Among many logical fallacies, the argument to moderation (or argumentum ad temperantiam, if you want to be formal about it) is one of the more common errors in public debate.
It works like this: two opposing arguments exist — let’s say, people who believe oil is best, and people who believe water is best — and the conclusion they arrive at is that it some combination of oil and water is, in fact, best. In other words, a compromise or the middle ground is the solution. Hence the argument to moderation is also known as the “middle-ground fallacy”.
Of course, an oil and water concoction is not necessarily best. Just as orange is not necessarily best, simply because you disagree about the colours red and yellow. The middle-ground fallacy is usually the consequence of people locked into a binary way of thinking, or who believe compromise is always the only way to progress. And that can be dangerous. If you conclude nitroglycerin the best compromise between nitric acid and glycerol, you’d have something quite explosive on your hands.
As it so happens, there seems to be something of a middle-ground fallacy playing itself out in the DA today. DA leader Mmusi Maimane recently put it like this: “Our objective is to occupy the centre of SA’s political landscape. We are not a party for the right or for the left.”
This idea has become something of a mantra for the DA, after the 2019 elections, and, although there were similar statements made before the election, afterwards it seems to have taken on a life of its own. It was fueled by the performance of the EFF and the Freedom Front Plus (FF+), and is the DA’s way of saying it stands for a more moderate “centre ground”.
It is not an inherently problematic position. Most people understand what the DA means. But there is a context to it, which renders this kind of thinking a bit more dangerous than its face value: the DA is not actually sure of its political philosophy and “the middle” is not actually the middle at all.
If there is one ideological spectrum in SA, with the EFF at one end and the FF+ at the other, the middle ground is not liberalism, it is nationalism, as espoused by the ANC.
If you try to ‘occupy the centre’, you are setting up camp in the middle of the ANC’s ideological terrain, and you will be forced to play the ANC’s game
Together, the ANC and the EFF got 66% in the 2019 election. And that is before one accounts for a range of smaller parties — the UDM, the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), the African Independent Congress (AIC) — which all reflect ANC thinking more than they do not. The SA ideological spectrum is heavily weighted towards “the left”, collectivism, socialism and nationalism.
Thus, if you try to “occupy the centre”, you are setting up camp in the middle of the ANC’s ideological terrain, and you will be forced to play the ANC’s game, if you want to win those voters over to your cause.
The truth is, the DA has a very particular set of well-defined values and principles. If you start to indulge this kind of “middle-ground thinking” too much, it runs the risk of expediency and the parameters of your decision-making being inadvertently determined by your opponents.
By way of illustration, following Maimane’s lead, DA Midvaal mayor Bongani Baloyi tweeted the following this week: “I did not join politics to maintain the status quo and how we relate to other opposition parties. I Joined to build my country. The FUTURE requires MIDDLE GROUND CONSENUS POLITICS. Not this holier than thou approach. Pragmatism will be the center where we will all meet. Wozani ke [sic].”
He followed that up with this: “My generation will not just pontificate and engage in ‘intellectual’ arguments whilst our people starve and corruption and self enrichment at the expense of our people thrive. We are going to violently and abruptly break this curse.”
Fallacy, meet ignorance
This is exactly where the dangers of the middle-ground fallacy comes into play. If the DA comes to believe that the centre involves some “pragmatic” compromise between the left and right, it is in deep trouble. Indeed, there is a strong argument to be made that this attitude is responsible for many of the DA’s contemporary woes. It is born, essentially, out of ignorance, as to what the DA stands for, and its raison d'être. Likewise, it has engendered the perception that the DA is a “lite” version of the ANC.
Baloyi commits more than one logical error in his tweets. He also presents a false dilemma — suggesting that the party faces a binary choice between engaging in intellectual discussion and serving the immediate interests of the people. It’s simply not true. One can have both; indeed, one must have both, because it is only through a clear and cogent understanding of who you are and what you stand for, that you are able effectively to address society’s problems.
Pragmatism and compromise are important and necessary component parts of politics, especially in an age of coalition governments. But, if you don’t know where the line in the sand is (a line that can only be determined by principle) and if pragmatism is your only mechanism for resolution, you will eventually stand for nothing but majoritarianism — anathema to liberal thought.
The death penalty is a good practical example. The vast majority of South Africans support its reinstatement on the left and right (further evidence that “the middle ground” is not exactly liberal). Pragmatic consensus is not the best solution. If it was, the DA would be advocating for capital punishment. But it does not, because, on that issue, it knows where the principled line in the sand is, and it refuses to cross it.
The implications of Baloyi’s tweets are thus problematic and dangerous, especially for a party so unsure of itself. Play that game with the ANC and the EFF, however, on economic policies for example, and you will lose because the consensus is always loaded against you. The “middle ground” in reality is simply not the middle. It is the left.
BEE is another helpful, practical example of this. A not dissimilar version of the DA’s “middle ground” position is held by some commentators with regard to the ANC. They argue “moderates” in the ANC (as exemplified by President Cyril Ramaphosa) should join with the DA to form a “centrist” party. Last week, however, Maimane said BEE should be abandoned and Ramaphosa said, in response, it should be intensified.
The DA constitution, although it describes a set of fundamental liberal values, does not contain the word liberal or liberalism
The thing people don’t seem to get is that, moderate or extreme, the ANC has a core set of beliefs and principles that are incompatible with those of the DA. They simply do not fall on the same ideological spectrum.
What is the “middle ground” between people who believe in race-based policy and people who do not? A little bit of race-based policy? If your final position is defined entirely by the desire for a “pragmatic centre”, you will lose every time.
That with regard to the ANC itself, there is nothing to say that you cannot bring people together around commonly shared and ideologically compatible values, which is exactly what the DA should be focusing on, on issues such as the economy, crime and education. Only, the first step is to work out where the DA stands on these kinds of issues, then take it from there. If it does not, it also risks being dictated to by its opponents because your moderation is defined by their extremism.
Here is an interesting and important fact: the DA constitution, although it describes a set of fundamental liberal values, does not contain the word liberal or liberalism. That is remarkable (some brave delegate should propose its inclusion at the next party congress). That would not be a problem if the DA zeitgeist was defined by a clear internal understanding of what it is. But it is not. It is confused, vague and ever-more susceptible to group think, particularly on race.
This lack of internal clarity contributes to this kind of “middle-ground thinking”, external confusion, and the idea that the best place for the DA to be is a pragmatic compromise between the left and right. In truth, the DA represents an entirely different universe, and a set of values particular to it.
Until it clearly understands what those are and how to advocate them with belief and conviction — and without constantly presenting itself as a compromise — it will continue to come across as amorphous and indistinct: a party that stands for everything and nothing. If not, then generally for what the ANC stands.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.