The Case for a Moderate Politics Based on Values
Or, how to be critical of wokeness while not empowering the reactionary right
A recurrent theme of my work in recent years is to think about how we can critique the ‘woke left’, while not falling into the reactionary right pipeline, or at least be subconsciously ‘infected’ by the narrative being manufactured by the reactionary right. This has proven to be a challenge for many, for various reasons. Firstly, the reactionary right is a huge presence, and often intrudes into the libertarian and anti-woke discourses without being invited. Secondly, there’s the phenomenon of audience capture, where creators keep chasing the evolving tastes of their audiences, while these evolving tastes are being strongly influenced by the reactionary right narrative. This factor is especially important for those who do political commentary for a living. Finally, having been rejected from left-wing circles in the past, many woke-critical creators have an inherent fear of upsetting people who appear to be friendly to them, because they know what sudden ostracization by former friends feels like, and really don’t want to experience it all over again. Meanwhile, the reactionary right is a real power player, and they really have all the cards over woke-critical commentators who have the aforementioned fears. The challenge for us, I guess, is to stay true to our values, even in the face of all this.
One effective strategy is to simply declare ourselves ‘moderates’, and be committed to moderation in our views on everything. This would mean we are already rejecting both the far-left and the far-right, by definition. And as I have previously illustrated, there are indeed many valid justifications to pursue moderation as a good in and of itself. However, even moderation per se can have its limitations. When you’re in a place where the Overton Window is strongly affected by one force pulling things in a particular direction, you might try to stay ‘moderate’ by staying in the middle of the Overton Window, but still get pulled in the direction of the greater force at work. This, I think, is how ostensibly ‘moderate’ center-leftists ended up parroting woke-left talking points, or ostensibly ‘moderate’ anti-woke influencers begin parroting parts of the reactionary right’s narrative. The most extreme example of this phenomenon is the commonly talked about case where, someone who was a ‘moderate’ in the Third Reich would still have been an accomplice to genocide at the very least. And this is of course no good. A true moderate would need to be able to notice the pernicious influence of extreme ideas, and decisively oppose them, rather than accommodate them.
Which is why I think we need to embrace a form of ‘moderatism’ that is rooted in values that justify our moderation, rather than just looking to remain in the ‘center’ of whatever Overton Window we find ourselves in. Values like independent thinking, anti-tribalism, commitment to free speech, commitment to the objective truth, compassion and honesty generally work to keep our politics moderate. For example, commitment to independent thinking and rejection of tribalism would allow us to see where manufactured political narratives are biased and unfair. Commitment to the objective truth would mean investigating claims made by influencers rather than just accepting them because we ‘trust them’. Compassion would mean we truly listen to what everyone has to say in good faith, and seriously take into account concerns coming from different places. I think if we did these things consistently, they would always lead us to conclusions that are politically moderate. A political moderatism that is the product of being committed to these values, rather than just being committed to occupying the center of the Overton Window, would prevent us from being dragged towards the extremes in slow motion by pernicious forces trying to normalize extreme and inhumane ideas.
Originally published at https://taraella.substack.com.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Progressive Conservative Manifesto, the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series. She is also the author of her autobiography The TaraElla Story.
