The absolute, definitive guide to centrism and the political spectrum
In my last post 10 days ago, I wrote about why a new ‘centrist party’ would be doomed to fail. By coincidence, UK journalism twitter exploded on the subject shortly after it was published — probably because it’s the middle of August, and the alternative is making some asinine comment about Big Ben.
The pieces which appeared, however, rotated around two different phenomenon, revolving around two different contexts — the first, covering ‘centrists’ within the context of the Labour and Conservative parties; the second, covering ‘centrism’ as applied to UK politics as a whole (especially within the context of Brexit).
This dual-use of the term ‘centrist’ has caused some confusion as a result, which has shown itself in multiple ways — such as journalists declaring that ‘centrist’ has become the Left’s equivalent of the right wing insult ‘cuck’.
To unravel this, and to aid communication, let’s start with what we claim to know. Most people will accept the dichotomy of Left and Right — usually with qualifiers of varying usefulness, such as ‘centre-right’, ‘hard left’, ‘soft left’, and ‘far-right’. Most people will also accept that being ‘far-left’ and ‘far-right’ is Bad, even if they can’t quite pin down a useful definition for those terms. Some people will resort to moderation — demanding in themselves an adherence to only the ‘centre’ of this left-right spectrum.
These are all generally accepted terms, which makes it really quite impressive that none of them have any rigorous definition, applicable in every circumstance — something which has frustrated many people (myself included) upon trying to get up to speed in ‘politics’. Anarchists and Marxist-Leninists (followers of the state ideology of the former Soviet Union, and its offshoots) are united in being described as ‘far-left’, but their aims, methods, and beliefs are almost entirely dissimilar. A grading system to differentiate between far-, hard-, soft-, and centre-left doesn’t exist — nationalisation of rail is either Marxist drivel or centrist common sense, depending on who you talk to. That which is considered moderate or even ‘common sense’ today, centuries ago, would have been considered radical or unthinkable.
Unlike some, I would not consider Left and Right to be utterly useless: after all, while we might not be able to pin down rigorous definitions, it must have some use linguistically, as proven since Leftists can recognise other Leftists, with the same happening on the Right. Some claimed common unifiers for Left and Right respectively include:
- Communitarian/Individualistic values;
- More government intervention/Less government intervention;
- Idealism/Pragmatism;
- Less ‘freedom’/More ‘freedom’;
- Focus on ‘equality of outcome’/Focus on ‘equality of opportunity’;
- Pro-change/Pro-reform or status quo;
…among several other dichotomies of varying legitimacy.
Far from being clear cut, none of these are useful distinctions: the individualistic argument for socialism spans back centuries (including Oscar Wilde — yes, that one — putting forward the excellent ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’ in 1891), and One Nation Conservatives build themselves on this idea of communitarianism; Libertarian Socialists and Anarchists are opposed to the very idea of the state, nevermind intervention by it; all individuals necessarily adhere to ideologies, even if they do not or refuse to recognise it, and everyone thinks they act ‘pragmatically’ anyway; the concept of ‘freedom’ can be easily twisted by any group (a topic which I will cover in a future piece); the separation of opportunity and outcome is completely artificial as the two are mutually interdependent (and there are a number of right wing groups who are quite happy to not have equality of opportunity anyway); and, with condolences to Mr Burke, the distinction between ‘change’ and ‘reform’ is ultimately meaningless — not many ‘Western’ conservatives were opposed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, even if its radical transition to capitalism was extremely rapid.
One distinction does hold generally true — that of hierarchy. It is generally true that Leftists oppose hierarchy in society, whereas the Right generally support or handwave (‘it’s inevitable/can’t be fought’) hierarchy. It’s worth noting that this hierarchy can be caused by either ‘social’ issues or ‘economic’ issues (the two are dependent, leading to the term ‘socioeconomic’) — that is to say, the hierarchy can be caused by having more money than someone else, or because the state restricts the rights of certain groups of people. To an extent, we can consider this imperative to become more extreme towards the ends of the arbitrary Left/Right scale, where the far-left desire a moneyless, classless, and stateless egalitarian society, and the far-right desire a strict hierarchy, often with little mobility between strata (the Nazi racial hierarchies being a good example of this). We might also suggest that the methods of these extreme are more ‘radical’, often with them advocating revolution or insurrection.
The idea of the Left and Right being a spectrum starts to crack when we consider what it means to be ‘more Left’ or ‘more Right’ than someone else. After all, political ideologies are discreet (being build on unique thought and praxis), and do not fit into a neat continuum — which is ‘more left’ between Marxism-Leninism and Maoism, for example (it wouldn’t make sense for them to be ‘equally Left’, since they are distinct and unique ideologies advocating different actions for different reasons)? This problem has been compounded by online quizzes such as the political compass — which, from a list of questions, assigns readers a number 2d x,y coordinate (where x is ‘economic left/right’ and y is ‘authoritarian/libertarian’). Putting aside criticisms of the methodology (the political compass assigns authoritarianism score based on, among others, whether the reader has a belief in astrology): as political ideologies are discreet, qualitative entities, often with decades or even centuries of thought behind them, it simply does not make sense to assign a numerical value to them. It also commits the issue mentioned earlier, where ‘social’ and ‘economic’ factors cannot be arbitrarily separated — social oppression often manifests economically (as seen both historically — under states which practiced segregation or apartheid — and today, where phenomena such as redlining and the gender pay gap continue to plague ‘Western’ societies).
