A Short History of Centrism

 中间主义简史

Like “left” and “right,” the “center” as a political position dates to the French Revolution. In the 1789 French National Assembly, the nobility and high clergy sat to the right of the chair, while the third estate and lower-status clergy sat on the left. The benches in the middle became associated with political moderation.

就像“左派”和“右派”一样，作为政治立场的“中间派”可以追溯到法国大革命。在1789年的法国国民议会中，贵族和高级神职人员坐在椅子的右边，而第三等级和地位较低的神职人员坐在左边。中间的长椅与政治温和派相关联。

Over the next century-plus, some European parties embraced the “center” designation (for example, Germany’s old Catholic Centrist or Centre Party, which the Nazis broke up in the 1930s). But Third Way will likely be distressed to learn that the first recorded appearance of the word “centrist,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is an 1872 insult from London’s Daily News correspondent in France, who assailed “that weak-kneed congregation who sit in the middle of the House, and call themselves ‘Centrists.’”

在接下来的一个世纪里，一些欧洲政党接受了“中间派”称号（例如，德国的古老的天主教中间派或中间党，与纳粹在1930s分开了）。但是，根据牛津英语词典，第三条道路可能会感到痛苦，因为据“牛津英语词典”记载的第一个“中间派”一词，是1872年伦敦每日新闻记者在法国的一次侮辱，他谴责“坐在那里的弱小会众” 在众议院中间，然后称自己为’中间派人士’。“

“Centrism,” Leon Trotsky wrote in 1934, in a different political moment, “dislikes being called centrism.” And indeed for most of the twentieth century, the center was not sexy. It was more like the porno room in the back of an old video store — a popular place to be, but an embarrassing place to be found.

“中间主义”，里昂托洛茨基在1934年写道，在一个不同的政治时刻，“不喜欢被称为中间主义。”事实上，在二十世纪的大部分时间里，中间派并不性感。它更像是一家旧录像带商店后面的色情室—一个受欢迎的，但却是一个令人尴尬的地方。

Nonetheless, it had its more forthright defenders. At the dawn of the Cold War, liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger celebrated political moderation as a vigorous “Third Force” in his 1949 book The Vital Center. Rather than left or right, he wrote, the real conflict was “freedom vs. totalitarianism.” The United States’ goal should be “to make sure that the Center does hold.”

尽管如此，它有更坚决的防守者。 在冷战初期，自由派历史学家Arthur Schlesinger在他1949年的著作“活力中心”中将政治温和作为一个充满活力的“第三种力量”来庆祝。 他写道，真正的冲突不是左派或右派，而是“自由对抗极权主义”。美国的目标应该是“确保中间被坚守住”。

For a time, it did. Consensus and centrism dominated the 1950s. But the sixties convulsed the country’s politics, and in the aftermath of the 1972 presidential election — which saw the resounding defeat of George McGovern — Democratic elites moved to retake control of the party.

有一段时间，它做到了。共识和中间主义在1950s占主导地位。 但六十年代震撼了这个国家的政治，并在1972年总统大选之后—George McGovern的惨败—民主党精英们转向重新夺回党的控制权。

That election remains a kind of Year Zero event for centrists today. After Richard Nixon’s big win, a coalition of moderate labor unions, Democratic-aligned intellectuals, and liberals hostile to the New Left formed an organization called the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM). The CDM disavowed “the Georges” — the liberal-left McGovern, on the one hand, the segregationist Dixiecrat George Wallace on the other.

那次选举对今天的中间派来说仍然是一种零年活动。 在理查德尼克松取得重大胜利后，温和的工会，民主党联盟的知识分子以及敌视新左派的自由派组成了一个名为民主党多数联盟（CDM）的组织。 CDM否认了“乔治们”—一方面是自由主义左派McGovern，一方面是隔离主义者Dixiecrat George Wallace。

The CDM was also one of the earliest institutional homes of what became known as neoconservatism. Defined by a deep hostility to communism — and allied with those in the mainstream labor movement that shared this view — the CDM opposed itself, in an early manifesto, to those in the New Left that “sneered at the greatness of America.” By the late 1980s, chastened by Reaganism — and goaded by the newly created Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) — Democrats had fully embraced “centrism” as a way of moving the party away from organized labor and social movements.

