Dean's World

Interesting essays. I agree with Sean and Casey. If moderation is a temperament, then I'm most definitely not of the breed and never was, as is obvious from any and all of my comments. Nobody has ever called me moderate. To use an ancient typology, moderates are of the Phlegmatic temperament, while I'm a combination of the Melancholic and the Choleric.

Here are some thoughts on this whole "centrist/moderate" vs. "extremist" thing:

"Are an extreme of health and an extreme of disease equally undesirable? Are extreme intelligence and extreme stupidity -- equally unworthy? Are extreme honesty and extreme dishonesty equally immoral? Are a man of extreme virtue and a man of extreme depravity equally evil?"

"If it were true that dictatorship is inevitable and that fascism and communism are the two 'extremes' at the opposite ends of our course, then what is the safest place to choose? Why, the middle of the road. The safely undefined. indeterminate, mixed-economy, 'moderate' middle -- with a 'moderate degree of government favors and special privileges to the rich and a moderate degreee of government handouts to the poor -- with a 'moderate' respect for rights and a 'moderate' degree of brute force -- with a 'moderate' amount of freedom and a 'moderate' amount of slavery -- with a 'moderate' degree of justice and a 'moderate' degree of injustice -- with a 'moderate amount of security and a 'moderate' amount of terror -- and with a moderate degree of tolerance for all, except those 'extremists' who uphold principles, consistency, objectivity, morality, and who refuse to compromise."

"If an uncompromising stand is to be smeared as 'extremism,' then that smear is directed at any devotion to values, any loyalty to principles, any profound conviction, any consistency, any steadfastness, any passion, any dedication to an unbreached, inviolate truth -- any man of integrity."

-Ayn Rand, "'Extremism' or the Art of Smearing", Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal