It's right-wingers, not lefties, that think they're morally superior

I disagree.

I know.

You completely misrepresented what I said.

No I didn't, I took a view based on principle - you think this stuff can be measured and categorised in some sort of quantifiable sense, whereas I don't really think that's adequate or helpful.

The political compass is really quite poorly designed. It's fun, but academically it's a bit of a joke that no one should take too seriously. A bit like a political horoscope.

To deny the existence of categorisation is to deny a fundamental human activity.

I'm not denying the existence of categorisation - I am questioning its validity and usefulness in this context.

You’re taking the high road here, and it’s unfalsifiable, so I can’t argue against it.

I'm really not. I'm just making a positive observation about slogans. A generalisation, if you will... The normative aspects come later, which I acknowledge.

Besides, you could falsify and argue against it, but you just haven't.

You'd have to argue that either a.) those aren't slogans from the respective camps, or b.) that the slogans are politically necessary in some moral sense to mobilise people, even if they are at best only half-truths. B.) would be the better argument to counter with, in my opinion.

This is a utopian argument and it’s unfalsifiable, again. What even is a “dull binary” — this is a value judgement

As I said, I added the value judgements later, which this time you've correctly identified.

But just claiming it's utopian and unfalsiable doesn't show anything - it just builds another strawman (I'm not claiming or think it's utopian, for one - centrism I think is more about technocracy, pragmatism, being non-tribal etc). But I could claim "value judgement!" about almost anything you've said, it's not particularly interesting or helpful.

I'm a pluralist so dullness and excitement will come in to it for me - that's the whole point. Just thinking in either left or right terms isn't as interesting to some. You (normative claim here) should be able to acknowledge that and work with it rather than just deny it or claim it is utopian. It's exactly what the right will claim to the left, which is rather amusing.

This is a really broad and unfalsifiable statement. How can I argue with this?

Well, just because you can't come up with counter arguments doesn't make the argument invalid. You've made this sort of claim three times now, holding it to somehow be self evident. If it's that hard to argue against, perhaps then it is what we might consider to be a "winning argument."

The counterargument you could have made would be that a.) choices are necessary that require emphasising some aspects while downplaying others and that "middle of the road" can be a fallacy, or similarly b.) that (from the right) status quo is important and should be preserved, or c.) that (from the left) change is important for progress and "we need more change."

Your giving your argument credit by virtue of being different.

You're cherry picking phrases and refuting them with one liners, missing the wider claims. At this copy and paste stage I think this whole "debate" is pointless anyway, even if it is common reddit practice.

Well, you can’t, as you don’t know my exact political positions.

No, I don't but I can generalise/categorise (as you like to do yourself and say is important and natural) based on your accusation that the original commenter was "upholding the status quo."

I really think you’ve just taken on neoliberalism as a normative ideology of “how the world just works.”

Ah, yes. Again the status quo argument. This time with added "neoliberalism." I could chime up here about how you don't know my exact politics either, but this isn't particular useful.

Overall, you’re broadly assuming a homogeneity of opinion on the left and the right.

How? I'm claiming they behave similarly, not that they share the same opinions.

Try not to be so smug. This just undercuts your argument.

Try not to be patronising, or make presumptions about my character as it undercuts your own argument...

(For the record that was a rhetorical question to facilitate the general point I was making about paradigm/binary thinking and not intended as smugness)


Let's start over shall we? In brief what is your argument against centrism? That is it effectively just another form of tribal moral posturing, akin to left/right?

If it's this:

My overall point was arguing against the dismissal of leftist or rightists in favour of some middle-ground that doesn’t exist, and that actually keeps shifting to the right in the neoliberal world we now occupy.

Then my argument is simply that a.) there is nothing in what he was saying to suggest he's claiming "split the difference" is the best approach or always workable etc, and b.) it's a commonly asserted that "we've gone further right" by diehard leftists deriding "neoliberalism" without really any evidence for that, let alone a definition of neoliberalism for clarification (it's all just assumed that we're more right than before and that neoliberalism means something concrete in this context).

It's back to "political correctness gone mad" type claims, which ironically is a "status quo" mentality as far as centrist philosophy is concerned - you're perpetuating the "my half-truth narrative should prevail over your half-truth narrative" approach to politics rather than a more tolerant and collaborative one.

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