Annotated BBWTE 7
TFW you’re a centrist and realize that one of the political factions you’re trying to balance between has just gone completely insane and now loathes the free society you treasure. I mean, I don’t know if there were elections that Iver did away with, but “having your political enemies murdered” ranks pretty high on the list of democratic norms violated.
Gravedust is lightly editing the part where Iver did kill him, by nearly every definition that counts, and the spirits of mystics, including Uncle Cliff, revived him. This is partly for expediency’s sake and partly because necromancy is not well-liked in any Arkerran culture. The mystics themselves generally forbade it… before they died. There’s a pretty good chance Magda would understand the special circumstances of Gravedust’s return, but this conversation is going to be hard enough as it is. One paradigm shift at a time!
This comment from Loyal (in Gravedust’s voice) got a lol from me: “Now that I think of it, should I really be drinking this?”
Loyal did make a good point, yes.
So if Iver were the kind of megalomaniac that kept his adversaries alive so they could bear witness to his greatness this would be better? Devil’s advocate time, Iver got the ball rolling while all the mystics did was preach peace and acceptance of their exile. If I were a savasi he wouldn’t have to kill my resident mystic to get me on board, but I wouldn’t shed any tears of their demise too.
Then what happens when your leader starts working on a course that goes against your values?
Do you then think he should be a tyrant that kills those who argue against his policies?
It would absolutely be better if Iver were not a murderer.
It matters not which group he is currently murdering. If a leader is okay with just killing those that disagree with him, then that will eventually turn very bad.
I suppose I will play angels advocate, then: Iver very clearly did not need to kill the mystics to get the rest of the Savasi into this war. All he really did was silence political opposition for his own benefit.
Because killing the opposition just for fun, as opposed to being forced to kill the opposition to establish unilateral rule, is, like, totally fine?
You know shit is important when Gravy just infodumps on you like that.
Got to appreciate though that he clearly took his time with this info. They’ve been very likely talking for a good while now and now finally he decides to say “Oh, and by the way, he killed your uncle, no biggie.”
Got the impression that Mag has been spending this whole time trying to get Gravedust back in the fold not realizing Iver murdered friends and family to get his way.
…which is the point: Gravy allowed her to say all those things and more, knowing that this bit of information was going to be way more powerful when revealed at the correct moment.
This also gave him time to figure out what Magda’s perspective on all of this is, which is important when deciding whether or not to tell her, and how.
In my experience over the last few years, Centrists don’t really love balance as much as they say and as they love the fence on which they are sitting; so, when one of the sides starts going full batshit anti-democracy they will reserve their harsh criticism for the opposite side, especially if they are calling out the Centrists to take a stand. Not being seen as “taking sides” (and feeling very, very self-righteous because of it) is far more important to them.
It also goes to show that they are more privileged than not if they have no much reason to fear a slippery slide into authoritarianism. In truth, they are not really sitting anywhere near the middle of the spectrum but rather, in the middle of the Overton window.
Note: The below is not centered on the USA but applies to worldwide politics and related discussions as I experience it from different places in Europe.
I think the people you talk about here certainly exist, but I think that if someone is called a centrist, that doesn’t say much about them unless you take into account who’s calling them that. I have experienced the word being used in two other scenarios:
1: People who have a definite opinion but don’t entirely agree with any of the parties, and would rather move in their preferred direction too slow than too fast. Particularly in places which only have two or three relevant parties, that’s a pretty easy place to find yourself in. These may be plain conservative people (in the classical, friendly sense of the word: people who try to conserve what they think is good and are more concerned about losing something good than gaining something else), or they may be (more or less justifiably) scared that someone will start a revolution for all the right reasons but may either compromise their means to justify the ends, or otherwise inadvertently end up making things even worse because they only get to the part where they smash the system and then what?
These fears are justified — just look at how the Arab Spring went for Egypt, or really almost any revolution started by idealists but ending up in bloodbaths and totalitarian rule.
2: I actually have a pretty clear political opinion, and I’m basically fine with rocking the boat sometimes — but it’s very important that whoever is rocking it should take care to not knock it over. So whenever I hear someone get really worked up about politics, even when they’re very close to my own view, my fear kicks in that they may do something stupid in pursuit of this, or may ultimately make enemies (to themselves and their cause) out of friends. This means that as often as arguing my own view (which I like to do! Ad nauseam!), I end up trying to calm down people who I basically agree with but who are starting to talk themselves and others into that kind of impotent rage in which the whole world is split into friends and enemies, and the “friend” zone is rapidly shrinking — and then I get put in the “centrist” category.
Oh yeah, my comment was very much centered on the US and indeed I am talking of proud and self-appointed “Centrists”. I’m sure that real centrists exist but since expect it they don’t wear it on their arm like a proud identity, they are not as visible.
