5 September

The myth of the middle, the centre, the average, of moderation. The problem with this sort of thinking for me is that the middle, or average, is a myth. Examples. Some people are strongly for same sex marriage. Some people strongly against. What’s the ‘middle’ here - not too fussed about it one way or the other? But that’s not an average of for and against, it’s ‘I don’t care’. A completely separate, distinct position. A moderate drinker is not an average of an alcoholic and a teetotaller, it’s somebody with nothing in common with either of them. A warm day isn’t an average of a hot and a cold day, you can’t find a spot on the thermometer where hot turns into cold or cold into hot, there is no ‘middle’ temperature. Apathetic isn’t the average of Left and Right. An agnostic isn’t the average of a fundamentalist and an atheist. And so on. The point of all this being, nobody lives as an average or middle. Every person has a distinct view. Averages or middles are mathematical constructs that have nothing to do with actual life. Extremists use the fallacy of the middle all the time, to change societies to be more like how they want them. A Nazi sympathiser can demand ‘balance’ in the news, to include Nazi views. That drags everybody further into their sewer.