Centrism is the Enemy

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This is not an apology for extremism, let me just say it right off the bat. Even so, I maintain this thesis about Centrism even though many Conservatives or Liberals claim that only “Communism” is, in fact, the great enemy. This, proposition, of course, can not be argued against: hundreds of millions of dead, tens of millions of lives destroyed, entire countries brought to ruin. That is Communism’s legacy, and a solid thesis can be made about a cosmology of evil based on it. But things are much more complicated than saying “the one who kills the most, is the worst” because, I ask, is a criminal mastermind innocent simply by virtue of not having fired the bullet?

In the creation of this thesis I based myself on that same question, which we will answer at the end of this article.

Technological neutrality, relativism and the global left

Carl Schmitt believed that the neutrality into which the world had fallen, after abandoning the friend/foe dichotomy, was the reason for the “decline of the West.” The “neutral domain” in dissolving the nature of the political phenomenon was found in technology -more or less in agreement with Heidegger-, and with this, man came to believe in technology. This belief was based “solely on the proposition that the absolute and definitive neutral field had been found in technology.” But, Schmitt argued, technology is “culturally blind,” so cultural or spiritual advances were out of the question.

Leaving culture and spirituality aside, the only “friend,” ironically, is technology. The only valid logic will be that of progress and that of the constant liberation of the members, only the privatization of morality will be licit and, therefore, it meant revolt against the very tolerance advocated by “generous liberals” (as Strauss called them). Technology needed absolute tolerance, an accommodating step forward, and an often complacent silence with Barbarism, all in the the name of the progress.

This inevitably had to lead to relativism, to the demolition of “good” and “evil”, and of the social institutions that assured the “common good” against the degeneration of the social fabric. This was exploited by the theoreticians of the Frankfurt School -whose real consequences were tragically undetected by the Liberals of the time and by many today- who focused the Marxist elements of their theories towards a total destruction of everything having a positive value in society.

Even the historicist dialectical mechanics of Hegel and Marx were impacted by the bombardment of Adorno’s negative dialectics: Hegelian dialectics and Marxist orthodoxy, according to the Frankfurters, needed to deny themselves in order to correct errors. That is, for them, absolute negation and relentless self-destruction were necessary.

With the technification of society and the overthrow of the social institutions, only the economy will remain as a regulatory principle. Capitalism had been crowned as an economic system and, in the long run, that was all that remained; the political dynamics (and to a large extent, the moral ones as well) came to depend on it. A good example of this is China: the morals and the system are those of the Communist Party, even though it had to open up to certain ideas of capitalism to sustain the revolution.

But the issue at hand is not whether the Communists are Communists or whether they are out of their orthodoxy; they understand that doing politics without ideology is “playing soccer without a ball,” as Olavo de Carvalho said. The problem is that while Centrism is concerned with reaching total consensus and bringing everyone into agreement, those who do have an ideology – especially the left – conquer power. The oligarchs of Woke Capital, Centrists, par excellence, and vicars of political correctness, are the ones who hide behind financial technique and rhetorical moderation to give way to the phenomenon that has enriched them: Progressivism.

Deifying the democratic technique of compromise and participation – including factors that seek the destruction of law and order -, moralizing around the technique of capital production has led Centrism to be a pathogen that criminalizes the right while escorting the left on its road to power.

Centrism is an operator for the left

Centrism, by execrating the ideology of its domains, places its hopes in democratic technicalities, and this implies an absolute acceptance of all factors, including those that want to destroy the Nation-State. Political correctness, in this context, is Centrism’s method of preserving consensus, discounting the possibility that the left may take advantage of this opportunity to play the game and take over the state.

And since consensus is the fundamental mechanics of Centrism, the free market and democracy are the most important structural representations of consensus and peaceful exchange of ideas and products. Yet they ignore that those who captain the “free market” are oligarchs who finance Progressivism or “corporate-crats” in the service of the Chinese Communist Party.

Taking advantage of this innocence by Centrism, the left agitates the population and unleashes the forces of mob rule, a risk feared by the Founding Fathers.

In Federalist No. 10 James Madison acknowledges that factions are natural, but expressly states that it is the “Republic” that can keep the inevitable effects of mob rule at bay.

“A certain number of citizens, whether in the majority or in the minority, who act out of the impulse of a common passion, or out of an interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent interests of the community as a whole”. This was Madison’s definition of factions, and he feared that the dispossessed classes would arm one that would endanger order. Ironically, he didn’t consider -and we do not know if it was in the spirit of aristocracy- that it was much more likely to happen the other way around, as happened in France in 1789, when the bourgeois led one of the bloodiest revolutions in history.

The problem is that “whoever has the gold sets the rules,” and those who have the gold are the rich woke Siliconers who fatten up revolutionary causes with millions of dollars. None of the Founding Fathers imagined that the Republic would suffer a plot from within with the help of citizens exercising their property rights. And not only did they collaborate with the Republic’s internal enemies, but they supported them publicity and financially while setting the entire country on fire.

Religion, culture, high morals, are reactionary obstacles to Centrism, and since the left thinks of them the same way, a natural alliance has to come about. For them it is better to live with a distorted prudence that borders on submission than to have to put up with the noise of the horde. Rhetorical moderation is better – that is, filtering out certain opinions. – A complacent look at the most savage for the simple fact that he “has an opinion” is best. It is better to idealize an absolute consensus than to resort to Republican realism.

To finally answer the question at the beginning of the article: just as Centrism is responsible for the spread of revolutionary evils through inaction, ignorance and condescension, the intellectual author is as responsible as the material author in a crime, even if he did not fire a single bullet. In both cases reason was used for evil, designing it or allowing it.

Rafael Valera

Rafael Valera, Venezuelan, student of Political Science, political exile in São Paulo, Brazil since 2017 // Rafael Valera, venezolano, es estudiante de Ciencias Políticas y exiliado político en São Paulo, Brasil desde 2017