The Middle Ground

INTRODUCTION

If you are exasperated by the demagoguery of the both the Right and the Left, this book is for you. If you believe that there simply must be a more rational approach to governing a modern democracy than that offered by either the Liberals or the Conservatives, read on. If you feel at times that you are politically isolated and alone simply because you are a sensible moderate, do not despair. You are not alone. In point of fact there are more of you (us) than there are of them, although it might not seem that way at times. The extremists are just a lot louder than we are, and a lot better organized.

You also happen to be right...there is indeed a better way. And that's what this book is all about. It's about a whole new approach to political thought that takes the best of Conservatism and Liberalism, and throws away the rest. It also debunks many of the myths and fallacies held dear by the ideologues, then offers a clear alternative... a rational alternative.

The diagram on the cover page really says it all. Both Conservatism and Liberalism, in truth, lead away from real democracy, rather than towards it. After all, just consider, isn't Liberalism really just a milder version of Socialism, and Conservatism a more moderate manifestation of Fascism? It is Centrism, rather than either of the twin ideologies, that is really the polar opposite of totalitarianism. Why should this be so? ...Well that's what this book is all about. However, the short answer is that Centrism is the delicate balance of ideas and interests required for democracy and capitalism to be at their best. If government becomes either too powerful or too weak, that balance will inevitably be lost.

The good news is that most Americans are Centrists...even though most probably don't even know what a Centrist is. Now, granted, that may be a difficult assertion to prove, since the dictionary definition of a Centrist as 'a member of a political party of the center' is pretty vague. As a matter of fact, there is no real party of the center in America, and the word Centrism, unlike Liberalism or Conservatism, doesn't even appear in some dictionaries. Nonetheless, if you observe most national polls, and look at the outcome of enough elections, a trend emerges. Nearly two-thirds of the population will generally favor moderate, Centrist positions or candidates (where there's one available).

The bad news is that, although a majority of us may be Centrists at heart, we tend to be a rather passive lot. We have never really organized ourselves around a coherent philosophy. We don't have our own political organization or agenda. Neither do we have much in the way of political support. For the most part, we generally have to content ourselves with acting as a counterbalance to our more radical Conservative and Liberal cousins. For they are the ones who have the organization, the money and the political support, which allows them to control the political dialogue as well as the political agenda. Ultimately, the Conservative and Liberal ideologues run the show because they know what they believe in (whether it's right or wrong). We Centrists, in contrast, are the skeptics, the unbelievers, the outsiders, but we offer no real alternative to the fallacies that we know exist with both Liberal and Conservative thinking. We're pretty sure that we don't buy either Conservatism or Liberalism...but we're not too sure exactly what it is that we do buy.

The premise of this book is simply this: It doesn't have to be that way! If we, the moderate and sensible majority, were to develop a distinct new Centrist philosophy and then organize ourselves around it, we could control the dialogue, and eventually, the political agenda. We, the majority, could then fundamentally change the equation of American politics and push both the Right and the Left to the sidelines where they, not we, belong. The goal of this book is to encourage the first step in that process, to begin the definition of a new political philosophy.

And indeed, it should also be a new philosophy, rather than ideology, that we should be trying to build. The dictionary definition of philosophy is 'the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.' Ideology on the other hand, is defined as 'the body of doctrine, myth, symbol, etc., of a social movement, institution, class, or large group.' In other words, we're looking for a rational philosophy to rally ourselves around, as opposed to the essentially mindless dogma and rhetoric that's at the core of both Conservatism and Liberalism. So let's embark on the adventure of creating a whole new political and social philosophy - Centrism