“Fighting for the holy, big, silent majority, mainstream middle I think is going to be one of the major moral battles of our time”

They are playing in a social climate that is increasingly characteristic both here and in America where loud, destabilizing voices – voices do NOT represent the societal mainstream – are simply privileged by cultures of fear and collective silence with taking over more of the public culture than they should be permitted. This is a trend exacerbated by the massive moral flaw of ideological purism as is rising on the right and on the left, doctrines of moral thinking that are actually moral turpitude, for brooking no dissent, demanding the relentless performance of loyalty to their doctrines, and resisting the all-too-human, all-too-normal capacity – nay, necessity – of humans to be complex moral actors, with ambivalent attitudes about difficult moral compromises, choices, and alliances, and in search of societies whose moral and political centers have gravity rather than merely ideology. … It doesn’t mean we never get political; but it means we are committed to something that transcends the embittered, polarizing ideology of those who attack us, and it means we are committed to responding with more than just the opposite embittered, polarizing ideology.

Fighting for the holy, big, silent majority, mainstream middle I think is going to be one of the major moral battles of our time. This middle doesn’t exclude strong ideological positions or sincere commitments; it just excludes the extremists who are damaging our social order, discrediting our sincere institutions, and dismantling our civil covenants. We will have to fight back not on their terms, but through a rearticulation of our commitments, and through finding ways to amplify our support for the institutions of our society with which we do not always agree but whose voices and presence continues to matter.

Yehuda Kurtzer, Facebook post (26 July 2017) [https://www.facebook.com/yehuda.kurtzer/posts/10155649630762174]