"The truth lies somewhere in the middle." No. It doesn't. In fact...

[baby_mouse]

..."Truth lies in the middle" is an exceedingly common and very unfortunate meme.

It's interesting that it attaches itself so firmly in the minds of people discussing politics. It is the backbone, essentially of the Moderates....

Here, essentially, is how it works...

------------------------------------

Bob and Alice discover a cake together, sitting there pretty as can be, covered with cherries and niceness, sitting in the middle of the world.

Bob says: "I think I should have all of it."

Alice says: "huh? We discovered it together. We should share it!"

Bob says: "No! I want it more than you do, so its mine." (bear with me)

Alice says: "We should have half each."

Bob: "I intend to take this to arbitration."

Alice: "WHAT?"

Bob takes the matter to arbitration.

Moderate: "What's all this?"

Bob: "She wants half my cake."

Alice: "YOUR cake? We discovered it together!"

Bob: "Alice, you are naive. I see no reason for you to be so partisan and self-interested. Moderate away, Mr Moderate the McModerator!"

Moderate: "Hm. Hmm. Hmmm. Well, this does seem to be a very thorny problem, doesn't it? A more complex, twisty tale I've never come across before in my history as a moderate, and no mistake."

Alice: (wilts with exasperation...)

Moderate: "I have MADE MY JUDGEMENT. The truth always lies somewhere in the middle. Bob should have three quarters of the cake and Alice should have a quarter."

Alice: "WHAT?"

Bob: "So shrill!"

Alice: "SHRILL?"

Bob: "So emotional! Obviously irrational. Emotion is the opposite of reason, Mr Spock says so, it must be true."

Moderate: "Hmmmmm. Hmmmmm. Well, Bob, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, so actually Mr Spock only KIND of said so and emotion is only SORT OF the opposite of reason. Alice is being KINDA shrill." Etc.

----------

People who say: "The truth lies somewhere in the middle" aren't interested in the truth. They're REALLY only interested in the MIDDLE.

If someone says to you, "The truth lies in the middle," say this to them:

"You are more interested in the middle than the truth."

Feel free to copy and paste the above. Don't worry about creditting me.

It's a particularly insidious and silly meme. It's also almost impossible to dislodge once it's wormed its way into someone's head. You can say it about *anything*. "Hmmm, hmmm, I don't know, I mean there's this other view, so I think you 're being extreme." It's meaningless!

-------------

Here's another way to look at it:

Someone pulls "truthy middleness" on you.

Bring out a piece of paper. Draw a line on it between the position you believe is true and the position you believe is false. Draw little asterisks at either end and them "true" and "false" in your colour, which might be... oooh, RED. Then draw little black asterisks at either end and another in the middle. Label the black ones at either end "false" and the one in the middle "true".

"So," you say, "You think the truth lies here?", pointing at their black asterisk in the middle.

"Yes."

"Good. And so we both agree that THIS," pointing at the red/black asterisk which both parties think is false, "is false, yes?"

"Yes."

"Good. Okay, then. We can get rid of that position completely, can't we? Neither of of is think it's true, so there's no point discussing it."

"... yes..."

Scrub out that far black/red asterisk, and all the line that leads up to it.

"Okay. Here we have a red asterisk saying true at my end with your black asterisk saying true at your end. I actually don't believe your original position of truth being in the middle was true, so I'll put a red "false" label there. Oh, look! Dichotomy!"

"... okay..."

"So, back to the beginning. But never mind! You think the truth lies somewhere in the middle, don't you? Fair enough. I'll scrub out your black "true" at your end and put a "black" false there instead. And we'll put a black "true" for you in the middle, between you and me. Sound fair enough?"

"... er..."

"But look! See, now both of us agree that THAT position, the one that is labelled false by both of us, is false. Se we can scrub it out." Scrub, scrub. "There. Oh, look! Dichotomy!"

"This is a trick."

"No, it's not a trick. This idea that the truth lies in the middle, THAT'S a trick, a nasty one, too. All I'm doing is trying to show you that it's a trick. It doesn't mean anything, see?"

At this point the opponent generally falls into two categories, the ones who smile nervously and simply reiterate: "I still think the truth lies in the middle," and the others, who will have figured out that you know more about that idea than they do. The former opponent is in fact far more common, but the latter may actually have learned something. Who can put a price on such a success??!!??!! The most difficult thing to explain to them is that the slipperiness of their middle black asterisk isn't something *you've* caused but is an INTEGRAL ASPECT of "the truth lies in the middle." Their see-sawing, pendulumish metaphor contains the seeds of its own demise.... because...

It isn't about anything.

This approach is particularly effective if you put figures of some sort on the line, the number of people it's acceptable to kill with tasers, for example, or to be killed in warfare, or falsely imprisoned, or something like that. It really grinds the point in.

This is useless against nut-jobs, of course, but then almost everything is.

-------------

Now, one more thing.

Sometimes the truth GENUINELY lies somewhere in the middle.

Galileo argued that the Earth went round the Sun and the Church maintained that the Sun went round the Earth.

IN FACT, the laws of gravity dictate that they BOTH orbit ONE ANOTHER, essentially they move around a central point on an imaginary line between their respective centres. However, this point lies within the Sun itself. So, essentially, as long as we're not astronomers requiring to make very accurate predictions about things, we may as well treat the system as heliocentric (sun in the middle).

A cursory examination of reality reveals that this is in fact true for ALMOST ALL CASES where the truth lies in the middle. It is typically the case that for practical purposes one may as well treat homeostatic systems as monolithic.

There is, in fact, if you look VERY closely at the Bush administration, some give and take with them, but the effect of this tendency is so vanishingly small in comparison with their fundamentally didactic approach that for practical purposes we might as well ignore it.

This has been a baby_mouse RANT(TM).

Copy. Paste. Enjoy...

[derby378]

1. Sunday K&R!

:hi:

[Richardo]

2. Of course it does. It lies *somewhere* in the middle.

And throughout both of your tortured analogies you frame that it's in the exact middle, when even your title says it's SOMEWHERE in the middle. This simply means, (to use the framework of your second analogy) that it's among the infinite number of points on the line that lie between (but not including) the extreme endpoints. Could be very close to the extreme, but it's not the extreme.

