As respected psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes it, one of the central challenges of any political process is that our shared human nature “unites us into teams, divides us against other teams, and blinds us to the truth.” Overwhelmingly, Americans want serious problems to be solved by intelligent debate, but the inescapable truth is that facts and evidence without emotional attachment are just background noise. Worse, there is nothing more emotionally and instinctually arousing than a battle between my tribe and your tribe. Sadly, this aspect of our shared nature leaves centrism lost in the cold wilderness of political reality.
History is replete with examples of dominant tribes being conquered by newer tribes with a better way of doing things. Bronze replaced stone, iron replaced bronze and eventually, the superior military organization of Greeks and then Romans replaced them all. This process repeated itself many times, until the early modern era when one tribe, Western civilization, began to pull so far ahead of the others that the only way for weaker tribes to catch up was to adopt the disruptive innovations of this advanced group. In science, engineering, industry, medicine, education and agriculture, one country after another embraced modern methods and achieved exponential advancement.
Just like the bronze, iron, and military organization advantages of bygone eras, societies that achieve a competitive advantage have a tendency to lean on that differentiator just a little too long. One of the West’s advantages was the superior political organization of modern democracy. And even though we continue to reap the benefits of that organizational advantage, the full scope of gains is being eroded by our reliance on the tired, old, failed ideas of the past.
Whereas it is widely accepted by all sides that the conflict between the left and the right has failed to create a pathway to solutions for quite some time, we continue on this unsustainable trajectory. At the same time, centrism, the natural alternative to factional discord, has utterly failed to coalesce as an effective force to combat the division and dysfunction in our current system.
Both sides are stuck doubling down on the tired, old, failed ideas of the past. The left does not seem to understand that we are not returning to the glory days of powerful industrial unions and an ever-expanding welfare state. The right does not seem to understand that in times of relative peace and prosperity, the owners of capital have always prospered more than the rest and that proactive steps need to be taken to adjust for those conditions.
Why centrism does not address our problems
The first difficulty of centrism is that, by definition, it places itself on the narrow, one-dimensional, linear framework of our current left-right spectrum. By claiming the space between the extremes, it validates the current parameters of our politics—which are responsible for creating all of the current division and dysfunction. As Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Centrism is just a slightly modified version of the same thinking that has proven so feckless and counterproductive.
The second reason centrism does not work is that it fails to offer people anything tangible to believe in. As elections have demonstrated time and again, voters do not cast ballots based on their individual interests; they back people who they believe reflect their worldviews. For example, some of the reddest states in America that vote consistently for a party that vows to shrink government and cut services are the largest net recipients of federal aid. Likewise, many of the bluest states consistently vote for a party that vows to increase their taxes and commit even more aid to those in the reddest states. As centrism hasn’t proven to be superior to either side, it offers no claim to more effectively solve problems than either the left or the right, other than vague promises to compromise and not be so extreme.
The third reason centrism has no lasting appeal is that there is no sustaining energy in the middle. A lesson from physics demonstrates this point. If we put a tub of cold water next to a tub of warm water and allow them to mix, a current is produced that has utility. Without the energy of the two sides mixing, nothing is accomplished. Eventually we just have stagnant, lukewarm water. This also explains why centrists typically appear so milquetoast and uninspiring.
How to create the energy required to generate solutions
The central question then becomes how do we excite the same passionate intensity to effectively solve problems that we all naturally have in clashing with people who disagree with us. In other words, we need a system that can empower Americans to dynamically pursue solutions with the same alacrity as we have for political infighting. George Washington famously identified this problem in his farewell speech, in which he warned of the “baneful effects of the spirit of the party,” which he correctly identified as “inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind.” Therein lies the energy that we need to harness to begin to effectively solve problems.
Washington described in detail how the “spirit of party” would undermine the “Great Experiment” the United States was undertaking: “It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another…” For nearly two and a half centuries, we have known that the energy created by clashing views can be used either to build a great nation and achieve unparalleled economic, scientific, and technological advancement or to destroy one another, as in the Civil War and other deeply divisive episodes.
Harnessing the energy to do useful work
The core failure of centrism is the inability to channel this energy to solve problems. No one ever breached a barricade or charged up a hill with the battle cry, “Let’s use moderation to find compromise!” The solution to this problem lies in adopting a dynamic approach to solving problems that is every bit as exciting and inspiring as factional fighting. In a word, that approach is called innovation.
It has been the most powerful tool in human history for combining humankind’s desire to achieve with discipline to produce results. It has propelled every surge of progress and prosperity in the modern world. The key to its power is in translating work into achievement with an inspiring drive to succeed. No other force has had a more meaningful impact on the way we live our daily lives than innovation. Solving political problems thorough innovation will become just as addictive as your smartphone. People love to solve problems, puzzles, and mysteries—it is ingrained in us—we just need the political tools to do it effectively.
Once we get a taste of how superior innovative problem-solving is to division and dysfunction, it will become a self-reinforcing cycle of success. Instead of doing the same thing over and over, relying on the tired, old, failed ideas of the past, recycling the dogma, ideology and “spirit of party” of bygone eras, the demand for more will only grow. It is far past time to put away the “childish things” of our disastrous approaches and embrace the energy, vitality, and effectiveness of innovation.