We Are All the Middle

I consider myself to be an independent thinker. I believe that I am sort of in the middle of the political spectrum. And as I’ve talked to people on the left and the right, I’ve sense that they too feel they are in the middle of the spectrum. And I believe I know why.

We all want to be in the middle. We prefer being in the middle of the crowd. I assume there are a few fringe people who believe they aren’t necessarily centered, but let’s ignore them for now. Anyone can define themselves as being in the middle. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean we are in the middle. That definition is arbitrary. So we have to continue to define what we think is the middle by finding people on either side of our beliefs because you can’t have a middle of one, you need to know there are people who are to the right and left of you. And the more people you can define as to the right and left, the more we see ourselves as the center.

But how we define who is to the left and right does vary based on our cultural, religious and societal beliefs. I imagine an Amish man in Pennsylvania might think that he is in the middle based on what he sees as to the far left (what they call the English) and to the right of those in his community that are very religious and want nothing to do with the outside world. And since his world is relatively closed, he can not see the ultra left because his spectrum doesn’t go as far as television and music.

So is it with everyone else. Some people will not allow their spectrum to spread too far in case they find that they are not in the middle but have drifted to the right or left. In many ways, we define the middle not by our beliefs, but by our allowance of how far left and right we want to accept. We do this by narrowly defining what news shows we watch. We will watch the left side and define that as an extreme. We hear about people to our right side as too virulent and define them as the other extreme. Except since we have somewhat placed our flag in the ground, we won’t ever budge but will ignore any evidence that we aren’t in the middle.

So what does this mean to us? Sometimes, we should pick up or flag and let it drift a bit. We should challenge our beliefs not by someone else telling us what to believe but by contemplating the basic tenets of what we consider sacred. We should allow ourselves to be challenged by speakers and writers well outside our comfort zone. And then we can plant our flag again, but not too deeply. Because when it is too deeply planted, we will have difficulty removing it. And sometimes it is easier to leave it in the ground and find the spectrum that seems to work rather than learning what else is possible.