[baby_mouse]

3. gibberish. NT

[Richardo]

5. You would know

[baby_mouse]

8. My analogies are not tortured. They are elegant, realistic, and useful.

Your interpretation of them is a mess.

[Richardo]

11. Their utility should be determined by the readers, not the author.

[baby_mouse]

20. Their utility is clear from their structure, Bob. NT.

[sandnsea]

Who made the cake?

In my estimation, it doesn't belong to either one of them and the correct solution is - 'let's return the cake to its rightful owner'.

[baby_mouse]

27. Chris.

He's dead.

:D

[Orangepeel]

60. they are SOMEWHAT tortured!

:rofl:

[baby_mouse]

68. No fair!

:D

How can I be humourless and patronising in response to THAT?

:rofl:

[Schema Thing]

12. anal gibberish

[baby_mouse]

21. Poo to you too, dear!

:D

[Bjorn Against]

7. So if one person says the Earth is flat and another says the Earth is round...

Do you believe it is a half circle? Or do you believe it is mostly round, but flat on the bottom? Mostly flat with a dome on top? Or do you acknowledge that sometimes one side is right, and the other side is completely wrong, and your truth lies somewhere in the middle view is quite often wrong.

[baby_mouse]

9. Thank you nt.

[Richardo]

10. Again, it's not the EXACT middle

And: The earth is an oblate spheroid.

I assumed that the esteemed OP was writing about political truths, not scientific truths. And even if you do want to quibble about scientific truths, you'll find many that have changed, refined and improved with time because it was NOT accepted that the original theory was an unassailable truth. Such is the beauty of the scientific method.

[derby378]

13. Gotta hand it to ya...

ginbarn says :hi:.

[Richardo]

17. Always nice to hear from you and ginbarn....

:hi: back!

[Bjorn Against]

24. Well when we are arguing with people who believe the Earth is 6,000 years old...

Scientific truths and political truths may have more in common than you would like to believe, and however much you may like to believe it the "center" is quite often wrong. The so-called centrists constantly stating that they must be right just because they land somewhere in the middle and the other sides are extremists is ridiculous. Yes even in politics one side is often right. Look at the issue of torture, is it right or wrong? If you take a middle ground on that question you are essentially supporting some form of torture. What about Iraq? Should we have invaded Iraq or not? There is no middle ground in that question, but most so-called centrists were all in favor of the invasion. What about civil rights. Should we have ended segregation or not? Once again if you take a middle ground you are effectively supporting segregation, as most centrists did at the time. "Centrists" have been proven wrong many times throughout history and for them to claim they are closer to the truth by virtue of being in the middle they are wrong.

[Richardo]

33. Good points - but...

I agree that there are questions that demand a yes-or-no answer. But the OP is just as wrong by stating that the answer is NEVER in the middle. That is just not so.

Some are easy: Torture - no. Segregation - no.

Invasion of Iraq? I said no in 2002, but that was not an extreme position. You know why? We had a 'middle ground' policy of containment on a brutal regime that was working. We were neither condoning Saddam, nor engaging in a no-win quagmire killing tens of thousands of people.

[Bjorn Against]

38. Actually that "containment policy" was killing hundreds of thousands of people...

Read up on the sanctions if you don't believe me, the United Nations estimated they killed over half a million people mostly children under the age of five. The war was wrong and the sanctions were wrong, it was those of us who were ridiculed by the right-wingers and the centrists who turned out to be right and if people would have listened to what we were saying we would not be in this mess today.

[Richardo]

39. We'd be in another mess altogether.

[Bjorn Against]

43. To not get involved in the mess in the first place

If you look at the history of US relations with Iraq you will see that Saddam Hussein was largely an American creation. He was armed and funded by the CIA and the Reagan administration. It was people on the left who opposed our government's involvement in Iraq from the very beginning. The left opposed the Reagan administration giving Saddam weapons, and the left opposed going to war with Iraq both times. If we didn't have the problem created by the right with support from the center then we wouldn't need a solution, now because the right-wing and the center got us into this mess no one has a good solution but that is not the fault of the left, if people had listened we would have never had the problem to begin with.

[AntiFascist]

104. The US was responsible for him having WMDs in the first place n/t

[baby_mouse]

72. No, you were engaging in a sanctions policy that was killing tens of thousands instead.

You think that's a comfy middle ground?

[baby_mouse]

31. Christ, did you even read what I posted?

The earth being an oblate spheroid is a lot more like it being a sphere than being flat!

Extrapolating from THAT as an analogy, we may as well throw away the idea that the Earth is flat and start living with the the idea that the Earth is a sphere, given that the first mistake has SIGNIFICANT consequences and the second has consequences GREATLY less significant. You've just ignored the last section of what I wrote so that you can repeat it in your own words didactically.

Are you just wilfully ignoring me? Do you realise that your position is actually more extreme than mine?

[sandnsea]

15. If you want to sail across the ocean

is it necessary to dispel every notion of the earth being flat, or just necessary to get a crew to sail a distance with you.

[Bjorn Against]

29. I am not sailing a ship but if I was...

I would prefer not have a crew that I had to work to convince that the Earth was not flat.

[sandnsea]

42. Why bother?

Why not just tell them you are going to stop sailing before you fall off.

[Bjorn Against]

45. Because that would tell me my crew was made up of idiots...

And I would rather have competent people in my crew, just like I would rather have competent people in my government. If you want to bring a crew on your ship that does not even know the most basic information about geography be my guest, I wish you the best of luck.

[sandnsea]

55. I'd rather sail across the ocean

And if that's what it took to do it, that's what I'd do. You can wait around for the perfect circumstances and see how far you get.

[Bjorn Against]

66. I never said anything about perfect circumstances...

But I do expect that my crew has a basic knowledge of the sea, and if the whole crew thinks that if they travel too far they might fall off the edge of the Earth that does not give me much faith in their knowledge of the sea. But I guess if you think an incompetent crew is just fine, well go ahead and sail with them. Just don't blame me when you get out into the middle of the ocean and realize you are lost.

