Centrism's Fatal Error

Centrism as a codified approach to contemporary Western politics emphasizes distancing oneself from the popular stances held by major parties in favor of options in the "center."  In other words, if conservatives make claim A and liberals make claim B, centrists tend to reject both in favor of claim C.  While the bipartisan giants are often indeed guilty of numerous and egregious fallacies, it is also fallacious to reject an idea simply because it is associated with one of them.  This type of non sequitur approach reduces political worldview choices down to criteria other than consistency, logical soundness, and logical or evidential validity.

There are certainly issues where the left and right alike have incomplete or erroneous stances (the size of government and the use of prisons for criminal punishment are two examples), but this does not mean that the correct stance is always in between liberal and conservative ideas.  The left is sometimes entirely correct, like with regards to pointing out the idiocy and dangers of nationalism; likewise, the right is sometimes entirely correct, like with regards to emphasizing the murderous nature of abortion.  To merely denounce a position simply because it happens to be connected with a mainstream, contemporary political movement is a flawed approach.

Of course, both main parties stand on enormously inconsistent and illogical premises.  Each is adrift in a sea of arbitrary goals ("progress" and the preservation or slow change of traditions respectively), platform-based hypocrisy, and a general unwillingness to operate outside of party norms.  Many citizens who identify as liberal or conservative have the same ideological flaws, and American society suffers precisely because it is common for people to swear allegiance to one party or the other without regard for its mistakes.  Centrism might be held up as the alternative to this petty, irrational, and destructive attachment many have to either liberalism or conservatism, but the specific claims associated with each party call for a more nuanced position.

The avoidance of assumptions will certainly lead one away from the two largest parties in American politics, but it also leads one away from a default gravitation to conclusions that are not affiliated with either party.  It is not the case that everyone who rejects liberal and conservative fallacies does so out of a genuinely rationalistic concern for truth.  Some might distance themselves from both major political parties for no reason other than to avoid certain relational difficulties, put off serious investigation of political matters, or make themselves gratuitously feel intelligent when they have done nothing worthy of those feelings.  When used in these ways, centrism is a fallacious shield that is used to simply deflect problems and serious intellectual investigations away.