Moderates & Radicals

Introduction

Within nearly every ideological grouping there are those who are more moderate & those who are more radical in their beliefs. The relationship between these two sides of an ideological direction varies depending on which ideologies & how radical the radicals are & how moderate the moderates are; however a persitant phenomenon is the radicals viewing the moderates as traitors which misdirect people & the cause, by trapping in people who would otherwise be attracted to the more radical ideogies.

But I think this isn’t usually the case & that the more moderate ideologies create the material & ideological conditions for the radical ones, creating a momentum in one direction or the other.

Moderates & Revisionists

Now some may find it odd for me to make an article about targeting the root of revisionists & then an article defending moderates in succession. & while it may often seem that moderates & revisionists are the same or very similar things there is one minor difference & one key difference.

In a more semantic nitpicky sense is that many or even most revisionists are just opportunists, those who have abandoned ideology at least partially in favor of corruption & power seeking.

Second & what I believe is key to the distinction I make here is that revisionists (those who aren’t pure opportunists) seek to pull an already radical system or group more moderate dampening momentum, whereas moderates push a society or ideological-demographic group in a certain direction creating & exacerbating momentum, just not as much as radicals would like.

For example, Xiaoping Deng is today infamous among socialist circles as the man who brought capitalism to modern China, & he was indeed a revisionist who took a (theoretically) leftwing system & created a rightward momentum within it; however if the Kuomintang had taken power instead of the CCP in China but Deng (or someone with his policies) had still become a Chinese leader he would’ve been a social democrat, market socialist, or democratic socialist of sorts who improved the material conditions of China & radicalized many many people to leftwing ideology.

Material & Ideological Conditions

Once moderates have influence they push the policy &/or ideology of a region in a direction, along which the radicals lie further down; political groupings are based on values & so the presence of even compromised forms of these values normalizes them within a system & a public consciousness which can lead to their heightening to more pure forms, especially when radicals point out the contradictions that arise from promoting these values but also promoting other values. For example many many socialists were at some point social democrats, I’d be willing to say majority or plurality but alas there is not data on the subject for obvious reasons. Another example: Donald Trump, despite being constantly lambasted by the far right as a traitor, a zionist, a cuckservative, etc, his policies, the people he appoints, & the base he cultivates, undeniably have brought the United States closer to fascism.

An arguably more straightforward piece of evidence is that the more someone is to the left the more they tend to push for more & better education, & better educated people tend to lean more leftwing. & of course the opposite is true, with the right pushing for less & worse education which appears to cultivate rightwing thought.

A more abstract version of this point would be that generally speaking the farther left & less right someone is the more freedom they perpetuate in a society & the left tends to flourish best in freer societies, & of course in contrast the right promotes less freedom & more control of society & the people in control tend to promote more rightwing politics, since rightwing politics are in most cases roughly equivalent to the politics of those in power (this connects back to my previous piece about Leninism & revisionism).

This is why socialist movements best flourish in liberal democracies, even highly compromised ones.

Electoralism

Electoralism is a contentious subject among the left & has been for a while. I will spare my full arguments concerning the subject but I will point out how this theory of political momentums & directions can be applied to tactical electoralism. All I will say here is that when you vote for a lesser evil you are voting for the other side’s moderate or revisionist, when you vote for a greater evil you are voting for the other side’s radical, for a lesser good your side’s moderate or revisionist, & for a greater good your side’s radical. Now note that radical vs moderate vs revisionist is all relative & has a lot to do with who’s currently in power, pertinent example: Joe Biden & the Democrats are revisionists to the current Republicans in power, & the Republicans in power are moderates to the far-right on the horizon.

Interestingly some ideologies recognize this more easily. The far-right, for as much as they love to call him a globalist, zionist, homo-loving shill most certainly voted for him when they voted because he is demonstrably an advancement to fascist interests. Meanwhile the far-left was & especially after its relatively minor empowerment is very skeptical of Bernie Sanders & the Justice Democrats & waged war on those among them who wanted to vote Biden as a measure against Trump’s advancement of fascism.

Concluding Statements

This is not a complete endorsement of the moderates, I am not asking for the radicals to fully endorse them & I certainly do not wish to see the radicals become them, especially since it’s criticism of moderates that exposes the contradictions leading people to become radicals. What I am saying here is that moderates are not necessarily enemies, & a complete unwillingness to work with & support them can be a mistake, especially in a context in which a force that differs more from the radicals could take hold.