[sandnsea]

67. If you wait for a whole crew

who believed the world was round when the majority thought it was flat, you might never get out of port.

[Bjorn Against]

70. And that might be for the better...

I don't want to get lost at sea, and I am not about to go sailing with a crew of idiots. If I don't leave port fine with me, I would rather be safe on land than I would sit on a ship run by people who know nothing about the sea. You seem insistent that you want to get on a boat filled with an incompetent crew, like I said you can go ahead and do that but don't complain to me about being seasick.

[sandnsea]

71. If you're the navigator

and the crew is doing what you tell them, then you aren't going to get lost unless YOU are incompetent. Since you don't accept that level of responsibility, I definitely don't want to be part of your crew.

[Bjorn Against]

76. First off a navigator is only as effective as their crew...

If the crew screws up badly enough there is little the navigator can do, it takes more than one person to run a ship. Second, how did I even get to be navigator? You seem to have just assigned me that position without checking my qualifications, the truth is the only kind of sea vessel I have ever attempted to navigate in my life was a canoe, and that didn't turn out so well. So I wouldn't make a good navigator, and somehow I don't think you would be a good one either if you want to hire a crew that does not even know the basics about the sea.

[sandnsea]

79. Then you're not going to hire a crew

to sail across the ocean if you don't know how to navigate. You don't belong in a conversation deciding about the right and wrong of getting across the ocean, and you wouldn't be hired because you also do not accept the premise of following directions when you don't know what you admit you don't know.

[Bjorn Against]

92. Hell no I am not hiring a crew of idiots to go out to sea with me, I am not even going out to sea

You seem intent on setting up another Titanic like situation. You want me, a person with no experience navigating a large ship to go out to sea with a crew who has such little knowledge of the sea that they are concerned they might hit a giant waterfall at the end of the ocean and fall off the edge of the world. I am telling you this is not a good idea. I am not getting on that boat, and I sure as hell ain't hiring a crew of idiots to get on the boat with me. What you are berating me for refusing to do would be suicide if I did do it.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but my assumption is that you probably don't have a lot of experience navigating large boats either. Yet you seem to be pretty comfortable navigating one of those things just by following the directions of others, while you are surrounded by a crew whose only concern about the rest of the world is where the giant waterfall at the edge is located.

It is your life and you can apply for a job navigating a boat at sea if you want to, but can I please request that if you do go out to sea then please don't navigate an oil tanker. We have just seen some big oil spills recently, and we really don't want to see anymore.

[sandnsea]

99. Exactly, you're not even going out to sea

You're going to stay stuck exactly where you are because you haven't got enough sense to trust somebody who knows what they're doing. We don't make progress because every single person on the planet agrees with a particular fact. We make progress because the results are promising enough to make us take a risk, whether the facts are 100% concrete or not. We don't have 100% of the facts on stem cell research, but we're willing to take risks on the research that we do have. If we waited until we had all the facts, we'd never make any progress at all.

[Bjorn Against]

113. Not doing something stupid does not mean you are stuck...

I was smart enough not to get on board the whole Iraq ship either, do I regret my decision? Hell no. Sometimes it is better to not get on board. Doing something stupid is not progress. And as far as your stem cell research example goes, we are only able to make progress on that issue when we kick the flat-Earthers off board. It is the flat-Earthers who have been holding up progress on that issue, and you are encouraging we bring them on board so we can make progress.

[baby_mouse]

54. Well. That DEPENDS, dunnit?

If everyone, including you, thinks the world is flat, you're going to freak when the world's natural, actual curvature changes the position of the stars, by which, presumably, you navigate.

[sandnsea]

59. Well that isn't what I said

Which goes back to people misinterpreting facts to suit their needs, which is why there is rarely a flat right and wrong in anything.

[baby_mouse]

62. I have misunderstood you, then. Can you be clearer?

I interpreted your question literally....

[sandnsea]

69. No you didn't

"Is it necessary to dispel every notion of the earth being flat."

One would have to already know it wasn't flat before considering how to convince a crew.

It's like your cake. Somebody else baked it, it didn't belong to the people who discovered it, but you didn't think of that. That's what beleving there are absolutes in just about anything is dangerous. And even when there are absolutes, getting something accomplished can sometimes be more important than getting 100% of the people to know a particular fact. I don't think most people know exactly how most technology works and don't care to. They pragmatically use it. That's what bringing people to the "center" means, bringing people to a place where the majority can sit together comfortably and get things done.

[baby_mouse]

I don't think I fully understand your position, I have to say.

You seem to me to be saying two things:

1. That my analogy, in a sense, ignores context.

Yes, it does, because I wish to draw attention to a particular problem with adopting moderation monolithically. Essentially I'm pointing out that the assumption that "the truth lies in the middle" is a poor guide to establishing the truth. The middle of WHAT? All you have to do, to get someone to say "the truth" is where YOU want them to say it is, is make your on position more "extreme"! Which is exactly what the right in the US has been doing, very successfully.

You're suggesting that there are cases there may be a third position. That's true, I suppose, but it's not really what I'm interested in discussing. I constructed an analogy for a situation where there ISN'T a third position. In reality, sometimes there isn't.

Say Chris turns up and says, "uhhh, guys, thats MY cake, actually, I baked it," I would make Bob say "Well I want it more than you anyway, so who cares, I'm taking this to arbitration anyway", presumably Alice, being nice, would drop out and then Mr McModerate would give Chris half and Bob half, even though Bob has no right to it at all... See, I'm trying to paint a picture of faux moderation, a position "between" a position that's genuinely "moderate" and one that's genuinely "extreme". It's an analogy, not a hypothetical and there's a danger in discussing analogies of mistaking them for hypotheticals and introducing data that waters down the original meaning. For example, I could say that your ship analogy doesn't take account of bad weather and "you didn't think of that." Why should you? It's a separate question! That section of the OP wasn't really intended to be a discussion of a hypothetical situation, in which case what one might call "real world" complexities could obviously enter into it ... Criticising an analogy by proposing an alternative aspect to the scenario that doesn't actually pertain to the point of the analogy and claiming the original isn't sufficiently analogous because it doesn't contain the superfluous detail isn't a very robust criticism.

