads them to different political opinions, and I think that sometimes when you’re exposed to new opinions and new facts you can learn a thing or two that influences (be it by changing or strengthening) your own opinion.

“And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything”

You know that there are various branches and schools of thought in philosophy in regards to skepticism, right? I mean, one guy was like “You can’t truly know anything” and another guy was like “You can’t truly know that you can’t truly know anything” and another guy was like “Dude am I a brain in a vat?” and the first guy was like “Damn this weed is good” and the second guy was like “You can’t truly know that” and that’s basically how philosophical skepticism works.

But when it comes to more practical skepticism - ie that which you apply to ideas presented to you, critical thinking, the scientific method, questioning, etc - we’re not talking about the philosophical “doubt everything no matter what”, we’re talking about forming our ideas based on a critical analysis of situations, evidence, etc. We can most definitely denounce things - we just ensure that we have actually disproven the thing before doing so. It’s the difference between “Creationism is fuckin’ stupid” and “Creationism is incorrect and here are the fossils, evidence of the earth’s age, and the evolutionary predecessors to humans, which all helps to prove it incorrect”.

“For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind”

Cats are not able to fly.

And now I’m denouncing the statement that all denouncings have a moral doctrine. I can declare something wrong without meaning that it’s morally wrong and I’m morally right, because again, my politics are informed by assessing the situation and weighing up what is most practical, least harmful, and will allow us to make positive progress in various fields and in quality of life.

“As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time”

That’s… That’s existential nihilism not philosophical skepticism. Fuck this guy.

A nihilist can simultaneously hold the view that life holds no meaning and that eventually all our accomplishments will be for naught when we’re all dead and our monuments have crumbled, and the view that the people fighting in wars are alive and feeling and deserve their chance to enjoy what little time we have instead of spending it in a horrifying place and then having it cut short. Those aren’t contradictory views.

“A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself”

Pessimism and nihilism are not skepticism. This is supposed to be a quote bitching about modern skeptics and centrists, yet he’s talking about completely different philosophical opinions and political/moral points that aren’t centrist points and can be held by either side. If this quote is the caliber of political discourse dictating the life of the peasant, then he should definitely kill himself.

“The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts”

Not all animals need to be treated the same. Dogs require lots of attention and exercise, hamsters just wish you’d leave them alone to die, fish need to be in water, and people need mental stimuli, dignity, and various social aspects fulfilled that other animals don’t. It’s not contradictory to say “Humans are animals, but keeping one in a cage in your bedroom isn’t a very nice thing to do… unless they’re into that”.

You’re citing a quote you like and it’s whole premise is “Look at these two not contradictory things neither of which has anything to do with skepticism, isn’t skepticism bad” - I mean, it’s pretty obvious the dude that said this wasn’t skeptical at all. Except of skepticism… he was very skeptical about being skeptical.

“In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines”

If you can prove yourself wrong, then you were wrong, and you should amend your initial theory. Being able to look at your own ideas critically is not a bad thing.

“Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything”

That’s not how rights or rebellion works. If the government becomes tyrannical nobody’s going to sit there with a checklist going “Says here, Mr Brown, that you once tweeted “Question everything”, so I’m afraid that we’ll be handing you over to the supreme overlords now - the militia doesn’t need people like you in it.“

“And that’s not to say I advocate blind devotion to a group or anything. You just need a foundation or you offer nothing of substance”

I’m skeptical of that claim. Why do I need a foundation? What makes you think that I don’t have one? What makes you think that someone with a strong moral foundation can’t ultimately fall in the center?

“Maybe the reason they avoid conflict is because they see how unproductive it is and how bloody it is historically”

We don’t necessarily avoid conflict. I debate, I just try to make my debates productive, rather than argumentative. We’re centrists not pacifists - why is everyone in this post confusing so many philosophical and political stances for each other?

“Maybe the exposure to the radicalism of both sides on the hellsite has driven them mad”

I was mad long before I came here.

“Centrism derives itself from the false idea that both sides of the political aisle are right about some things and therefore taking the middle ground is the better option”

No. It’s the idea that the individual identifying as a centrist has found ideas that they they agree with on both sides, or ideas that fall between or are shared by both sides that they agree with, and thus they align with neither side and fall somewhere in between. As it’s a political opinion, they also usually believe that their ideas would be the best way to govern and would be best for others. You disagree with them on that point, but that doesn’t necessarily make their idea “false” or wrong, it just means that you disagree politically.

“There is virtually no leftist idea that works or that does not tear apart the very foundation of a society”

“I’m right and those who disagree with me are wrong and because you think you can see virtue in both of our sides you are wrong and also society will fall apart if you don’t side with me right now.”