CDM也是最早被称为新保守主义之家的机构。 由于对共产主义的深深敌意—并与那些赞同这种观点的主流工人运动结盟—CDM在早期宣言中反对了它自己，对那些“嘲笑美国的伟大”的新左派开火。1980s后期，受到里根主义的束缚 —并受到新成立的民主党领导委员会（DLC）的支持—民主党人完全接受了“中间主义”作为将党从有组织的劳工和社会运动中移除的一种方式。

The DLC could claim victory with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992. By then, centrism was in control, and the “era of big government” was over. The center, it seemed, had held, and we had all dodged whatever grisly fate was foretold in that one Yeats stanza about passionate intensity that every centrist pundit seems to have memorized.

DLC可以在1992年比尔克林顿赢得选举时宣布获得胜利。在那时，中间主义控制了政府，“大政府时代”已经结束。 看起来，中间被保住了，而且我们已经躲过了任何在那个Yeats诗节中热情的讲述了每个中间派专家似乎都记住了的可怕的命运。

What Is Centrism?

中间主义是什么？

The perhaps obvious point of this history, which is nonetheless lost on confessed American centrists, is that “the center” is defined only by what it’s in the center of.

对这个历史的一个显而易见的观点，是在承认自己的美国中间派中失去的，是“中间”，而这个中间只是由在中间的东西来定义。

Bill Clinton cut his political teeth in the McGovern campaign, but by the time he became president in 1992, Democratic centrists defined themselves in terms of Reagan rather than the antiwar left. The centrists of Arthur Schlesinger’s day defended state programs that the centrists of the 1990s would gut. And if the center is, as we are often told, where “most voters are,” then Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who both earned many votes in a close election, are in the center too. Centrism is thus a political ideology built on a tautology — the center is wherever the center is.

比尔克林顿在McGovern竞选活动中削减了他的政治支持，但在1992年他成为总统时，民主党中间派用里根而不是反战左派来定义自己。Arthur Schlesinger时代的中间派被拿来为1990s的中间派所扼杀的国家计划辩护。如果我们经常被告知这个中间是“大多数选民在的地方”，那么希拉里克林顿和唐纳德特朗普，他们都在选举中赢得了很多选票，他们也在中间。 因此，中间主义是建立在同义反复上的政治意识形态—中间就是中间所在的地方。

This basic problem makes it hard for centrists to define themselves in anything but negative terms. Many centrists deal with this conundrum by framing bipartisanship as “new” and “digital,” rather than “right” or “left.” “We’re not trying to move the Democratic party to the center,” explained the editors of the DLC’s house organ, the New Democrat, in 1991. “We want to move it forward.” “Our ideas must be bold, but they must also fit the age we are in,” said Third Way president Jon Cowan last month at his group’s Opportunity 2020 conference. “Big isn’t enough. If it’s bold and old — it’s simply old.” It was a declaration of fresh thinking tailor-made for 1991.

这个基本问题使中间派们很难用除了负面词汇之外的词汇来定义自己。许多中间派通过将他们的观点定义为“新的”和“数字化的”而不是“右派的”或“左派的”来解决这个难题。“我们不是试图将民主党推向中间，”DLC的宣传机构的编辑，新民主党，在1991年解释道。“我们希望推进它。”“我们的想法必须大胆，但它们也必须符合我们所处的时代，”第三条道路的主席Jon Cowan上个月在他的团队“2020年的机会”会议中说。“大是不够的。 如果它是大胆的和陈旧的 —它只是陈旧的。“这是为1991年量身定制的新思维宣言。

Others address the problem by turning to a language of feelings and values. Jim Himes, a Democratic congressman and chairman of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, warned members of his party at Opportunity 2020 against surrendering to “emotion and anger.” Moderation thus becomes as much an emotional state as a legislative position. Where their opponents are “wild-eyed” and motivated by “ideologies,” centrists use “common sense”; where their enemies offer pie-in-the-sky fixes, centrists favor “pragmatic solutions.”

其他人通过转向关于感情和价值的语言来解决问题。 民主党国会议员兼中间派新民主党联盟主席Jim Himes警告他的党派成员在2020年的机会中不要屈服于“情绪和愤怒”。因此，温和成为一种立法立场的情绪状态。在他们的反对者“狂野”并受“意识形态”的驱使下，中间派使用“常识”; 在他们的敌人提供天空修补方案的地方，中间派喜欢“务实的解决方案”。

“Reason and logic and common sense” are at the heart of centrism, says Nick Troiano, executive director of the centrist PAC Unite America. One scholar, Bo Winegard, writes in a “centrist manifesto” that “one should not seek a ‘conservative’ answer to poverty or a ‘liberal’ answer to immigration. One should seek the best answer” (as if deciding what’s “best” is somehow not a political question).