Let's try again.

Bob and Alice BAKE A CAKE TOGETHER... AND...

Bob says: "I want all of it."

etc.

In short, I don't see how what you're saying disagrees with what I'm saying... um, if you intended it to, that is. If you're saying that my analogy isn't complex enough to represent anything real I'd have to dispute that as it's not attempting to describe the entire process of establishing, for example, property rights, but only one unfortunate facet of the process of making decisions about some property. It's intended to ring true and be comparable to similar situations in real life, rather than map onto *all* situations isomorphically. It's badly moderated dichotomy that I'm taking about, not multipolar situations.

Now, you COULD be recognising this already, and actually saying that my attempt at isolating this phenomenon is so stripped out of real world concerns that it isn't any use even as an analogy, but if you are, I think you've misread me. It's true that I've made Bob ludicriously unreasonable, but hey, look around, the world's actually FULL of Bobs, I'd say.

2. It's not necessary for everyone to know everything to get things done.

That's true. But, um, I really can't see what it's got to do with what I said.

My OP is about how we think about truth and falsehood, but your response seems to be about the functionality of models, irrespective of their "truth" value. If that's the case, then you haven't actually contradicted me, because I'm talking about something different, I'm only really interested in addressing models whose truth value affects their functionality. You seem to be saying that some models don't require a truth value to be efficacious. Well and good.

The centre you describe where people can sit comfortably and get things done sounds great. Wny aren't we there, politically? I say it's because of the combined effect of Bob the Bastard and Mr McModerate.

[sandnsea]

91. Adding facts changes truth

I added a fact you hadn't considered, you changed the scenario to adhere to your pre-conceived truth.

I'll add more facts. Alice bought the ingredients, Bob had the knowledge and actually did all the work to create the cake. Alice thinks they baked a cake together, Bob thinks she only gets an investor's share, maybe 10%.

So what's the truth now.

There is rarely an instance in which something is absolutely right or wrong. And even when you have one absolute, a cake exists, the facts surrounding the cake can be elusive and shifting. At some point, eating the cake becomes the pragmatic priority -- before someone leaves it out in the rain and we end up with a lousy song to endure for eternity.

[baby_mouse]

98. Shrug...

Your ship springs a leak. The captain turns out to be a transvestite. Actually, halfway through the voyage the earth suddenly BECOMES flat, and everyone sails over the edge. What then? Oooh, truth, eh, what's truth? Moot point, eh? Moot point. Makes yer fink.

"I added a fact you hadn't considered, you changed the scenario to adhere to your pre-conceived truth."

You added an unnecessary embellishment and I adapted the scenario to reiterate my point. There never was an Alice. There never was a Bob. IT'S ALL A LIE. So. What's the truth now? Looks like it's whatever you want it to be.

See... I think there's a REAL WORLD that is OUTSIDE my head... And I think there are ways of talking about it that are true and ways of talking about it that aren't.

"There is rarely an instance in which something is absolutely right or wrong."

Interesting opinion.

Is it true?

[sandnsea]

100. The final solution

:nuke:

That's what happens in the real world when a tyrant's reality is challenged.

[lumberjack_jeff]

47. No. On a contiuum between right and wrong, all points in between are wrong to varying degrees. n/t

[Bjorn Against]

48. Great post...

It is simple, straight to the point, and I don't think anyone could argue with it. Of course people can debate what is right and what is wrong, but a person would look pretty stupid arguing that we should be somewhere in the middle between right and wrong.

[sandnsea]

58. Shades of gray

Wherein the point is to get something accomplished, whether you convince every single person of what's right or not.

[baby_mouse]

64. Pooootentially so, S&S...

However, my position essentially maps to the this: sometimes you can't get anything done unless you take the hard line.

Some things AREN'T gray. Also, a lot of compromises, IMO, are brought about simply for the sake of compromise...

"Getting something accomplished" is an admirable goal, but not as admirable as getting the RIGHT thing accomplished, and sometimes the process of "getting something accomplished" obstructs the possibility of getting the right thing done...

[lumberjack_jeff]

116. Whether you can get 100% of the people to accept the truth isn't the point.

The point is the belief that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

In my experience that's not generally true. Someone is telling the truth and someone is lying.

[sandnsea]

4. shades of gray

The truth is the planet would be a lot better off if most humans were dead. Do you really want to save the planet?

[Cary]

6. You gave Alice poor negotiating skills.

If Alice is going to live with Bob she has to adapt and learn to work with him. Alice's other choices may be better, or may be worse. But you don't give us that information.

[baby_mouse]

14. Bob, presumably, then, can do whatever he likes.

Why?

[Cary]

18. Alice has choices.

But what is Alice going to do to stop Bob?

[baby_mouse]

22. Why is it up to Alice to stop Bob? Why can't BOB stop Bob?

Alice seems capable of stopping Alice.

And at this point we may well diverge into talking at cross-purposes unless we're careful...

[Cary]

25. How do you propose to get Bob to stop Bob? (n/t)

[baby_mouse]

46. Now *I* have to stop Bob! why can't BOB stop Bob?

Why do you keep making the assumption that people other than Bob are responsible for stopping Bob?!

[Cary]

107. Oy.

From Bob's perspective he's getting 3/4 of the cake. Why should he change?

Bob probably feels that he deserves 3/4 of that cake. He might even be correct in that assertion.

[rucky]

16. Here's how I'd sell a car to a triangulator:

I'll tell you the price I want, you tell me what seems fair, and we'll meet in the middle.

[baby_mouse]

52. Fine for cars.

Not so good with understanding reality, I hope you agree...

[backwoodsbob]

19. the op may be

th most tortured piece of logic I have seen in a while.

[baby_mouse]

23. That's because it's an analysis of a tortured piece of logic.

Read it again.

