In Defense of Immoderation

Moderates these days. They're everywhere you look. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when moderation became the fashion, but it seems to have coincided with the introduction of khaki clothing by Banana Republic in the early '90s. It was an ominous sign of the sort of mediocrity we had to look forward to. Maybe people were sick of the whole '80s punk scene. Those shocking colors, large earrings and screaming music (not to mention that hair) were, admittedly, grating on the eyes. There were only so many days in a row you could wear your favorite lime green Converse sneakers. But compared to the uniform of the '90s--that drab khaki, white and black outfit--it leaves some of us wishing we could go back to the good old days of immoderation.

The effects of moderation have been wide reaching. Bill Clinton rode the wave of moderation into office in 1992, and politics hasn't looked back since. Political moderation has deprived the nation of two of its most ameliorating influences: the true liberal and the true conservative.

With the advent of moderation has come the extinction of the true liberal. There are a few remaining specimens, Ralph Nader among them, distinguished by their self-righteous sermons and slightly communistic tendencies. There were days when having your own copy of Mao's Little Red Book was a mark of integrity, instead of a badge of shame. These bleeding-heart liberals as they are now disparagingly called, never hesitated to remind us that the most important issues were not how much money we were making or which cell phone matched our wardrobe. While often misguided and sometimes silly, the true liberals swung the political debate in innovative new directions, constantly pricking the public's conscience and making sure that politicians considered the most needy and underrepresented.

The true liberal has its counterpart in the true conservative. These fellows have not (unfortunately) gone so quietly into that good night. From Ralph Reed to Pat Buchanan, they're still out practicing their bigoted and backward politics. They still have followers and they still run for office every so often. But less and less are they explicitly shaping the Republican Party's political agenda. When (and if) Strom Thurmond dies, so too will die the old school Republican party. The future is for the George W. Bush Jrs. and Christie Todd Whitmans of America. They are the fiscal conservative, politically moderate Republicans who are taking our nation by storm. In the meantime, by resembling Democratic moderates so effectively, they fail to incite the kind of ire that true conservatives do. The new Republicans are so reasonable, so innocuous, as to make us forgive and forget when they receive funding from the Christian Coalition. You see, the Ralph Reeds are still there, but they are wearing a mask of moderation. It is when their mouthpieces get elected that they will unleash their true conservatism--after it's too late.

Instead of standing on a side and knowing what is wrong and what is right, we stand in a great gray area (another favorite color of moderates). In this new world, where most voters split their tickets, Americans find ourselves without a clear notion of what our politicians really believe in.

Some people are pleased by the greater levels of cooperation as shown in such bipartisan efforts as the 1996 federal budget truce. But others are left wondering--did we really vote for our Democratic senator so that he or she would acquiesce to slashing Medicare and ignoring education? Ah, how could we forget, we voted for the fiscally conservative socially liberal Democrat!

The worst thing is this lack of principals which accompanies moderation wherever it wanders. You have to wonder where moderates stand. Are they pro-choice or pro-life?

Well, they're probably like George Bush Jr.--they wouldn't have an abortion themselves, but they don't think the nation is "ready" to ban the practice of abortion. Doesn't sound like a position you could march for. Recently, the first Democratic Governor of California since 1983, Gray Davis, couldn't make up his mind whether illegal immigrants should receive emergency medical care, which a 1994 proposition banned. The proposition was successfully challenged in court, but Davis couldn't simply accept the court's ruling, even though his Republican predecessor had been the one behind the law. So, here we have another non-decision modeled on those made by Clinton--Davis decided to submit the ruling to mediation--another warm and fuzzy word meaning he gets to avoid making a decision.

You would think that you voted for a politician because they would make the kind of decisions you wanted. No, we vote for them because they don't make decisions at all.

Even college students have caught the moderation virus. They're anti-affirmative action, but they'd like to see more diversity on campus. They'll march for a living wage for Harvard's workers, but they'll be in an investment bank earning more than 50K in a couple of years. They'll qualify their political leanings with a, "But I voted for/believe in/don't believe in, blank." They don't want to be pigeonholed, labeled or defined. The danger in this is that they are so busy not being labeled, defined or pigeonholed, that they don't take the time to think about what they will stand for. For, truth be told, we all will have to answer for ourselves and our decisions sooner or later, and the first step towards forming principles is to state them and debate them.

Moderation has abolished the stating of principles from our country's conversation. The essential questions are no longer asked, or if they are, they receive no answer, only silent shrugs of confusion. What do we stand for? Why are we in Kosovo?

What will we fight for? These are all questions which moderates have successfully evaded. There's nothing wrong with compromise, but without a few indelible principles to guide you by, you are no more than a diplomat and no leader at all. Clinton hasn't learned this yet, but maybe we can figure it out sooner. Why not start by ditching our khakis and stepping out in our lime green Converse for a change? Meredith B. Osborn '02, a Crimson editor, is a social studies concentrator in Greenough Hall.