中间派的PAC联合美国的执行董事Nick Troiano说，“理性，逻辑和常识”是中间主义的核心。 一位学者Bo Winegard在一份“中间派宣言”中写道：“人们不应该寻求’保守’的解决贫困问题的方法，也不应该寻求”自由主义“对移民问题的答案。人们应该寻求最好的答案“（好像决定什么是”最好的“不是一个政治问题似的）。

Centrists love compromise as much as they appear to loathe passion. Charles Wheelan, author of his own “Centrist Manifesto” — why are centrists so unironically committed to that most immoderate genre of political writing, the manifesto? — asks a question as a sort of test: “are you empathetic to other people’s views, are you willing to compromise?”

中间主义者喜欢妥协，因为他们似乎厌恶激情。 Charles Wheelan是他自己的“中间派宣言”的作者—为什么中间派如此讽刺的致力于那种最不温和的政治写作类型，宣言呢？—问一个问题作为一种测试：“你是否同情其他人的观点，你愿意妥协吗？”

Compromise here means a lot: it’s a tactic, a strategy, and a baseline emotional state. But again, the whole business is tautological: compromise is one of the values centrists seek, and it’s also the way they seek it. Are you a pragmatist who almost never raises your voice, except in defense of “norms”? Will you compromise on most things except compromise? Then Unite America’s “Declaration of Independents” might be the five-point program you’ve been patiently, quietly waiting for.

妥协在这里意味着很多：它是一种策略，战略和基线情绪状态。 但同样，整件事都是同义反复的：妥协是中间派寻求的价值观之一，也是他们寻求这一价值观的方式。 除了捍卫“规范”之外，你是一个几乎从不提高你声音的实用主义者吗？ 除了妥协之外，你会妥协大多数事情吗？ 然后，联合美国的“独立宣言”可能是你耐心等待的五点计划。

A Dying Ideology

一种正在死去的意识形态

Third Way defines “the age we’re in” in terms of technology: our age is a “digital” one, full of promise and innovation.

第三条道路在技术方面定义了“我们所处的时代”：我们的时代是一个“数字的”时代，充满希望和创新。

Yet if you define “the age we’re in” in terms of generational indebtedness, joblessness, police violence, and wage theft, “centrism” has very little to say. And in the face of something like climate change — an existential threat that demands radical action and a constancy of vision — to opt for a political orientation built around moderation and the perception of short-term electoral workability is to opt for disaster.

然而，如果你根据代际债务，失业，警察暴力和工资盗窃来定义“我们所处的时代”，那么“中间主义”几乎没有什么可说的。 面对气候变化 —一种需要激进行动和坚持不懈的持续存在的威胁—选择以温和和对短期选举可行性的感觉为基础的政治取向是选择灾难。

Or take Trump. In response to Trump’s bombast and rhetorical weirdness, centrists are offering a return to “normalcy” and national prestige. But “norms” are as vague a descriptor as “the center,” and just as volatile. To do anything worthwhile in politics necessarily means changing the norms and moving the center. The centrist’s grasping defense of emotional moderation and “norms” offers a kind of politics in which the only things left to argue about are the tone and volume with which we argue.

或者拿特朗普来说。为了回应特朗普的轰动和怪异的修辞，中间派提供了回归“规范状态”和国家威望。但“规范”与“中间”一样含糊不清，并且同样具有波动性。在政治上做任何有价值的事情必然意味着改变规范和移动中间。 中间派对情绪温和和“规范”的捍卫提供了一种政治，其中唯一需要争论的事情就是我们争论时的音调和音量。

American centrism is a strange political ideology that does not ask, much less answer, the old and urgent political question, What is to be done? Instead, it announces in a carefully modulated tone of voice: whatever should be done should be done.

美国中间主义是一种奇怪的政治意识形态，它不会问，更不用说回答旧的和紧迫的政治问题，怎么办？ 相反，它以精心调制的语调宣布：应该做的任何事都应该做。

That’s weak-kneed stuff for a perilous time like ours.

在像我们这样的危险时刻，中间主义所鼓吹的是弱势的。

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/centrism-democratic-party-lieberman-ocasio-cortez