[Cary]

26. The analogy is incomplete.

[baby_mouse]

28. What's it missing? NT

[Cary]

34. It's over simplified.

For one thing Alice obviously doesn't know Bob. If she did she would have never made her best offer right out of the box.

Bob is going to be Bob. Leopards don't easily change their spots.

What are Alice's choices here? Steal the cake? Kill Bob? Go make her own cake? Dump Bob and go on without him? Replace Bob?

You've taken away all of Alice's options. She has no negotiating leverage here. It's a good thing for her that Bob is so stupid. What's stopping Bob from taking the whole cake and telling Alice tough shit?

[baby_mouse]

50. ROFL!

Your points are well taken. You seem to want to actually solve the problem! Fair enough! Yes, Alice can kill Bob and take the cake, etc, but that's assuming that Mr Moderate McModerate can't be convinced that he's committing a logical fallacy. One of Alice's options is to convince Mr Moderate McModerate that he's actually being unfair, and, with the weight of his arbitration behind her, she could get half the cake, potentially, Bob could get half and Mr Moderate McModerate could have an improved brain.

Crazy, wacky, idea, I know. But that's really where I'm pointing my analogy, at Mr Moderate McModerate, not Alice...

[Cary]

106. Of course I want to solve the problem.

Your analogy is still lacking. You're assuming that Mr Moderate McModerate is looking only at splitting the baby in half, and not at what really works for Mr. Moderate McModerate.

I'm still thinking that's an over simplification.

[baby_mouse]

121. Darling, there are LOTs of solution to the problem.

Bob could say, "Ah fuck it, I'm being an ass. Have half the cake!" That's a solution!

Alice could indeed kill Bob and take the cake. That's a solution!

Mr Moderate McModerate could say: "Ah fuck it. I'M taking the cake!" That's a solution! Of a kind...

Here's a question for you. Tell me what problem it is you think my anology is trying to draw attention to?

[Cary]

122. The problem is movement conservatives.

You seem to me to be saying that they should just spontaneously change. I agree, they should. I agree on all of your reasons too.

I don't see that ever happening and I also don't believe that people just change like that. You have no control over the actions of another person--just your own. Therefore, I believe, it is utterly irrational to have any strategy other than to adjust your own behavior to deal with the actions of others.

One strategy certainly involves weighing the relative importance of having 1/2 of the cake. In your analogy, you're really talking about 1/4 of the cake. Is that a hill to die on? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. You really don't say whether it is. Do you?

So what am I missing here?

[baby_mouse]

123. Hm, I think we've ended up talking at cross purposes! Sorry.

I thought you were only interested in the symbolic side of the analogy. My mistake.

I think you're getting mixed up with the purpose of my post, I can see a particular dynamic pertaining to the MONOLITHIC MODERATES, Moderates that are difficult to push away from their middleishness because instinctively they fear a percieved "extremeness" in certain other views. I think that such people assess these extreme views primarily via how the views make them feel instead of analysing them logically. I feel that this is a genuine political phenomenon that isn't much addressed.

And so, my anology. The difference is this: I'm certainly bothered about (, say) "how to divide cakes", but, for the purposes of this thread, I'm more bothered about this: "in the process of dividing cakes, the "moderate" position can turn out to be unfair" which is a different problem from the simpler, original cake dividing problem. So adding things to the original cake dividing metaphor may find solutions to the cake problem, but my post wasn't really asking for a solution to the cake problem but is about a stage past that where circumstances have unforunately given rise to a *problematic solution* to the cake problem, which I'm pointing out. See the difference? That's what I wanted to talk about, so adding and taking things away from the original problem to turn into a *different problem* wouldn't get us to talk about it.

You're clearly interested in the Real World applicability of the analogy (wasn't sure to start with), and I hadn't really considered that changing the original problem in the first place was what you were proposing as a solution to my... er..."problematic solution" problem.... (!) Yes, giving Alice better negotiation skills could *circumvent* any mess Mr McModerate might introduce, so could killing Bob, but in the other cases, *taking as given* that she doesn't and assuming CAN'T kill Bob (both of which scenarios sound more real world to me, as Bob is everywhere and it's a bit drastic to go around killing people who don't agree with us about things) we have to target Mr McModerate himself if we want to get rid of the mess he makes...

I see now where we differ and it's here:


"You have no control over the actions of another person--just your own. Therefore, I believe, it is utterly irrational to have any strategy other than to adjust your own behavior to deal with the actions of others."

I don't see that human behaviour works that way. You don't necessarily have to be able to control someone to get them to change what they do, these things happen in degrees, you can *incentivise*.

It really depends very much on the issue being discussed, which is why I made Alice and Bob monolithic and have suggested, during our conversation, that Mr McModerate might be less monolithic, I think, politically, that that could be true.

[Cary]

124. "Incentivise" is another word for "negotiate"

I also look at compromise a little differently than you do. You're somehow splitting the individual polices--each cake so to speak.

Indeed that does happen but there is another way to compromise. For example, you can have 3/4 of this cake in exchange for allowing me to have 3/4 of the next cake.

Movement conservatives do have a different perspective. Some of them are true believers and earnestly believe that they're proposing the most beneficial policies. They are as convinced that they are correct as I am convinced that they are wrong. God Herself could appear before them and tell them that they are wrong and they would still be unmoved.

As you say, there are too many Bobs. Killing them is certainly not a viable alternative and I certainly wasn't suggesting that it was.

A conservative idea that I do espouse is Burke's disapproval of the recklessness of the French Revolution, a small re-enactment of which I did experience here after the 2004 election when I and others were repeatedly accused of being lurking Freepers. Yikes!

Bob is our neighbor and, for better or for worse, our partner.

I don't think Bob is the real problem. I think we outnumber the Bobs. Unfortunately we grew soft in many ways because our great success bred complacency. The rightists somehow became activists and radicals. It is WE, THE PEOPLE who have to do the heavy lifting here. WE, THE PEOPLE did get Bob to back off on Social Security. WE, THE PEOPLE have to build on that somehow and put Bob's agenda in check.

To me any of the Democrats will do. We don't need complete success. Ending the war is obviously huge, in and of itself. We also desperately need better representation of the middle class.