Having established a rule-of-thumb definition for Left and Right, we can now discuss centrism. The problem with centrism is simple — it relies on positioning itself based on an arbitrary point on an arbitrary continuous scale which, itself, is constantly in flux. As mentioned earlier, what was considered radical centuries ago — such as constitutional monarchy, or trade unionism — is now the status quo, or even conservative. Similarly, the aim of parties like the Liberal Democrats to position themselves ‘between’ the Conservatives and Labour, parties which constantly adjust their policy, has caused them to appear spineless and with no real root in any fundamental values or beliefs — which reflects itself at the ballot box.
Centrism as a label runs deeper than this, however. As a self-description, it carries a wealth of connotations: that the centrist is ‘above ideology’ (which is, to put it bluntly, naive), that the centrist ‘takes the best bits from ‘both sides’’ (which presupposes an ethical framework from which to choose ‘the best bits’, but failing to actually provide it), that the centrist values ‘compromise’ over ‘dogma’ (taking compromise to be inherently good in itself, despite not actually making clear what is being compromised on and in what direction), and being ‘rational’ (making the arrogant implication that individuals on both the Left and Right couldn’t have come to their beliefs in good faith and using reason, but had to be brainwashed to get there). Adding to this the desire in society to avoid ‘extremes’ like the far-left and far-right (a subject which would make this piece at least twice as long if elaborated on further), and it’s no wonder that 45% of the population identified as ‘centrist’ in 2016 ,— especially when it seems to be synonymous with ‘Good Person’!
Of course, with so many people identifying as ‘centrist’, parties feel a pressure to appeal to them (a pressure which I feel is at least partly misplaced — as I have commented on elsewhere) — selling their policies as ‘common sense’ or otherwise appealing to this arbitrary point. To an extent, they have achieved moderate success — of 8 ostensibly ‘radical’ polices (4 Left, 4 Right), a majority of the UK public support 7 of them. Of course, we do not — and probably should not — vote on individual policies, but for parties which can put together a coherent and consistent vision for the country.
This example of ‘centrists’ supporting ostensibly ‘radical’ policies demonstrates the major problem with centrism — besides its aforementioned dishonesty, without any fundamental values to anchor itself, centrists allow themselves to bend in the wind — policies are no longer gauged by means and ends, or by adherence to ethics, but instead by sheer force of personality. Which individual can convince you that they are in the centre, or their policy is centrist? That individual can have completely faulty reasoning and horribly unethical beliefs, but neither of those are necessary to convince someone that your policy is in the centre — which, of course, is always Good, because it’s in the middle.
So what’s the alternative to centrism? The alternative is simple, but unfortunately not particularly easy.
Political ideologies range from the moderate to the radical, but the ideologies themselves — including conservatism, but with the sole exception of centrism — do not take stances based on how ‘radical’ they are; they simply are. Social democracy — ‘capitalism with a human face’ — as a group of ideologies has evolved over the past decades, but it never staked itself as ‘radical’ or ‘moderate’, even as it drifted from being considered the former to the latter as time passed. Even while it is considered a ‘moderate’ ideology, it is its own thing; it has a rich history of thought spanning those decades, and a semblance of an ethical framework.
Instead of identifying with arbitrary points on an arbitrary scale, we should encourage each other to understand what the school of thought of each ideology proposes: while no ‘pure’ ideology (insofar as a ‘pure’ form of an ideology exists) will align perfectly with any given individuals, there are a limited number of sound ethical standpoints — meaning a limited number of ideologies to choose from. It is inevitable that even centrists will align more with one than another; they may, upon understanding the fundamental basics of that ideology, even be convinced by the arguments put foward, assuming they tackle the exercise in good faith.
Not all ideologies are created equal — we do not need more than a minute to disregard Nazism and its protegees as unacceptable, thinking of its genocidal history. Other ideologies, such as social democracy, are much more palatable to most people across any culture. Far from losing one’s individuality, learning about political ideologies and identifying with them can be a positive experience — exposing oneself to ethical and ‘practical’ arguments put forward by thinkers across the ages can build one’s own opinions and beliefs in a constructive way, without necessarily coming with the tribalism normally associated with ideology. But sitting in a position in constant motion and claiming to be the voice of reason is quite the opposite of that — it is self-centered, and it is centered on nothing. It sways about, claiming to be against extremism, while often holding ‘extreme’ beliefs. It stands, alone, and claims that throughout all of human history, we were simply deluded to be standing on the shoulders of giants.
You can’t be neutral on a moving train.
