Viewing politics as a spectrum with a ‘middle’ and ‘extremes’ is a really powerful and dangerous ideological concept. The prevailing ideology decides what constitutes the middle, its arbitrary, it doesn’t represent any sort of ‘balance’ or any other properties outside of its material content. If your ideology occupies the ‘middle’ space, it’s because the ideas constituting it are normalized in the prevailing mainstream, which speaks to the position of power it occupies, not to its inherent truth, practicality, or morality. There is no such thing as neutral, inaction and abstention are passive support of the underlying power structures of our society.
To be moderate means: to not want the current situation to change very much or very fast. Which, given the incredible amount of injustice there is right now, is a very extreme position in favour of injustice.
Or, maybe, perhaps it just means that you agree with one side on some subjects, and another side on other subjects? And you recognize that fully embracing any side to an extreme just hurts everybody in the long run? And that NO change happens quickly?
People keep saying this right before arguing that denying someone health care is ‘just how it is’ but burning a trash can is ‘unacceptable violence’,
People keep saying this right before arguing that people who want to commit genocide and people who oppose genocide are ‘basically the same’.
People keep saying that change takes time while ignoring the fact that the current injustices are killing us and slow change doesn’t help us when we’re already dead.
People keep saying
that change takes time
while ignoring that if we do not create extreme change in our environment on a very short term, we’re facing a world that can no longer support human life and we’ll see mass extinction.
People keep saying that no change happens quickly or through violence, while ignoring the many times in history when it did.
People keep saying that we shouldn’t ‘embrace any side to an extreme’ while ignoring that we are living in an extremely injust condition, and arguing that that should change only a bit or only slowly is a very extreme position that hurts everybody in the not-even-that-long run.
People keep saying that we shouldn’t ‘embrace any side to an extreme’
while ignoring the blood on their hands for allowing the current system to continue for even one more day.
When faced with an extremely injust world, ‘centrism’, ‘moderation’ and ‘slow change’ are
very extreme position in favour of injustice.
QueerAnarchism 