It’s lonely at the center
Wmoderate now? Who’s a centrist? Until recently, the answer to such questions was ideological. Centrists rejected the purity of the left and right. I confess: I used to have considerable scorn for such people. They acted as if being in the middle was a sign of intellectual superiority. But that ignored the fact that on some issues the ideologues were 100% right. Moreover, difference-splitting can be the worst option: If one side wants to build a bridge over a canyon and the other doesn’t, the wisest position isn’t to build half a bridge that stops in thin air.
In recent years, though, the definition of centrism has changed as the culture has become more partisan. I haven’t changed my conservative views on most issues, but because I am a critic of President Trump, many liberals now treat me as if I am a moderate. That makes sense if you think of Trump as a giant magnet next to our political compass. He serves as true north for the right, which means the left reflexively marches south. That puts me somewhere like halfway between the two at east or west.
But I’ve come to believe something else is going on. Karen Stenner, an economist who studies authoritarianism, has identified what she calls “authoritarian predisposition.” She is quick to note that authoritarianism isn’t synonymous with any one ideological framework. Rather, she writes, it “is a functional disposition concerned with maximizing ‘oneness’ and ‘sameness’ especially in conditions where the things that make us one and the same — common authority and shared values — appear to be under threat.”
Historically, American conservatism has balanced conflicting impulses. It has been antagonistic to drastic social change while at the same time it fully embraced the free market. The problem is that economic liberty fuels change more than almost anything else. Moreover, most conservatives were defenders of existing traditional institutions and norms. This deference to courts, elections and the rule of law put structural limits on the reach of cultural conservatism.
A similar uneasy fusion endured on the left. In economics, capitalism was seen as something that needed to be harnessed. But in the cultural marketplace, the left had its own version of creative destruction.
These twin equilibriums have been breaking down before our eyes. Both left and right have versions of “cancel culture” now. Leading conservatives heap scorn on “market fundamentalism,” championing everything from protectionism and industrial planning to state meddling in social media. Prominent intellectuals flirt with authoritarianism, even monarchy.
On the left, hostility to free speech and open debate is at least as intense. In July, when a group of intellectuals — including such leftist luminaries as Noam Chomsky and Todd Gitlin — issued an open letter calling for a renewed commitment to free speech, leftwing blowback was intense.
It’s not just on issues of expression that the left’s consensus has come apart. Due process on college campuses is now seen as reactionary. Religious liberty is fine, so long as it embraces progressive values. It is rapidly becoming mainstream on the left to favor packing the Supreme Court. It is already mainstream to favor abolishing the electoral college, the filibuster and other bulwarks of republican government.
Stenner argues that the authoritarian predisposition is triggered when the settled order becomes unsettled and panic sets in. Whatever the cause(s) of these chaotic times may be, I think the chaos has triggered vast numbers of people on the left and right to embrace illiberalism.
Both movements share an antipathy toward the bedrock American and liberal right to be wrong, to live differently, to care about unfashionable things or not care about fashionable ones. Dissent must be policed and silenced. Conformity must be imposed. The twin fads of socialism and nationalism can be seen as competing attempts to impose sameness and order on each side’s own terms.
In this climate, the new centrists can be ideologically conservative or liberal according to the old definitions, but east and west share a common discomfort with the constant demand to catastrophize our politics in order impose orthodoxy on everyone. And amid the cacophony, such centrism can be quite lonely.