Why You Can't Take the Middle Ground in Politics Anymore

Malcolm and Simone discuss how political polarization makes it impossible to take a neutral stance today. Malcolm argues progressives force moderates into extremism by demanding endless concessions. He cites education reformers branded far right for helping disadvantaged kids.

Simone notes many organizations now prioritize self-preservation over their mission, leading to tribal dynamics. Malcolm adds conservative spaces permit diverse views while progressives enforce narrow dogma, even lying about opponents. He believes their incompetence and false attacks will galvanize the public against them.

Overall they conclude you must pick a side as the left doesn't allow middle ground. But the right welcomed them despite differing views, valuing truth-seeking over signaling status. They encourage watching for the progressive coalition's coming collapse.

Malcolm: [00:00:00] Scott Alexander, right?

Malcolm: Who writes Slate Star Codex. And him just talking like as truly neutral as possible. It's important to understand that in a society where the academic system and most media centers are controlled by one faction, if you talk neutrally, you are a threat to them because you weigh things. Towards the, the faction that's not in power, which is the conservative faction.

Malcolm: And so he very famously just really tries to give the truth in like the most non extremist, non hyperbolic way possible.

Malcolm: So, you know, he got outed by the New York Times and they did this really mean piece on him and

Malcolm: to me that even somebody as honestly, I think pretty progressive in terms of his sensibilities as him is now pretty solidly grouped with conservatives in terms of the online intellectual movement.

.Would you like to know more?

Simone: Hello, you beautiful human being.

Malcolm: Simone, you are the most beautiful human being who's ever [00:01:00] lived, and I love you to death. Now, today we are going to talk about political polarization, because this is an issue that has bedeviled us where we keep having people come to us and they're like, I'm going to start a nonpartisan version of your foundation, like the Prenatalist Foundation, because we Pretty openly aligned conservative.

Malcolm: And we're like, that's not going to go well for you or they'll even try to start a, a full on progressive one. And I'm like, that might go better than an unaligned one. But the question is, is why? So one, I mean, I think the easy answer for a lot of people is truth has become a team sport in our society.

Malcolm: Where people care less, you know, when they hear a piece of like, they can hear a piece of like research data, right? Which is just like. Furthering their understanding of reality, and they might become upset because it makes their side less likely to win.

Simone: Yeah, I'm fuzzy on this, but I think even some psychology studies have demonstrated that people, when presented with evidence that runs against their [00:02:00] political beliefs and their political party's belief will become even more trenched in their belief.

Simone: They won't be convinced or change their mind by that. So it, it does imply that truth is indeed a team

Malcolm: sport. And this is really damaging implications on reality. I mean, like, for example Germany, because of the environmentalists, shut down all its nuclear power plants? Not good. What were you thinking?

Malcolm: Like... This is a, you know, when we complain about like aesthetic conservatism versus real conservatism, this is the perfect example of aesthetic environmentalism versus real environmentalism, nuclear power, bad, dirty, big nuclear silos and deformed people living near them. You know, it's like, okay, that's like a weird, like aesthetic of environmentalism from the 1980s, but like, we should know better now.

Malcolm: Especially if you don't have any other way than to generate that power than Russian oil, which it turned out you didn't have any backup plan for, it was [00:03:00] profoundly stupid. And so I should say, we don't just have this problem on the right of like this, like, I'm going to be, you know, aesthetically and I'm, I'm, I'll link the video here or you can check it out, like aesthetic conservative versus real conservative, because we do have this problem on the right, but the left has it as well.

Malcolm: Where they just stop caring about reality, and it's just about whether or not their team is winning. So I'd say that there's sort of a few reasons why this doesn't work. But I think one of the most important was when Simone went over with me, and I want to have early in our video here, you know, because I watched some watch time on these, and I'm like, well, let's at least get the good ideas to people faster, right?

Malcolm: Which was, do you want to go into it, Simone?

Simone: I don't remember it. What, what, can you remind me and I'll

Malcolm: explain it? Okay, your idea was that if you try to hold the middle ground, the progressives will just keep pushing you further and further and further to extreme positions. Oh, okay,

Simone: okay. Okay, I think I remember the argument I made and I think you can make this more nuanced thing, but I remember what I'd said to you

Malcolm: at least.

Malcolm: So progressives [00:04:00] essentially don't allow individuals to hold the middle ground ideologically. Well,

Simone: specifically, I think what happens is, They more center people, even if they are progressive, get increasingly pushed progressive because if they attempt to apologize or correct their behavior, if their behavior is pointed out as being problematic, they will, they will be further punished and then further forced to go in a very, very Thank you.

Simone: extreme position. So yeah, you basically don't get rewarded for deviating even slightly from the most extreme positions and in many circles at least. And then if you apologize, if you, if you engage in any way in a way that, that signals, no, I really still do want to be a part of this community, you are forced to become more extreme.

Simone: Does that make sense?

Malcolm: Yeah, it makes perfect sense. So, so you can think about it this way. The progressive community it basically will say, okay, you, you want to be a part of multiple communities. You want to be a part of the conservative world, you want to be a part of the progressive world. That's what you're really saying.

Malcolm: Like, I want to [00:05:00] be, Broadly accepted within both these communities. That's what a person is saying when they're politically neutral. You can't just say, oh, I'm not engaging with either, right? And then the progressive community comes to you and they'll be like, well, you need to change what you did here. You need to change what you did here.

Malcolm: You need to apologize for this. The moment you do that. You have lost because then they, they make their demands more extreme and you get no reward for conceding. But if you do not concede, if you do not change your behavior based on what they're saying, then you are said to be a far right outsider or a racist or a Nazi or eugenicists, you know, all the sorts of accusations we have appointed at us.

Malcolm: But they get pointed at literally anyone who disagrees with progressives. If you just disagree with progressives and it's. Irrelevant what the facts are. I mea