Wow, author doesn’t know what centrism OR horseshoe theory are, lol.
Hint: Neither of them are accurately described as “both sides are equally bad”.
I’m reminded of a Christian fundamentalist depicting an atheist being gotcha’d by being asked where his morality comes from if there’s no God, and literally having a “checkmate atheists” moment over it. Equally smugly dumb.
Wtf? We know where morality comes from. It’s about acting with others as you want them to act with you. Because as social animals, if we didn’t have morals, our kind would just die. I like Kant’s way to define something as moral or not: Ask yourself “What if everyone did this?” and if the result is bad, you will easily understand why it’s in everyone’s interest to collectively prevent it instead of trying to individually cheat
The part where they are similar is that both the far left and far right are willing to use authoritarian violence to achieve their goals. And the representation of the left as just “oppression is bad” is overly simplistic. They too believe in oppression of particular groups (see oppression of academics/scientists/bourgeoise/etc in almost all communist take-overs). Centrists can also have very differing views as well but the reason they are located where they are on the horseshoe is because they would rather problems be solved with slow beauraucracy/well-defined protocols and not revolution or political violence.
This is not an admonishment or support for any of these things from me personally. I personally think a little revolution is needed once in a while. Just pointing out in more detail the idea behind horseshoe theory.
I just think if we long term want to build a stable system that works for everybody we can’t just keep rerolling dice hoping a revolution would magically fix it all. I like my politics boring if it gets the job done and keeps improving and iterating on a better system
I like my politics boring if it gets the job done and keeps improving and iterating on a better system.
Absolutely.
Of course, I try to stay aware that my ability to wait patiently for a better world is, in itself, a privilege.
There’s wisdom in carefully iterating forward.
But billionaires also need something to help them focus on cooperation toward a better world. They need to believe in some non-zero chance that the fate of some person they stepped on could randomly suddenly become their own fate.
I don’t have answers for how that happens, but history says it’s almost never been pleasant for anyone concerned.
True. I think for the most part, keeping things boring is best but sometimes a country/government/culture rots to the point that the only way for it to correct itself is through some bloody action of some kind. That can be a revolution started by its own people, a civil war, or a war that perhaps the country itself starts but then loses (see Germany and WWII). I think the US is slowly making its way to that point as the safeguards of democracy are continuously being eroded by Republicans and conservatives and there will be a point of no return.
You don’t understand what centrism is. There is no such thing as a single “centrist position”.
Centrism defines a collective of views; it describes a set of points of view that lie on both ‘wings’, such that it’s not really accurate to label that person as either.
Defining centrism the way you just did is kind of like defining bisexuality as being attracted only to a person who is a 50/50 mixture of male/female (which of course doesn’t actually exist), instead of someone who is capable of being attracted to males and females. And just how most bi people have a preference ‘lean’ toward one sex over the other, centrists also tend to ‘lean’, based on where the lion’s share of their values sit.
Basically, anyone who describes themselves as “left/right leaning” is a centrist, specifically who has volunteered a bit more specificity about their set of values.
The Democrats are centrists. If you want the far-left perspective, look around Lemmy for a bit.
That’s the only real difference between the far right and the far left: The far right has a substantial presence in major western governments while the far left (fortunately) doesn’t.
Centrism does not mean coming up with a middle-ground solution for all issues. It could be taking a left-leaning stance on one issue, and right-leaning on another.
Wow, author doesn’t know what centrism OR horseshoe theory are, lol.
Hint: Neither of them are accurately described as “both sides are equally bad”.
I’m reminded of a Christian fundamentalist depicting an atheist being gotcha’d by being asked where his morality comes from if there’s no God, and literally having a “checkmate atheists” moment over it. Equally smugly dumb.
Wtf? We know where morality comes from. It’s about acting with others as you want them to act with you. Because as social animals, if we didn’t have morals, our kind would just die. I like Kant’s way to define something as moral or not: Ask yourself “What if everyone did this?” and if the result is bad, you will easily understand why it’s in everyone’s interest to collectively prevent it instead of trying to individually cheat
“In popular discourse, the horseshoe theory asserts that advocates of the far-left and the far-right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear continuum of the political spectrum, closely resemble each other, analogous to the way that the opposite ends of a horseshoe are close together”
What’d they get wrong, exactly?
The part where they are similar is that both the far left and far right are willing to use authoritarian violence to achieve their goals. And the representation of the left as just “oppression is bad” is overly simplistic. They too believe in oppression of particular groups (see oppression of academics/scientists/bourgeoise/etc in almost all communist take-overs). Centrists can also have very differing views as well but the reason they are located where they are on the horseshoe is because they would rather problems be solved with slow beauraucracy/well-defined protocols and not revolution or political violence.
This is not an admonishment or support for any of these things from me personally. I personally think a little revolution is needed once in a while. Just pointing out in more detail the idea behind horseshoe theory.
I just think if we long term want to build a stable system that works for everybody we can’t just keep rerolling dice hoping a revolution would magically fix it all. I like my politics boring if it gets the job done and keeps improving and iterating on a better system
Absolutely.
Of course, I try to stay aware that my ability to wait patiently for a better world is, in itself, a privilege.
There’s wisdom in carefully iterating forward.
But billionaires also need something to help them focus on cooperation toward a better world. They need to believe in some non-zero chance that the fate of some person they stepped on could randomly suddenly become their own fate.
I don’t have answers for how that happens, but history says it’s almost never been pleasant for anyone concerned.
I don’t know if we can all do better. I hope so.
True. I think for the most part, keeping things boring is best but sometimes a country/government/culture rots to the point that the only way for it to correct itself is through some bloody action of some kind. That can be a revolution started by its own people, a civil war, or a war that perhaps the country itself starts but then loses (see Germany and WWII). I think the US is slowly making its way to that point as the safeguards of democracy are continuously being eroded by Republicans and conservatives and there will be a point of no return.
That US politics has screwed up definitions of left and right, making the cartoon meaningless when applied to it.
Okay, I’m Canadian, but let’s play ball:
Republicans (right-wing) want to ban abortion.
Democrats (*left-wing) want to not ban abortion.
What’s the Centrist solution here? Is it… some bans on abortion by any chance?
(*I’m aware they’re basically right-of-centre at this point, but not wanting to ban abortion is a ‘left’ stance.)
You don’t understand what centrism is. There is no such thing as a single “centrist position”.
Centrism defines a collective of views; it describes a set of points of view that lie on both ‘wings’, such that it’s not really accurate to label that person as either.
Defining centrism the way you just did is kind of like defining bisexuality as being attracted only to a person who is a 50/50 mixture of male/female (which of course doesn’t actually exist), instead of someone who is capable of being attracted to males and females. And just how most bi people have a preference ‘lean’ toward one sex over the other, centrists also tend to ‘lean’, based on where the lion’s share of their values sit.
Basically, anyone who describes themselves as “left/right leaning” is a centrist, specifically who has volunteered a bit more specificity about their set of values.
The Democrats are centrists. If you want the far-left perspective, look around Lemmy for a bit.
That’s the only real difference between the far right and the far left: The far right has a substantial presence in major western governments while the far left (fortunately) doesn’t.
Centrism does not mean coming up with a middle-ground solution for all issues. It could be taking a left-leaning stance on one issue, and right-leaning on another.
Exactly: freedom for some, genocide for others.
Are they far left? No? Then it doesn’t apply to the horseshoe theory since it doesn’t become closer aligned again