There's a lot of frustration behind this post and it's not adequately being expressed.

[Annces]

30. I agree

I had a friend say to me once that there is always another side. This was in response to a problem someone was having. But I don't think that is right. There is not always another side. Many times there is right and wrong, but people don't want to get involved or dig deeper. It is easier to be self-centered and selfish and view everything from that vantage point.

[cali]

32. I agree that the "truth lies somewhere in the middle"

is generally a mindless meme, buy the complexities of political reality can't be reduced to your cute little narrative either.

[Cary]

36. I think it's a pretty good idea, generally, . . .

to discard the more radical ideas proffered by those at the extremes.

[CT_Progressive]

35. The scientific name is "Fallacy of Moderation"

Fallacy of Moderation

This fallacy is committed when it is assumed that the middle position between two extremes must be correct simply because it is the middle position. this sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Position A and B are two extreme positions.
2. C is a position that rests in the middle between A and B.
3. Therefore C is the correct position.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because it does not follow that a position is correct just because it lies in the middle of two extremes. This is shown by the following example. Suppose that a person is selling his computer. He wants to sell it for the current market value, which is $800 and someone offers him $1 for it. It would hardly follow that $400.50 is the proper price.

This fallacy draws its power from the fact that a moderate or middle position is often the correct one. For example, a moderate amount of exercise is better than too much exercise or too little exercise. However, this is not simply because it lies in the middle ground between two extremes. It is because too much exercise is harmful and too little exercise is all but useless. The basic idea behind many cases in which moderation is correct is that the extremes are typically "too much" and "not enough" and the middle position is "enough." In such cases the middle position is correct almost by definition.

It should be kept in mind that while uncritically assuming that the middle position must be correct because it is the middle position is poor reasoning it does not follow that accepting a middle position is always fallacious. As was just mentioned, many times a moderate position is correct. However, the claim that the moderate or middle position is correct must be supported by legitimate reasoning.
Examples of Middle Ground

1. Some people claim that God is all powerful, all knowing, and all good. Other people claim that God does not exist at all. Now, it seems reasonable to accept a position somewhere in the middle. So, it is likely that God exists, but that he is only very powerful, very knowing, and very good. That seems right to me.

2. Congressman Jones has proposed cutting welfare payments by 50% while Congresswoman Shender has proposed increasing welfare payments by 10% to keep up with inflation and cost of living increases. I think that the best proposal is the one made by Congressman Trumple. He says that a 30% decrease in welfare payments is a good middle ground, so I think that is what we should support.

3. A month ago, a tree in Bill's yard was damaged in a storm. His neighbor, Joe, asked him to have the tree cut down so it would not fall on Joes new shed. Bill refused to do this. Two days ago another storm blew the tree onto Joe's new shed. Joe demanded that Joe pay the cost of repairs, which was $250. Bill said that he wasn't going to pay a cent. Obviously, the best solution is to reach a compromise between the two extremes, so Bill should pay Joe $125 dollars

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/middle-ground.html

[Cary]

41. Schrödinger's cat is dead; Schrödinger's cat is alive. (n/t)

[baby_mouse]

44. EXACTLY THAT. Thank you!

xxxxx

:D

[hfojvt]

90. some of those are bad analogies

the argument says that 'the truth is between two EXTREME positions' so both you and the OP disprove this thesis by showing a compromise between one EXTREME position and one MODERATE position and showing that the compromise is unfair.

Clearly though, Alice was taking the middle position. One extreme position is that the cake belongs to Alice, the other is that the cake belongs to Bob. Alice's original position, that they split the cake is NOT an EXTREME position.

Similarly in your example, asking current market value for the computer, is NOT an extreme position. Asking the price of a new computer is an extreme position. The middle, between full price and $1, seems to be the correct position in both examples.

One of the secrets of Bush negotiation is to start out by asking for the moon. Then when the final compromise is reached, it is still ridiculously in your favor, if your opponent is not playing the same game. The trouble is though, if our side asked for the moon, the M$M would just ridicule them to no end. And another trouble shows up in #2, that a 3% increase ends up being a cut because it takes more than that to just maintain the system, but the M$M does not explain it that way. They allow the Republicans to lie and call their cut a 'smaller increase'.

[CT_Progressive]

120. You don't seem to understand the fallacy

The fallacy does not state that the "middle ground" is always wrong.

It simply states that the "middle ground" is not definitively correct solely based on the mere fact that it is the middle ground.

In many cases, as the logical fallacy page indicates, the middle ground is correct by definition, because the two "sides" are each extreme (the health example).

Anyway, the point of my post is to remind people that you can't simple claim the middle position, moderate position, etc. is right simply because its the moderate position. That is a logical fallacy.

If its right, you have to prove its right on its merits.

[MedleyMisty]

37. Personally I've always thought that refusing to make a decision

and waffling about saying both parties are sort of right is moral cowardice.

[baby_mouse]

61. Indeed!

Dante had it right, IMO, see sig... :D

[sam sarrha]

40. actually the truth comes first, then liars seeking profit try to convince you it lies elsewhere

[many a good man]

49. America's problem is we have a right and a center. No left.

Therefore compromise always puts us further and further right of center. The left exists but its small and its voice is never heard.

Democracies have to have both a left and a right in order to work. The left in this country was systematically destroyed in the 50s and 60s and 70s. Movement conservatism tried to kill it out completely in the 80s to present. If we don't revive the left it won't matter how many Democrats we elect democracy still won't work.

[baby_mouse]

51. Exactly so.

And, to do this, the people to get to are the Moderates.

And... unfortunately... the way to do it is to show them that being moderate doesn't work...

They're not going to like it. They really, really aren't.

[Deja Q]

53. Oooh! I love being patronized by excessively and needlessly long ramblings, ooh!! Ooooh!

/orgasm

Sometimes the truth GENUINELY lies somewhere in the middle.

Then why make the argument that it isn't? :D

[baby_mouse]

56. Go and read it again, grinny.

... and this time, absorb what it actually says.

