Hi Lauren, I found your Substack through Notes and I wanted to say that I really enjoyed this point of view. I've never considered myself a moderate simply because of what you point out: that moderates often end up in mushy compromise that implies, at least, that they don't have any foundational beliefs. At the same time, though the policies that I see as most effective tend to trend left, I am amazed how few people on the left are willing to consider the possibility of moving forward together with imperfect solutions. There is such an emphasis on "all or nothing," which you can see so starkly now as so many on the left are asking sitting Democratic legislators to be more radical, and judging their performance simply on that one metric. This is especially frustrating to me because the left of center is, by its nature, always going to be a "big tent." People who seek the left for its promotion of racial justice might be deeply religious. Or people who seek the left for its focus on the human effects of legislation might also believe in rooting out government waste. I like the way you define "four-dimensional" moderation—it allows us to accept that people are complex and that simple solutions are almost always going to hurt as many (or more) people than they help. Thanks for this!
Thanks for the outreach! And I completely agree. We've gotten so used to judging people based on one-dimensional litmus tests. The left does this a lot, but the right obviously does it too. The wide middle of people with 4D lives just don't fit into a 1D space. I'm really hoping to open that space up and help people see the opportunity it presents. I don't know where we go on the macro level, but on the micro level I think it can really help. I'm glad you found the 4D framing helpful. I've been playing with it a lot lately and I *think* it helps clarify a lot of issues. We'll see what kind of feedback it gets over time.
Well, given that conformity is explicitly valued on the right, I would guess that they do it more and more openly. But on the left when it happens it tends to come in the form of rejecting anyone who doesn't fully buy into a dogmatic belief or someone who appears "too conservative" in surface ways to have lefty leanings. Someone just suggested to me the other day that Ezra Klein is trying to attract people to the right wing through his Abundance idea (the shocking idea that the left should find new ways to house people). I suggested to this person to go listen to his podcast and then decide if they really think that he's pushing a right wing agenda. When I read your piece, I immediately thought of that exchange, and how the left tends to turn on their own when anyone steps away from orthodoxy and says, "Let's look at this problem from a variety of viewpoints." It should be antithetical to a liberal point of view to do that, but it happens over and over. I do think your 4D framework is a useful one—the people who are reactionary to hearing "center-leaning" ideas from liberals are 1D thinkers: my idea is orthodoxy and must not be questioned. Given that I just got home from shopping and drove down the street where many of our local homeless people are camping in tents, it's clear that new ideas are badly needed. MAGA seems to have given up on ideas altogether, so it's going to be up to some brave political folks in the center and left to figure things out, along with the few politically homeless conservatives who still want to debate ideas and find workable solutions.
Ha, that's exactly the coalition I think we have a shot with too. I also heard Klein referred to as right wing or neoliberal the other day and I had to do a double take. It's bizarre. The podcast The Witch Trials of JK Rowling is pretty interesting on that front. Whatever you think of Rowling herself, the podcast is great. It goes deep on a number of phenomena that pushed the left farther and farther to the extremes on cultural issues, leaving more moderate/centrist voters completely abandoned. I'm getting more hopeful about the possibilities of a principled coalition, but the structural forces are (as always) pushing against it. I'm an optimist though.
We are completely in sync today.... Having had that podcast recommended to me over and over, I finally started listening to it yesterday. I like how she's picking apart the social and political factors that have led us to this moment.
Hi Lauren, I found your Substack through Notes and I wanted to say that I really enjoyed this point of view. I've never considered myself a moderate simply because of what you point out: that moderates often end up in mushy compromise that implies, at least, that they don't have any foundational beliefs. At the same time, though the policies that I see as most effective tend to trend left, I am amazed how few people on the left are willing to consider the possibility of moving forward together with imperfect solutions. There is such an emphasis on "all or nothing," which you can see so starkly now as so many on the left are asking sitting Democratic legislators to be more radical, and judging their performance simply on that one metric. This is especially frustrating to me because the left of center is, by its nature, always going to be a "big tent." People who seek the left for its promotion of racial justice might be deeply religious. Or people who seek the left for its focus on the human effects of legislation might also believe in rooting out government waste. I like the way you define "four-dimensional" moderation—it allows us to accept that people are complex and that simple solutions are almost always going to hurt as many (or more) people than they help. Thanks for this!
Thanks for the outreach! And I completely agree. We've gotten so used to judging people based on one-dimensional litmus tests. The left does this a lot, but the right obviously does it too. The wide middle of people with 4D lives just don't fit into a 1D space. I'm really hoping to open that space up and help people see the opportunity it presents. I don't know where we go on the macro level, but on the micro level I think it can really help. I'm glad you found the 4D framing helpful. I've been playing with it a lot lately and I *think* it helps clarify a lot of issues. We'll see what kind of feedback it gets over time.
Well, given that conformity is explicitly valued on the right, I would guess that they do it more and more openly. But on the left when it happens it tends to come in the form of rejecting anyone who doesn't fully buy into a dogmatic belief or someone who appears "too conservative" in surface ways to have lefty leanings. Someone just suggested to me the other day that Ezra Klein is trying to attract people to the right wing through his Abundance idea (the shocking idea that the left should find new ways to house people). I suggested to this person to go listen to his podcast and then decide if they really think that he's pushing a right wing agenda. When I read your piece, I immediately thought of that exchange, and how the left tends to turn on their own when anyone steps away from orthodoxy and says, "Let's look at this problem from a variety of viewpoints." It should be antithetical to a liberal point of view to do that, but it happens over and over. I do think your 4D framework is a useful one—the people who are reactionary to hearing "center-leaning" ideas from liberals are 1D thinkers: my idea is orthodoxy and must not be questioned. Given that I just got home from shopping and drove down the street where many of our local homeless people are camping in tents, it's clear that new ideas are badly needed. MAGA seems to have given up on ideas altogether, so it's going to be up to some brave political folks in the center and left to figure things out, along with the few politically homeless conservatives who still want to debate ideas and find workable solutions.
Ha, that's exactly the coalition I think we have a shot with too. I also heard Klein referred to as right wing or neoliberal the other day and I had to do a double take. It's bizarre. The podcast The Witch Trials of JK Rowling is pretty interesting on that front. Whatever you think of Rowling herself, the podcast is great. It goes deep on a number of phenomena that pushed the left farther and farther to the extremes on cultural issues, leaving more moderate/centrist voters completely abandoned. I'm getting more hopeful about the possibilities of a principled coalition, but the structural forces are (as always) pushing against it. I'm an optimist though.
We are completely in sync today.... Having had that podcast recommended to me over and over, I finally started listening to it yesterday. I like how she's picking apart the social and political factors that have led us to this moment.
Update: https://substack.com/home/post/p-162954634