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There's this very strange political idea in America that coming to the center is the obviously reasonable position, for no other reason than that it's the center. It's especially true in the Church, where "third way" often just means "the middle." (1/6)
It's taken as a given that being a moderate just means you're an adult with a realistic idea of how the world should work. It means you're naturally more willing to compromise and work with people who disagree. I think this view is not only wrong but hurtful. (2/6)
Centrism is fine if that's where your ideology takes you, but this idea that centrism is *inherently* better for no other reason than the fact that it's in the middle is just intellectually lazy. Reasonable people can have extreme policy positions. Many of them do. (3/6)
Dismissing people as "extremists" for no other reason than that they're not centrist is insulting. Disagree with them on the merits of their actual beliefs, not just because they're not the middle. Lots of "extremists" have ended up being agents of enormous moral progress. (4/6)
So when you hear an activist, community leader or politician articulate an idea that seems way too out there to work (Green New Deal, Medicare For All, defund the police, whatever) take a moment to think before you dismiss it out of hand as "extreme." (5/6)
Extreme isn't inherently bad or good by itself. We've got to engage with the idea itself. The future is waiting for us, if we want to build it. And as Andrew Bird says "I'm all for moderation but sometimes it seems moderation itself is a kind of extreme." (6/6)
