hold the centre

A recent conversation on Twitter between Peter Radcliffe and Chris Corrigan highlighted the need for a political centre that does not polarize those on the edges.

“A fundamental Canadian flaw is that the 70% of us who are in the political middle have been raised to be too polite to publicly call the 15% on the extremes bat-shit crazy.

That leaves the center silent, the noise and press extreme, and Canada feeling somewhat divided and broken.” —Peter Radcliffe

To which Chris responded:

“It would help if folks in the middle didn’t vilify those of us towards, but not in, the 15%. Everyone knows those folks are irrelevant, but when we get lumped in with them by the centre 50%, it dilutes policy creativity and the possibility of better solutions.” —Chris Corrigan

If the centre-left and centre-right keep highlighting the minor differences between them and turning them into great schisms, then, as Chris notes, those not on the political fringes get lumped in with them.

When this pandemic began I noted that consumer social media enable the rapid transmission of bite-sized information around the world. But this is also one of the dark sides of these media. I believe that longer form expression can improve our sensemaking skills. Blogs are perfect for this. Think of them as ‘slow media’.

Blogs also have fewer trolls because it’s much faster to send off a tweet than actually write a comment on a blog post. Plus, owners can easily delete crap comments from their blogs. If more people engage in longer-form writing and share through blogging, we may collectively address some of the challenges we are facing, especially political polarization. Perhaps slow media can slow the reversal effects of digital networks.

In politics, the medium is the message. Maybe it’s time to engage more using media that can strengthen democracy, not fragment our politics. We can still learn much from Marshall McLuhan.

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