“To compromise is essentially saying “Okay we’re going to take some of your objectively bad ideas and some of this guy’s better ideas, and implement all of them.””

“You are wrong and bad if you don’t agree with me, I know everything about the world and there is absolutely no way that I am wrong about what is right on any topic in any way no matter what.”

Centrists disagree with you that all of the other side’s ideas are bad and disagree that all of yours are good. They’re not gonna be convinced otherwise by you strawmanning centrists and yelling about how one side has to be the one that’s correct on everything, they’re gonna be convinced otherwise if you can actually prove to them that you’re right and the other side is wrong on the topics that they disagree with you on.

“And what you end up with ends up being shit because the bad ideas of the Left are actively detrimental to the good ideas of the Right”

Except nations that have had a mixture of left and right politics guiding them are the most free and advanced nations in the world… Nations that go too far one way or the other tend to kill a bunch of people then fall apart.

“it’s also not possible when talking about diametrically opposed perspectives. What is the compromise for example between kill all the jews and don’t kill the jews…kill half the jews?”

Centrism doesn’t mean “Take the middle ground on every issue”, like I’ve said - there isn’t a name for that because it’s such a ridiculous stance to hold, for the very reason you said, which is exactly why you’re using it as a strawman for what centrists are.

Some centrists may want to look into why one side wants to kill the Jews, find out what caused such a mentality, and find a better solution (ie if financial instability in the country is being preyed on by ideologues and blamed on the Jewish people, we would debate and disprove what they say, we would educate people, and we would find other solutions to the financial instability). But to say that “centrist” means “picks the center between any two randomly generated ideas” is nonsense. If the right wanted to spend £1b on education, and the left £3b, I wouldn’t necessarily just go £2b sounds good. And if the right then said “Actually £2b sounds good” and the left went “Fuck you £6b”, I wouldn’t just change my position to £4b so I was still in the middle.

And if the right goes “This centrist strawman is true” and the left goes “Yes it is”, it’s still not true.

Centrists do not necessarily believe that compromise in each individual topic is the solution to each and every problem, they may value compromise overall or think that it’s necessary on some topics, but they have opinions on issues and they have their own morals, it’s just that when our opinions are all added up and averaged out we are very near or in the center.

“killing half the jews is the middle ground between opposing perspectives…but is still as wrong as one of the extremes”

I mean, it’s hella wrong, don’t get me wrong, fucked up and monstrous - but is killing one person as bad as killing two people (in the exact same way as the first)?

“Halfway between truth and a lie is still a lie”

When you were writing this out and thinking about how absurd it is to just compromise on every issue without taking evidence or your own personal morals into account, did you not stop to think “This is so absurd that nobody could actually hold this stance… hey, maybe nobody actually does hold this stance!”

“Also consider that extremism is entirely subjective, we’re living in a time where anything right of progressive socialism is deemed extremism”

‘Kay, but we also live in a world where the people who go too far to the right or too far to the left or too far authoritarian or too far libertarian start killing people and/or advocating for or even putting into place systems and legislation that would/do lead to people’s deaths, aka fuckin’ killing people. I don’t gotta define extremism to know that I disagree when I hear a group of people say that people will just have to die in their system (At 20:42 https://youtu.be/qdPoiFcm3Uw if you want proof), and to know that their ideology, when taken to an extreme or not questioned and influenced by differing viewpoints, becomes dangerous.

“Principles that our society were founded on like free markets are deemed extreme by some.”

Sometimes the people who believe in free markets have extreme ideas, sometimes even extreme ideas about free markets, and sometimes they do not - sometimes they are just dubbed extremists by extremists from the opposing side.

“The centre is meaningless if anyone can decide where the center is.”

You’re exaggerating the extent to which the conversation is controlled by perspective alone - we have political compass tests and pretty established views on where certain opinions fall on the spectrum, and how far to the right or left, up or down, those opinions are.

Again, being a centrist doesn’t mean you pick the middle ground between any two ideas you hear, it means that your overall political opinion falls somewhere in the center. It’s a spectrum, it’s not ine group who all agree vs another group who all agree vs some people in the middle going “Lets just hug it out!” - there are people on the right who hold a couple of opinions from the left, people on the left who hold a couple of opinions from the right, people on the right who have similar opinions but to a lesser degree, and the same on the left. For instance, anti-abortion people who believe that it’s acceptable in certain cases, like for the health of the mother or in incest or rape, but not others vs anti-abortion people who believe it’s never acceptable.

Your entire argument can be summed up with “strawmen and getting philosophical schools of thought jumbled up”.

~ Vape