[lonestarnot]

57. That middle pile of crap is huge!

[iamthebandfanman]

63. more fuel for the false fire

why do so many people on DU promote inward fighting?

whats with all these threads with no other purpose but to upset people? what if there were threads everywhere slandering progressives? people are entitled to believe what they want.

so go on, attack people in your own party(common folks, not politicians) and see where thatll get ya.

this whole 'centrist' versus 'leftist' deal is all a sham and it makes me sick to see so many of you on DU falling right into the trap.

you can be a 'centrist' or a 'progressive' and want big corporations, special interests, and financial gain to be out of the political system... infact id imagine almost everyone on DU would agree with that.


the funniest thing I think about the OP is that to much is being focused on "the truth", whatever that is.
you know, theres a big difference between 'truth' and 'fact'. while something can infact be both truthful and factual, not everything that is truth is fact and not everything that is fact is truth.

truth is a CONCEPT.
the TRUTH is whatever everyone believes.

[baby_mouse]

65. ""the truth", whatever that is."

Doesn't that just say it all?

For what it's worth, this post was not particularly aimed at left-centrists, but, hey, if the garment fits.

Oh, incidentally, THIS assertion...

"truth is a CONCEPT.
the TRUTH is whatever everyone believes."

... is FALSE.

[iamthebandfanman]

78. Hey...

Whatever is true to you ;)

[baby_mouse]

85. BAH!

:D

Humbug. I wilt at you.

[iamthebandfanman]

88. awww

let me water you then ;)

i dun mean to make ya wilt ...
sorry if ive done so!

[OzarkDem]

89. I'm a fan of "evidence-based" politics and public policy

and the evidence is what happens when certain policy is enacted, not how the media or campaigns spin it.

The evidence shows that the Iraq War has been a costly failure.

The evidence shows that energy prices continue to rise

The evidence shows good paying jobs in the US are disappearing

The evidence shows that more Americans are losing health insurance coverage and dying more as health care costs rise

The evidence shows conservative economic and foreign policy is resulting in a declining dollar and rising interest rates

[iamthebandfanman]

93. so you are for facts ,

:)

[OzarkDem]

95. Yep!

That said, I'm also a supporter of being creative in developing public policy. But like scientific research, new and creative ideas have to be based on a foundation of evidence that new ideas will work.

Wouldn't it be cool if we could develop policy think tanks that were based on stringent peer review? A process where someone proposing something new had to convince an impartial group of their peers that their idea is sound, based on good evidence and past research?

Wow, imagine the possibilities...

[druidity33]

110. the truth is

I have seen a ghost.

:shrug:

We live in a world where Science is a dominant paradigm and according to it, the statement i just made could not be true because to Science, ghosts don't exist. But there's no doubt in my mind i saw one (and i wasn't the only person there who saw it).

Truth can be variable, because what we interpret to be facts may be disproven years down the road. If then the truth is reliant on facts, well then you see the dilemma.

Haven't you heard the adage, "there are many facets to the truth"?

[Solon]

74. Are you saying that the truth is a lie that everyone agrees on?

:wtf:

[iamthebandfanman]

77. perhaps you should

examine history text books from different countries to see that is so.

[Solon]

80. And that's why I don't believe history books in general, they are propoganda and lies...

just because they are mutually agreed upon doesn't make them truth, no more so than denying that the Earth is over 6 billion years old makes it younger.

[iamthebandfanman]

84. well good for you for realising that

probably because you looked for the facts. not the truth.

truth can be defined not only by something that is factual but by something that is a reality.
history, as an example.. whether it is factual or not..., is THE reality to the people it serves(or people who serve it).

what is reality ?
it varies from person to person, dontcha think?


truth and fact are not always the same.

[Solon]

97. Your last statement is true(I think there is an unintended pun there), and that is the reason I...

hate politics in general. When some public policy is contradicted by, not a truth, but a fact, we end up having debates on truth. It seems to pass completely over people's heads that the truth isn't what matters, but the facts on the ground are what matters, the results, not necessarily the means, though both are related, depending on the issue. We seem to completely ignore the facts in favor of some pie in the sky policies that simply don't show a demonstrable way to work.

Truth may be relative, but facts aren't, they are what they are, and we can't work our way around them.

[iamthebandfanman]

115. "Truth may be relative"

exactly what ive been trying to say ;)

it is relative.

[lumberjack_jeff]

117. History is written by the winners.

That doesn't make it truth.

[barbtries]

73. i enjoyed your rant nt

[gulliver]

75. Another rhetorical "happy fun ball"

As usual with these sorts of rhetorical posts, the problem is not in the syllogism or logical function. Those usually make sense. The problem is in the categorization and premises you use as input. Then, it's garbage in, garbage out (GIGO).

It is easy to say:
1. Humans are mortal.
2. Socrates is (was) human.
Ergo, Socrates is (was) mortal.

But real life seldom boils down so neatly. Usually there are dozens of syllogisms and open categorizations competing on any given issue simultaneously. That feeds debate.

The category "moderate" and the idea of "the middle of two positions" are not nearly as concrete as human mortality or Socrates humanity. The need to place a real entity (person or policy) into the premises of the syllogism makes the validity of the result dependent on the choice. If you feed garbage into a syllogism, you get garbage out of it.

For example:
1. Humans are mortal
2. Foolishness is human
Ergo, foolishness is mortal.

Sometimes "moderates" are people with no principles who only seek the middle out of cowardice or a misguided reflex to cold consensus. Sometimes "moderates" are people who see a way to bridge the fissures that divide people. Which definition do we use and when? When is a "middle ground" best and when is it a figment?

[OzarkDem]

81. Good analogy

Those who proclaim to "know what's best" for the country love to impose their own definition of the "middle" on the political debate.

These days the "middle" of public opinion is much farther away from conservativism than it once was.

Sort of like the difference between "averages" - mean, median or mode.

Looks like you gored a few sacred conservative cows from the looks of this thread.

[baby_mouse]

94. Thanks! nt

[Guaranteed]

82. It all depends on what you think the "middle" is.

IMO, the "middle" at this point is the moderate liberal position.

