Moderation seems to be under attack.
This attack is clear in the realm of politics, as each party flees to the ideological extremes, claiming that compromise with the other is a dereliction of duty and principle, and that moderation is a weak and indecisive position. A good case can also be made that the aversion to moderation was the basis for the recent financial collapse. The lure of the extremes is not a new phenomenon to be sure, but our economic and political systems have historically been self-correcting, ensuring that extremism does not take hold of us for long, and moderation usually prevails. This elasticity and natural balancing is the genius and gift of America.
The attack on moderation has also not spared religion. I've witnessed this first hand in many responses to my blogs, in which I usually attempt to portray faith in a way that is reconciled with science and reason. In response to my last blog, "Can the Existence of God Ever be Proven?" for example, one person wrote: "You religious moderates claim to stand for equality, but you really stand for nothing. At least the fundamentalists follow their actual religion and take its teachings seriously. A religious moderate makes no sense because all religions profess to contain absolute but conflicting truths. Moderates also tell us that no one can criticize their religion because, after all, it's a free choice, and none are better than the other."
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