"What is Centrism?": A Few Thoughts on the Matter

Looking up what centrism is--perhaps asking your friendly neighborhood AI--one is likely to get the answer that it is a tendency that is neither right nor left, but in the middle, which is very concerned for liberal institutions, and compromise, and very averse to "ideology." Whoever is giving the answer may also say that centrism sets great store by things called "pragmatism," "pluralism" and "civility."

It is a less satisfying answer than it may appear at first glance. After all, if one favors the "middle," why do they do that? Why should one assume the answers lie in the middle, rather than the "extremes?" How does one know where the middle and the extremes are anyway? In claiming to stand for liberalism, how do centrists understand the concept--and navigate the dilemmas political actors constantly face? Why do they make such a virtue of compromise, and dislike "ideology" so much--and for that matter, seem so oblivious to the fact that even before going any further centrism itself already sounds like an ideology, making being anti-ideological a hypocritical pose? These terms "pragmatism" and "pluralism" and "civility"--what exactly do they mean, in themselves, in connection with centrist priorities, in practice?

The answers to these questions are by no means esoteric. As anyone who has read Arthur Schlesinger, Daniel Bell and their contemporary "fellow travelers" finds, there really is a very elaborately structured understanding of the world spelled out in their writings--a very thoroughly developed ideology--which is the basis of what one calls "centrism."

Short version: centrism is basically conservatism, and understandable in terms of two particular aspects of that tradition, which are not mutually exclusive. One is America's tradition of "liberal conservatism"--the conservatism of a liberal society where elites are committed to property rights, marketplace exchange and representative institutions as against outright dictatorship (monarchical or otherwise), but less enthusiastic about the "common man" having a say in public affairs (that important centrist Louis Hartz summing it up well as a "tradition which hates the ancien régime up to a certain point, loves capitalism, and fears democracy"). The other is the tradition of "classical conservatism" that emerged in reaction against the Enlightenment, galvanized by the French Revolution. If that tradition has paralleled (and maybe informed) America's tradition from the start, centrism produced what is readable as a version updated for mid-twentieth century America, with the essential framework retained even as centrism has gone through important evolutions.

In line with the conservatism common to both of these, the centrist is deeply pessimistic about human reason, "human nature," and the possibility of rationally and deliberately altering the structure of society to positive ends; more anxious for order than equality, justice or freedom; highly respectful of existing arrangements as the best that can reasonably be hoped for, not least in keeping a bad human nature in check for the sake of upholding said order; and fearful of the "lower orders," with their worst nightmare their becoming mobilized behind some agenda for change, in a way that earlier generations of conservatives identified with 1789, but which they identify with 1917. In line with the application of this conservatism to a liberal society it keeps representative institutions, but insists on the need to "manage democracy" very carefully. Hence its insistence on the pragmatic, pluralistic, civil discourse, which takes the world as it finds it without bothering for deeper understandings (pragmatic), sees society as a collection of different, competing interests none necessarily more important or valid than the others (pluralist), and prefers to leave the ethics out of politics in favor of those who disagree doing so "respectfully" (civility). Thus, the centrist holds that those engaged in the political dialogue must forget all about getting to the roots of things and what is right or wrong, fair and unfair; treat the structure of society as settled and off-limits to discussion; negotiate the issues one at a time without (un-pragmatically) seeing connections between one thing and another, while respecting their opponents as being as legitimate as themselves, assuming their good faith, and not worrying over who does or does not have the power in the situation as they negotiate; and if the resulting compromises are not to their liking, take their frustration with good grace, and hope to do better "next time" while never thinking of breaking with the rules. Thus does the centrist focus on mediating the process, with the good centrist politician not the principled fighter for a cause, but the one who "upholds consensus" behind things as they are by seeing that every interest able and willing to play by the rules is represented, and in the process discontent, if not necessarily allayed, prevented from reaching that point at which it radicalizes and divides and opens the door to the revolutions which haunt the centrist's imagination by way of the appropriate "course adjustments." Thus there may be change, but as little as possible, the minimum required for the sake of preserving the social structure, rather than setting about solving societal problems simply because they are problems, let alone turning the social order into something else, as with those leftists who seek a "reformist" path toward a different order.

Thus is anyone unwilling to play by these rules, who does get to the roots of things, question the social structure, raise the matters of power and rights and wrongs and what is fair and unfair, dispute their opponents' good faith as they have in mind priorities besides consensus preservation--valuing equality, freedom, justice over the "status quo"--excluded from the dialogue as ideologue and extremist. Thus to speak of capitalism and class, to question inequality, to cite the theories of critics of the system, to demand more than consensus-preserving course adjustments, to advocate mass movements, is to rule oneself out of the discussion, and indeed one does not hear of these things in the mainstream, with all this has meant for the left wherever these rules prevail--all as the right less obviously fell afoul of the rules, and the center was less apt to hold it to account for its failings.

Thus, one might add, does the centrist think the limitation of the field to two political parties not so far apart in policy and a collegial attitude among the national elite a good thing, thus do they in the digital age panic over "fake news" and yearn for the days when people watched one of just three nightly news broadcasts, thus do they have no problem telling the public to "hold its nose and vote" for one of the two parties rather than looking to any others, no matter how dissatisfied they are--because the limitation of choices of party and candidate and sources of information, and the lowering of expectations, are all essential to "managing democracy."

The result is an informally but tightly regulated, elite-administered discourse that uses liberal institutions to conservative political ends, with even change intended to uphold the existing social structure above all. As centrism's theoreticians themselves acknowledge, all this is very frustrating for those earnest about addressing society's problems, or ardent about the disenfranchised having a say in social affairs, or simply think democracy ought to offer something better than "Hold your nose and vote," and less than pleasing even to many who are on the whole contented with things as they are. Even as the left correctly sees in the center a fundamentally anti-leftist force many conservatives prefer a firmer commitment to their own principles than the "pragmatic," change-averse, compromise-minded center, see it in the avowed right, and prefer it. And indeed the unattractiveness of the centrist framework has plausibly been a factor in its being so little explained. Certainly, I think, it is few who understand it well--but many of those who do, even if sympathetic to the centrist outlook, knowing how uninspiring it is, think "discretion the better part of valor." They may well be right, given how centrism has endured as the conventional wisdom of American politics these past many decades, the center's essential political philosophy prevailing in American life even as the center's positions have shifted considerably in many a matter--an evolution, one must note, reflecting centrism's adherence to that philosophy. Consistently opposing the left, but reaching out to the right--indeed, consistently allying with the right against the left--the center succeeded in marginalizing the left, leaving the right the source of initiative within a political discourse that the center, again, mediated, shifting the discussion rightward and with it those stances the center took as it performed what it regarded as its role within American politics.