[OzarkDem]

86. In elections

the middle is defined as where the largest number of voters fall. And that's a very different place than it was 4 or 8 years ago.

The majority of voters today DON'T support

Iraq War
Iran War
Sending jobs overseas
Privatizing Social Security
Running up the national debt
Ignoring economic problems
Failing to fix the health care crisis
Bush/Cheney or the GOP


That is how they will vote, and all the triangulation in the world won't help.

[Trillo]

83. I liked your conclusion

They had a different idea, a truly radical one, which Goldsmith grasped only after David Addington, Cheney's chief-of-staff, explained it to him. "We're going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop." Under this theory when the president is elected that is all the legitimacy he will ever need. His powers rightly overawe everyone's unless the White House errs and grants legitimacy to those who would "check" and question him or seek elucidation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/a-world-made-more-opaque_b_73896.html

Of course the flaw in that article is the pushing and pushing and pushing has been happening for at least a century plus a few decades (with respect to corporatism), if not all the way back to the formation of the government itself, much longer that just the current manifestation of republican rules.

It is very discouraging when those you've elected to congress change their tune when they're not actively campaigning for office. It does seem to be an inherent flaw, and perhaps its related to the long-term movement of the illusory middle toward the right over decades and centuries, with little retracements along the way (such as FDR, but he had banking issues that long term haven't worked out well, and have subjected us to continual inflation even when they were working).

[Odin2005]

87. I think one has to make a distinction between empirical facts and politicians making public policy.

Empirical facts are about "what is." Debates on political questions are generally centered around "what ought to be", that is, the ends we are trying to achieve and what means should we use to reach those ends. Each person has his or her own notion of what "ought to be" that will conflict with the opinions of other people, thus for a society to function people must come together, compromise, and work out some consensus about that the ends and the means to those ends are going to be.

[baby_mouse]

102. Nicely put.

My analogy's strength relies on the reader identifying on some level with Alice, ignores questions that may have some genuine ambiguity about them. I assert that very few of these are actually as ambiguous as they appear.

A classic example was the lowering of the age of consent for homosexual sex in the UK. The hetero age of consent was 16 and the homo 21. The homos (of which I am one) thought this was stupid and wanted 16. Anyone else who had an opposing opinion wanted to keep it where it was. The Government compromised and made it 18. This solved NOTHING, it perpetuated the idea the homosexuality is somehow weird and simultaneously frightened the sheep.

My position is that they should have dropped it to 16 in one go. The Irish, when they removed the legal mess around homosexuality, did it all in one go.

If you can come up with clear examples of questions that are obviously ambiguous I'd be interested to see them, as I can think of few that I have in the past adopted a "compromised" position on.

Of course, some may think that that just makes me a curmudgeonly old git...

[truedelphi]

96. I love that! "You are more interested in the middle than the truth)What wisdom.

There may well be times whent he truth does lie in the middle (Settling fights between young children for instance)

But most of the time you are right.

[cleveramerican]

101. its not a zero sum equation

politics is what can be pragmatically be achieved, not what you wish could be achieved.

pragmatism trumps ideology ever time for me.
I will happily accept baby steps in the correct direction as opposed to gridlock.

[Odin2005]

103. Exactly.

Sadly, too many people would rather stomp their feet, take their ball, and go home if they don't get their way.

[baby_mouse]

105. And how do you distinguish between pragmatism and ideology?

Why, in fact, do you suppose that there necessarily IS a distinction?

[cleveramerican]

112. Ideology is like the north star

pragmatism is the next step.

[Rex]

108. The truth stands on the opposite end of the spectrum from a lie.

So there is no way for either to be in the middle. Both are absolutist positions (you either lie or tell the truth, there is no such thing as a white lie or a half truth) so it is kinda stupid to say one or the other stands in the middle. It is a black and white issue.

[Flabbergasted]

109. Reality is somewhere in the middle. Thuth lies beyond the dichotomy.

Trying to find truth in our simple modes of logic, is like trying to turn a turnip into an apple.

[Prism]

111. I think moderates are mischaracterized, though

Political moderates don't sit Solomon-like in the middle, ready to cleave every political issue into perfect halves of compromise. Assigning that homogeneity for the sake of analogy results in an inaccurate impression.

In my experience, moderates are people who aren't very ideological. They find the extremes of the Left and Right distasteful. In many cases, the middle position works because we have seen throughout history what happens whenever one extreme gains too much power. So moderates are a generally beneficial pendulum rocking back and forth between the two sides, ebb and flow. Sometimes that pendulum goes off. An argument certainly could be made that the American center has failed over the past seven years. It happens.

But moderates are typically issue people. What makes them moderate is that they might think a very progressive solution is needed for one problem, while simultaneously believing a conservative solution is best in another sphere of government. They're not very ideologically uniform in the way a self-described progressive or conservative tends to be. Most moderates don't agree on where they'd assign those liberal/conservative solutions. They're all over the map and sometimes difficult to peg.

In a two party system that is designed to appeal to the extremes in the primary system, this makes for a bit of a mess in the general election. The political parties are a dinner ordered for them, whereas a moderate wishes for a buffet. So it comes down to which party can cater just enough to keep the base on board, while being more appealing on more issues to the moderates that the other party.

You see this a lot in demographics like, say, Catholic Democrats. They're socially conservative in many respects, but the other positions of the Democratic Party in regards to things like labor and government appeal to them more. While the media might refer to them as somewhat moderate, they're really both conservative and progressive.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Sorry bout that. I just think moderates are a much more complicated political class than what is being depicted in this thread.

[Cary]

114. I consider myself to be a liberal leaning moderate.

I'm not going to sign off on any argument based on ideology. I want facts and sound analysis.

The good news is that I'm going to side with the left on most issues because that's where the facts and sound analysis tends to reside.

[The Doctor.]

118. Well then obviously the Earth is half flat!

[leftist_not_liberal]

119. For there to be a middle, there would have to be a LEFT

and in this country, there ain't one.

The duopoly is fundamentally pro-capitalist. There is no left and thus no middle either.