IME, Centrists, of whatever stripe, actually lean towards the political Right. And they are fanatically opposed to anyone who doesn’t share their brand of Centrism, even if their broad goals are exactly the same.
The joke goes that there’s a “moderate” Right-winger pushing for something no sane person would want (ethnic cleansing, for example). Pictured opposite is a centre-Leftist telling the other, “no frapping way”. And in the middle is a Centrist, offering a “compromise” of “maybe just a little genocide?”
It’s not a joke, it’s how political discourse has actually shifted in many of the world’s democracies over the last 20 or so years. The political Centre has gone towards to the Right because the Right has grown more extreme, and those in the “centre” find themselves moving ever-further Rightwards in order to try and present a compromise between these new Right extremists, and the much slower-moving Left. And in the media, the Centrists, arguing for “just a little genocide”, get painted as the reasonable people, while the extremist Right is ignored and the Left is painted as the extremists. And so you get a Centre-Left party selling out and completely suborning themselves to the party on the Right the first chance they get, and the Left party being hijacked by Centrists and turning into nothing less than a weakly-Right party, and the moment it looks like anyone is going to turn the party around and take it back towards the Left, the Right who are infesting the party actively start sabotaging the whole party in order to prevent it.
Pretty much, that’s what I meant with “they’re sitting in the middle of the Overton Window” (which currently, in the US, is sitting pretty far into the right). So their position becomes not a balance between two ideologies, but as you say, a compromise between the extreme right and what we’d normally call “centrism”.
“Real centrists” probably do not exist, because there’s simply no fixed “two extremes” to be centrist between.
The far right has no outer bound. They can keep going right as long as anyone is trying to “reason” with them.
The left might have an end-point, but you can’t have a center with an axis with just one endpoint.
So, generally speaking “centrists” are those useful tools that keep trying to “reason” with the far right scum.
See, you just did it! You found a definition which uses your own political leaning as a yardstick.
If I generalize this, it becomes:
A centrist is someone who tries to have a dialogue with someone which the speaker considers to be too far right to speak to, which in turn is a rough approximation for “anyone less left than the person using the word “centrist”.
In this case, the word says more about your own leanings than about whoever you call a centrist.
If democracy is worth a damn, then the only way to change things is by changing people’s opinions, and you cannot do that by calling them names, or outright refusing to talk to them. And (Go ask a diplomat if you don’t believe me): You cannot have a meaningful talk with anyone without listening. This means that it is absolutely necessary to talk to pretty much anyone — at least as long as there’s no proof that they are acting in bad faith to bring ruin to the world, or something. Those cases exist, but they’re extremely rare.
Note, however, that that’s super-not the same as “one one hand / on the other hand”-reporting which has rightfully drawn a lot of ire in the last few years. Note also, that it does not mean you have to take them at face value. It doesn’t even mean *you* should have to expose yourself to whatever political ideology you despise most — it simply means you should not try to dissuade others who can muster the patience from trying to reason with people you have trouble reasoning with.
Like: How would you convince Ardaic to talk to Penk? Or Harky to talk to Syr’Nj? You probably could not. Yet, they totally should, because they all have a valid point to make. Ardaic is blind to Gastonia’s sins, and Harky has stopped seeing any recourse but war to the bitter end. Each desperately needs to understand the actual reason for the other’s actions, rather than the reason they assume (“because they’re evil, LOL”).
To Harky, Penk would be a centrist by your definition, and Syr’Nj to Ardaic.
“A centrist is someone who tries to have a dialogue with someone which the speaker considers to be too far right to speak”
Yes, in theory, that’s what a Centrist should be. In practice (at least in the US) the conversation usually goes like this:
Far-Right Wing Propaganda: “Immigrants are swarming out country by the trillions! The extinction of the white American is imminent unless we take the most drastic measures to repel these dangerous rapist leeches!”
Centrists: “…”
Everybody else: “You are literally separating kids from their parents and throwing them into cages! This is outrageous and criminal!”
Centrists: “Man, you guys are always so loud, aren’t you? Anyway, your side is not better at all, look at all the fuss you are making! Each side always believes they are on the right, heh, it looks like squabbling kids from where I am sitting.”
Everybody else: “What? We’re making a “fuss” because human rights of kids are being violated! We’re objectively in the right for opposing that. Why are you criticizing us and not them as well if you are so neutral? Your “neutrality” is allowing kids to remain in cages.”
Centrists: “Ah leftists, one really cannot have a civil argument with you; it’s all accusations and outrage. It’s amusing how you fail to see that you are just as brainwashed as the right-wingers.”
Good point. Though, what I was trying to say with “real centrism” is more a (perhaps impossible) balance between the ideologies of conservatism and liberalism, taking the best from both. So-called “Centrists” are conservatives through and through.