The middle ground fallacy: at this rate the center will involve singing 'The International'

@ElentirENG ES 5·02·2019 · 22:28 0

If we rely on some media, in various countries in Europe there is a resurgence of fascism, that is, of authoritarian parties that want to impose corporatist dictatorships.

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The rebirth of the liberal-conservative right in Europe

Obviously, that scenario that some media sell us is completely false. Except for cases such as the Greeks of Golden Dawn or the Hungarians of Jobbik, what most media today call "far right" has nothing to do with fascism, quite the contrary. There we have, without going any further, the case of Vox, a party that strictly speaking can be defined as liberal-conservative, that is, with some ideological approaches opposed to classical fascism. The Germans of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) are also characterized as "ultras" by many media, but as in the case of Vox, it is a party of a liberal-conservative nature. Parties such as the Sverigedemokraterna (SD) of Sweden, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) of Poland or the Fidesz of Hungary are rather conservative.

What happened in Europe so that the mere fact of defending conservative or liberal-conservative positions is considered a sign of far right? To begin with, if this is happening it is because a large part of the center-right has ended up assuming progressive and social democratic theses. Examples are the Spanish Partido Popular, the German Christlich Demokratische Union (CDU) of Angela Merkel, the French Les Républicains, the Irish of the Fine Gael and the Fianna Fáil, the Poles of the Platform Obywatelska and the British Conservative Party. To a large extent, the so-called center-right has had no qualms about assuming leftist approaches such as gender ideology and abortion. For example, in Spain the Partido Popular left the socialist ideological laws intact between 2011 and 2015 despite having an absolute majority. What many right-wing voters perceive is that the parties they vote for no longer defend their principles. That is why new parties are emerging that do defend them. But it is not a resurgence of the fascism, because those parties do not defend fascist approaches. It is a renaissance of the liberal-conservative right.

The political center has been dragged by a radicalized left

What is striking about this renaissance is that it is encountering not only the critics from the left, but also the so-called center or center-right. From these positions, which are self-proclaimed as centrists, they appeal to "moderation" to reject what they describe as a right-wing radicalism. However, those who are supporting these new right-wing political options have not changed their principles. In many cases they continue to defend the same things they had been thinking about for decades. It is the so-called political center that has been displaced, dragged by an increasingly hegemonic left. Years ago it was unthinkable that laws were passed questioning the right to the presumption of innocence or equality before the law for the sake of gender ideology, but that is happening today because the left after the fall of the Berlin Wall has found new areas in which to promote social confrontation, for example, by applying the Marxist thesis of the class struggle to the sexes. To that end, it has completely distorted feminism, a movement that arose to defend equality before the law and equal opportunities, turning it into a neo-Marxist movement that presents all men as oppressors and all women as oppressed. And the so-called center has backed off and has joined these theses, encouraging the left to become increasingly radicalized and, with it, to move that political center more and more to the left.

The middle ground fallacy: the truth lies not in the equidistance

In logic, the middle ground fallacy is known as the erroneous idea that between two opposing statements, the truth is always in the middle term; a fallacy that has been widely imposed in the political debate, substituting the truth with consensus, with the excuse that guaranteeing coexistence requires giving in by both parties. However, when the left is openly putting its ideas to the whole society, cutting fundamental rights and blocking any attempt to debate those ideas, that center becomes a form of equidistance between the defense of freedom and the defense of oppression. When someone says that moderation requires adopting centrist positions, what it means is that we have to yield to the left and bend to their intolerance so that it does not turn into violence. That is to say, that moderation means giving in to blackmail. This is leading us to a less free Europe, in which politicians decide for families what kind of education their children should receive, control increasing percentages of our income and increasingly limit the exercise of our freedoms. At this rate, to be centrist you will end up being required to sing "La Internacional", and all because centrism means, after all, to give up the battle of ideas against the left and bend slowly to their whims.

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Photo: Nacion321.com