Moderate

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In politics and religion, a moderate is an individual who holds an intermediate position between two viewpoints considered to be extreme or radical by those applying the term. The word "moderate" can also be used as an adjective describing such a position.

Politics

In politics, a moderate is an individual who holds the middle position between those generally classified as being left-wing or liberal and those seen as right-wing or conservative. An alternate definition, and one widely held among swing voters, is that a moderate is one who has firm convictions on all issues, yet some convictions fall just to the left of the spectrum and some fall just to the right.

Political moderates usually seek conciliation between the views of various political parties, and often take positions partially derived from opposite views. For example, political moderates might not support the end of private property in the way advocated by Marxists, but they also might not support laissez-faire capitalism.

"Moderate" is by definition a relative term, since the position considered moderate depends on the nature of the two (or more) competing ideologies that the moderates are trying to conciliate. As such, the moderates in one country often do not share the views of moderates in other countries. Even within the same country or community, the position considered "moderate" changes over time. For example, in the Southern United States during the first half of the 19th century, supporting slavery was considered a sensible and moderate view to hold. Today, in the same geographical area, supporting slavery is considered dangerous and unacceptable extremism.

In Sweden, Moderate Party (Moderata samlingspartiet) is the name of the traditional right-wing party. Thus the Swedish word "moderat" does not have the same political meaning as the word moderate has in English, although, from an international viewpoint, the basic meaning still applies.

Religion

In religion, a moderate is someone who holds an intermediate position between the liberal religious or secularist view and the conservative, orthodox or fundamentalist view.

Religious moderates tend to take a doctrinal position that is not as strict as the orthodox or conservative religious members, but not as open as the secularist or liberal members.

See also

• Centrism

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Last updated on Sunday March 09, 2008 at 09:38:56 PDT (GMT -0700)
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