The Sad but Certain Death Of Moderation
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There are people who say they drink alcohol in moderation. I’m not one of them, but there are people who say that. There are people who say they only eat supposedly less healthy foods in moderation. I’m not one of them either, but there are people who say that. Quite probably, they are being truthful and, indeed, do any number of things in moderation.
Personally I’m very much of the mind of authors Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, along with author Hunter S Thompson.
The former authors once wrote – “You live, you die. The bit in between is called life. Enjoy!” The latter wrote “Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely with a well preserved body, but to skid in sideways totally worn out shouting, “Holy shit! What a ride!”
Sounds good to me.
However, there are things that even I have always thought needed a sensible degree of moderation in them.
Politics for a start.
If you don’t have some moderation in there somewhere, you end up with Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin, not to mention the regimes of today such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and North Korea to name only a few.
I have no expertise regarding the USA, but, as far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be a hell of a lot of moderation going on there at the moment.
A lot of hatred certainly. Pro and anti-Trump supporters for a start. Not a lot of moderate discourse to be found around those two groups.
The same is happening in Blighty. All this ‘polarization’ stuff.
If you support Boris and his Conservatives you’re a right wing racist fascist. If you support Farages Brexit Party, you are that times two or three.
If you support Jeremy Corbyn and his opposition Labour Party, you are a far left Marxist at least. If you support the Liberal Democrats, you are an anti-democratic idiot at best.
It’s difficult for these disparate groups to actually hold a civilized conversation or debate. They seem far happier hurling abuse at each other on social media.
Well, it seems to be difficult for a lot of people and I find this both odd and alarming.
I have absolutely no idea how I have managed it, but I have – and, perhaps more to the point – have kept friends in all of these groups.
I have valued friends who adore Boris Johnson, hate Boris Johnson, adore Jeremy Corbyn and hate Jeremy Corbyn.
I have valued friends who are determined Brexiteers and determined remainers.
Only recently has that started to change. Not a lot, but a bit.
I have been ‘unfriended’ on Facebook by somebody who is, by any stretch of the imagination, politically quite far left. They adore Corbyn, have a university degree in political Marxism, (or something like that), and actively hate the fact that my wife and I own and live in a three bedroom house without allowing asylum seekers to live in our spare rooms.
Seriously. They think we should invite asylum seekers to sleep in our spare rooms. Oh well, it takes all sorts to make a world eh?
Politically, the entire United Kingdom is drifting towards being either hard left or hard right.
Anybody who tries to occupy anything approaching the center ground – or, if you will, hold more moderate opinions on anything, they get pilloried from both sides.
If you are moderate in any political view, you are the enemy of both sides.
Moderation is becoming increasingly unacceptable to more and more people.
This, to me, is quite frightening.
Most of us will hold views on certain things that qualify as moderate, left or right. Usually they will be center left or center right, rather than hard left or right.
Occasionally we may even hold views that are associated with more hard left or right. It depends on what it is we have the views on I suppose.
It’s the moderate center left or right views that are under fire the most – at least here in Blighty.
My ‘left’ friends, who are increasingly hardening to more hard left views, applaud my thoughts on the environment and the protection of it. My views on animal welfare are equally well received, not to mention my support for equality for all regardless of race, gender etc etc.
Unfortunately, as soon as I suggest that Boris Johnson might actually do well, I’m literally blacklisted from any conversation. Even if I acknowledge that I am fully aware I may be very wrong and, in time, he may prove a disaster it’s of no consequence. The fact that I have had the audacity to question their view is anathema to them.
The reverse is true of friends who are more to the right. My environmental, animal welfare and equality beliefs leave them aghast.
You are hard right or you are hard left. You can’t cherry pick. There are no good ideas from the ‘left’. There are no good ideas from the ‘right’.
The ‘left’ are evil. The ‘right’ are evil. There is no middle ground. There is no such thing as moderately agreeing with anything that does not conform to the ‘left’ or the ‘right’.
I’ve had plenty of contact with the ‘far left’ as a Union Rep at Heathrow Airport. They were a worry to put it mildly.
I’ve had plenty of contact with the ‘far right’ as a young man. The National Front, Combat 18. They were a worry to put it mildly.
That is, for me, my greatest fear. The almost zealot like belief of the political extremes. They don’t even see themselves as extreme. They believe they are right and everybody else is wrong.
No debate. No discussion. Abuse at anyone who differs, even mildly differs.
Until relatively recently, the political extremes were just that. Minority extremists. Their views didn’t really matter as there were not that many of them.
Now, they are everywhere. Now you aren’t allowed to hold moderate views.
