I am trying to understand how to you balance ideology with pragmatism. Brooks speaks to this issue in a way this morning:
The Two Moons By DAVID BROOKS Published: November 21, 2011 In 1951, Samuel Lubell invented the concept of the political solar system. At any moment, he wrote, there is a Sun Party (the majority party, which drives the agenda) and a Moon Party (the minority party, which shines by reflecting the solar rays). David Brooks During Franklin Roosevelt’s era, Democrats were the Sun Party. During Ronald Reagan’s, Republicans were. Then, between 1996 and 2004, the two parties were tied. We lived in a 50-50 nation in which the overall party vote totals barely budged five elections in a row. It seemed then that we were in a moment of transition, waiting for the next Sun Party to emerge. But something strange happened. No party took the lead. According to data today, both parties have become minority parties simultaneously. We are living in the era of two moons and no sun. It used to be that the parties were on a seesaw: If the ratings of one dropped, then the ratings of the other rose. But now the two parties have record-low approval ratings together. Neither party has been able to rally the country behind its vision of government. Ronald Brownstein summarized the underlying typography recently in The National Journal: “In Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor polls over the past two years, up to 40 percent of Americans have consistently expressed support for the conservative view that government is more the problem than the solution for the nation’s challenges; about another 30 percent have backed the Democratic view that government must take an active role in the economy; and the remaining 30 percent are agnostic. They are open to government activism in theory but skeptical it will help them in practice.” In these circumstances, both parties have developed minority mentalities. The Republicans feel oppressed by the cultural establishment, and Democrats feel oppressed by the corporate establishment. They embrace the mental habits that have always been adopted by those who feel themselves resisting the onslaught of a dominant culture. Their main fear is that they will lose their identity and cohesion if their members compromise with the larger world. They erect clear and rigid boundaries separating themselves from their enemies. In a hostile world, they erect rules and pledges and become hypervigilant about deviationism. They are more interested in protecting their special interests than converting outsiders. They slowly encase themselves in an epistemic cocoon. The Democrat and Republican parties used to contain serious internal debates — between moderate and conservative Republicans, between New Democrats and liberals. Neither party does now. The Democratic and Republican parties used to promote skilled coalition builders. Now the American parties have come to resemble the ideologically coherent European ones. The Democrats talk and look like a conventional liberal party (some liberals, who represent, at most, 30 percent of the country, are disappointed because President Obama hasn’t ushered in a Huffington Post paradise). Meanwhile, many Republicans flock to Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich because they are more interested in having a leader who can take on the mainstream news media than in having one who can plausibly govern. Grover Norquist’s tax pledge isn’t really about public policy; it’s a chastity belt Republican politicians wear to show that they haven’t been defiled by the Washington culture. The era of the two moons is a volatile era. Independent voters are trapped in a cycle of sour rejectionism — voting against whichever of the two options they dislike most at the moment. The shift between the 2008 election, when voters rejected Republicans, and the 2010 election, when voters rejected Democrats, was as big as any shift in recent history. Sometimes voters even reject both parties on the same day. In Ohio last month, for example, voters rejected the main fiscal policy of the Republican governor. On the same ballot, by 31 points, they rejected health care reform, the main initiative of their Democratic president. In policy terms, the era of the two moons is an era of stagnation. Each party is too weak to push its own agenda and too encased by its own cocoon to agree to a hybrid. The supercommittee failed for this reason. Members of the supercommittee actually took some brave steps outside party orthodoxy (Republicans embraced progressive tax increases, Democrats flirted with spending cuts), but these were baby steps, insufficient to change the alignment. In normal circumstances, minority parties suffer a series of electoral defeats and then they modernize. But in the era of the two moons, the parties enjoy periodic election victories they don’t deserve, which only re-enforce their worst habits. So it’s hard to see how we get out of this, unless some third force emerges, which wedges itself into one of the two parties, or unless we have a devastating fiscal crisis — a brutal cleansing flood, after which the sun will shine again. ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 7:39 AM Subject: [RC] [ RC ] How I became a radical centrist and why you should also bec... Never have heard that question before. Not sure how best to answer, but utilitarianism is the principle of greatest good for greatest number and of the practical. Radical Centrism certainly can accept this viewpoint in principle but not at the expense of sacrifice of individual rights. But utilitarian philosophy says nothing about political choices among competing views, nor the best ways to resolve the dilemma of favoring both ( on different issues ) liberal and conservative ideas, plus sometimes "other." RC has a pragmatic dimension ( as in the philosophy of Pragmatism ), solutions must be practical or what good are they ? Probably this theme could be explored in some depth but as a general overview. Why the question ? Billy ------------------------------------------------------- Sorry if this is an old question. What is the difference between radical centrism and utilitarianism? Kevin Note : One correction to the article, Matt Miller did not invent the phrase "Radical Centrist." No-one can say for sure who did. It was used in a non-modern sense of Wallace in 1968 but some historians date the idea, at least in a germinal sense, to the 1920s, just after WWI. The phrase had a set of meanings similar to how we use the terminology now in Marilyn Ferguson's Aquarian Conspiracy of 1980. Really contemporary usage dates to the late 1990s and became more-or-less clearly defined just before RC.org was started in 2004. Billy ----------------------------------------------------------- Views Hound How I became a radical centrist and why you should also become one I explain my unexpected and strange transformation from a right-wing ideologue to a passionate centrist. Please join us—you have nothing to lose but your dogma. By Jack Davis - Sunday 30 Oct 2011 The Case for Centrism I’ve followed politics for years, but for most of them, I was a dogmatic right-winger. This was not the product of deep thinking; it was probably the natural result of growing up in a conservative household. My parents hated liberals and leftists; they sincerely thought these people were out to destroy America. For most of my life I took a right-wing party line, going as far to join the John Birch Society! I never seriously examined my ideology. I knew that the people on the other side were ignorant and had the worst intentions; there was no point in talking to them. Incredibly, a baseball (really) book radically changed my thinking. I had been a fan of a writer named Bill James since I was in high school, many years ago. He wrote a book in 1994 called What Happened to the Hall of Fame, and I decided to check it out. Unexpectedly, he discusses his political beliefs on page 28. After reading this page, my thinking changed forever (really). He explained eloquently why he was a moderate. These are the five sentences that changed my ideology forver: It is my observation, listening to political partisans, that there is some truth in what everybody says, but that they will all distort the truth to defend their position.(emphasis added). In my judgment, everyone on the political landscape,from Rush Limbaugh to Howard Metzenbaum (former liberal Senator from Ohio) is right about some things; I will listen to any of them and think that there is some truth in what he or she is saying. But at the same time, they all B.S. They all wear blinders. They say things they know or should know are not true, but which they feel they must say to defend the extreme positions they have taken. (emphasis added). I thought about this for a few moments and realized he was exactly right. My thinking had been shallow and dogmatic. I had been certain about things I could not be certain about. I started reading books and magazines that I would never have looked at before— leftist magazines like Mother Jones, The Nation, and The Progressive., among others. After reading these magazines, I realized James was 100% correct. The leftist writing I suddenly followed had some legitimate points that I had never before considered. To my family’s horror, I embraced (and still do) many items on the leftist agenda. National health insurance was no longer evil “socialized medicine,” it was the moral and sensible thing to do. The pro-choice side of the abortion debate really did have some merit, and campaign finance reform was absolutely necessary to control corporate power. At the same time, I also realized much of the leftist ideology was wrong. I could not justify racial preferences, abortion on demand, and very high tax rates, among other things. When I talked to liberals, I saw the same hostility and closed-mindedness I had seen on the right. I noticed many leftists didn’t even attempt to address conservative arguments —they simply impugned the motives of the other side: opponents of affirmative action or open immigration were racists, pro-lifers were making “war on women,” etc.. It’s been almost ten years since I read James' argument and I am as firmly centrist today as ever. The phrase “radical centrist,” a term coined by a centrist pundit named Matt Miller, is the perfect label for me. I passionately oppose rigid ideology. It’s very hard for me to understand how anyone can be an ideologue, whether right or left. Every time I hear a right wing ideologue, e.g. Ann Coultertrade insults with a leftist ideologue, e.g. Keith Olbermann, the same thought comes to my head: You’re both right. Your opponent is ignorant, tendentious, and misguided—and so are you. -- Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