The zealots are taking over and, whether left or right, it won’t end well.
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Gawd, I am so, so tired of all of this bullsh*t. If Trump is to be held in contempt for one thing by history it is that a person ancestry makes a difference in their place in the world. Just because he is fucked up in the head he wants everyone else to be miserable as well. He is a second generation American how does he get off talking about others going back to where ever. Hopefully, this all bites him in the butt the day after elections next year.
Many of us are surprised to see what their DNA reveals. For those who delight in calling me a person of color because I’m Jewish, there’s not much there to go on, since I’m 99.9% European with a .01% central Asian. People who see what they want to or need to to feel superior, know that they are inferior. We are all mixtures of course – all of us – and I find it fascinating.
Of course it’s a surprise to so many people of European origin to find out they have more “Middle Eastern genes” than I do. Happens fairly often. I love it when it happens to Nazis and it often does.
As I’ve said many times this country is much more of a melting pot than we give it credit for, at least in that when you move here, especially at a young age, you’re American, like it or not.
Another thing I’ve said a lot is that I hate racists but I hate that the term has been so manipulated that it’s being used against everyone. When I or my wife or my relatives are blatant or subtle targets, I sometimes write it off to ignorance and treat it that way, but when it’s malicious it’s another thing. Another thing I also keep saying is ‘speak softly and use hollow points.’
I think I’m going to do this DNA testing. I’m told I’m English-Scottish, but that comes from Mom who is English, and we all know what Moms can be like 🙂
If you’re tight with a buck you’re a Scot 🙂
LOL. I’m not, which reminds me, I have a cousin who owns an inn in Scotland, and when I was planning to visit for a few days he made clear I would have to pay like everyone else (it was Winter) I decided not to make the trip. There’s a limit to this shit.
That is way funny. I had exactly the opposite when I went there. Everyone wanted to pay for everything for me when I was visiting. Probably because I had paid for things when they were here and they were returning the kindness maybe???
I’m not doing that testing. I depended on the ‘rents telling me what my bio make up was since they knew the info when they adopted me. I suppose I could always reach out and get to know the bio family but I have no inclination to do that at all because they mean less than zero to me at all.
In Rootin’, Tootin’, gun totin’ Florida discretion may be the better part of valor.
I think more about meeting them in the dark than about in the middle of the street at high noon. But really, I’m as likely to be attacked by almost any political energizer bunny these days, beating on some other tin drum, than by Trumpers. Most of those can only grunt. Sometimes all I have to do is be white and old and male. In fact just calling myself male seems provocative to some unless I add “cisgendered” to the title. It’s a mad world full of mad people and all I have left is gallows humor.
On any given week I am told to go back to the middle eastern shithole that birthed me. Before it was once in a while now it’s almost a weekly thing. Oh and that middle eastern shithole that birthed me, California. I am a California gurl through and through, that just happens to have some color in her lineage due to the Puerto Rican/Indian ( dot not feather) make up of her bio parents. I also have a smidge of black and some type of European in there, way in the family background of earlier days. Like I said before I pass for a lot of groups but the racists here see my lovely olive skin and think they can tell me things. Hint…they cannot without me mouthing off.
I’m not talking about using moderation against dyed in the wool racists or Nazis – or, come to that, dyed in the wool extremists of any kind.
I’m talking about using moderation and civility in discussing whatever you’re discussing with other people who may hold a different viewpoint but are prepared to listen and, possibly, change their view or, possibly change yours.
More and more people seem to turning more and more zealot like in their beliefs on pretty much anything and everything.
As long as you don’t criticize Oldham Athletic Football Club, I won’t get zealot like 😉
Not for me this moderation, when I am being asked to be civil and try to meet them in the middle towards actual honest to the gods Nazis and child abusers and and and. FUCK THAT NOISE and carry on being the “good German” if that is what you (generic) want but count me the fuck out of it.
Glenn : Precisely. Lately, people with different views will try and shout you down.
Civility and sensible debate appear to be history.
I find this very worrying indeed.
Regular commenter, Cherries, finds my views generally anathema. Yet I would defend her to the hilt to express her own. To me, that is the civilised way.
To an increasing number, seemingly no longer 😢
Was on the phone with one of my English nephews the other day, and he was expressing negative sentiments about my Johnson. As he was on a train at the time I heard a voice yelling at him regarding those comments. It seems that if one does not talk softly, one must be carrying a big stick.
Except tallness? 😂😂😂😘
I live by “All things in moderation. Including moderation.”
lol
LOL! Me too 🙂