Radical Middle, the Book: Q&A With Author

These are responses to questions from my publicists at Westview / Perseus, Greg Houle and Trish Goodrich. The interview became part of the book's press packet. Thought you'd enjoy seeing it. -- M.S.

Q. What do you mean by "radical middle"?

A. Have you watched the Democratic Presidential candidates during any of their debates? They spend so much of their time blaming the Republicans. And, of course, the Republicans spend much of their time blaming the Democrats.

The radical middle says it's time to take our politics back from this "he said, she said" mentality. Most Americans aren't nearly as polarized as the Presidential campaign suggests. Most of us aren't at some mushy middle point, either. Most of us want to see a new kind of politics, where we take the genuine and often very reasonable concerns of Democrats and Republicans, and build on them toward something different, something exciting and new.

I'm calling that new and different politics "radical middle," because those of us who've adopted it are daring to suggest real solutions to our biggest problems, but we're doing so from the middle. We're listening to radicals and liberals, we're listening to conservatives and libertarians, and we're not losing touch with the often complicated facts on the ground.

Q. That sounds nice, but it's awfully abstract, isn't it?

A. No way! The radical middle is a new point of view, and that's what I was trying to get at in response to your question. But it doesn't come out of abstract college seminars or grungy coffee houses. It comes out of thousands of ordinary Americans' living, breathing attempts to change their communities -- schools -- corporations -- energy policies -- foreign policies -- in ways that work for everyone.

The radical middle is as concrete and down-to-earth as a politics can be. You'll know it when you see it.

Take your own home town. When an activist addresses a problem in your community, like hunger or homelessness -- and instead of scapegoating government or business, proposes a solution that involves working with city hall or the business community -- then you're seeing radical middle politics first hand. Because the radical middle is not about bashing government or business. It is about learning to listen to everyone -- learning to work with everyone -- and learning to build on everyone's best insights.

Or take schools. When someone on your school board suggests that schools need better teachers and that that means giving school principals the right to hire and fire teachers and set their pay -- then the radical middle is in plain view. You've got someone coming up with a bold and constructive goal, provide better teachers -- and a practical means for carrying it out, empower individual schools.

Or take a national problem like health care. When a politician proposes an approach to universal health care that would cover everyone -- every single American -- and would take full advantage of preventive and alternative medicine, but would build on privately run insurance plans, then you're seeing radical middle politics.

Here again, you've got a bold, radical goal -- universal health care. But you're getting there without setting up a bureaucratic National Health Service. And you're saving money by creatively building on many Americans' interest in preventive and alternative health care.

You can apply this approach to every domestic policy area. In energy policy, you'll want to develop energy self-sufficiency by taking advantage of every energy path out there, from renewables to clean coal, hydrogen to lifestyle change. With regard to social and economic equity, you'll want to give everyone a little financial "nest egg" at birth, and you'll favor economic based affirmative action over race based affirmative action.

And the radical middle has as much to say about foreign affairs as it does about domestic. You'll want free trade, but with a conscience. You won't stand around doing nothing while millions of innocent people are being slaughtered in genocidal wars.

And you'll want to be tough on terrorism and tough on the conditions that give rise to terrorism. When a politician gives a damn about people in the Muslim world -- and not only gives a damn, but proposes real help that won't bust the bank, such as proposing small loans to their farmers and entrepreneurs, or opening our markets to their products -- then you're seeing radical middle politics.

Q. OK, I agree, there's nothing abstract about radical middle politics. But isn't it just a catch-all of good ideas? How can you put a handle around it?

A. If you look at what everyone who might be called radical middle is saying and doing, you'll discover we share four goals. I like to call them our Four Key Values, and I've organized most of my book around them. My strong feeling is they're not just radical middle values, they're most Americans' political values today. We've just never put them in words before. They're common sense, really.

The first value is maximize choices for every American. That's why I favor the kind of universal but private and choice-filled health care plan that I mentioned earlier.

Next is guarantee a fair start in life for every American. That's why I'd give everyone a financial "nest egg" at birth.

Third is maximize every American's human potential as much as possible. Nothing flowery about that -- it's why I'd do everything in my power to make sure every single schoolchild has great teachers.

Last but not least is be of help to everyone in the developing world. It's why I support free trade and humanitarian intervention and being tough on the causes of terrorism.

There's nothing left-wing or right-wing about those four values. They draw on America's entire political tradition! They're just updated versions of liberty, equality, happiness, and fraternity, respectively. Put them together and you get radical middle politics.

Q. So the "radical middle" isn't just coming from you?

A. Of course not! It's the most promising political trend of our time, and it's coming out of the actual experiences and desires of tens of millions of Americans.

Americans' values are changing. It's as simple, and as complicated, as that. Until the 1990s our economy was primarily based on service and industrial workers. An economy that depends on its service and industrial workers will favor norms like conformity, predictability, and fitting in, because those are the qualities you look for when hiring service and industrial workers.

But our economy is primarily based on knowledge workers now -- what some have called the "creative class." It's 30% of our workforce now, and rapidly rising. It's people in science, education, engineering, art, business, entertainment, finance, marketing, law, sales, journalism, and health care.

And an economy based on knowledge workers will favor a dramatically different set of norms. I'm talking about individuality, creativity, curiosity about self and others, curiosity about the wider world, self-expression, self-sufficiency, social service, and enjoyment of differences, not just "tolerance" of them.

Put those norms together and you have what I call the caring person. The caring person is the star of my book and -- knock on wood -- the rising star of the new American century. Most caring people are drawn inexorably to the radical middle. They take to the Four Key Values like ducks to water. They'll fight for them just like working people fought for socialism in Europe and the welfare state in America.

Q. Assuming you're right, do you have any idea how these caring Americans will fight for the radical middle?

A. Millions of Americans are doing it now -- in bits and pieces, and often without fully realizing it. That's what the last part of my book is about. "Be a Player, Not a Rebel" goes beyond policies to strategy and tactics.

In the Sixties and Seventies, many Americans felt they had to choose between having significant careers and being political. Not any more. Also, many of us are joining local groups or professional associations or national organizations -- and pushing them to the radical middle. Finally, many of us have entered the formal political arena by working for free TV time for candidates, instant runoff voting, or nonpartisan redistricting -- or by becoming candidates ourselves!

Q. Who are the radical middle's most important thinkers?

A. My book, Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now (Westview / Perseus, 2004), is the first truly comprehensive look at the radical middle philosophy and movement. And it's written for general readers who may not have heard of the radical middle but probably share some of the same ideas and opinions.

But my book stands on the shoulders of the work of literally dozens of extraordinary new thinkers and activists -- many of whom I've cited in my book.

For example, in their book The Radical Center (Doubleday, 2001), Washington, D.C. public policy analysts Ted Halstead and Michael Lind have put together a fine introduction to radical middle domestic policies. This year Halstead is publishing an anthology on the topic, The Real State of the Union (Basic / Perseus, 2004).

Just last year, former management consultant and Clinton aide Matthew Miller put together another major introduction to radical middle domestic policies, The Two Percent Solution (PublicAffairs / Perseus, 2003). Meanwhile, independent political scientist Walter Truett Anderson has put together the best introduction to radical middle foreign and global public policies, All Connected Now (Westview / Perseus, 2001).

Several authors have discovered and tried to describe the "caring Americans" who are carrying radical middle ideas into the mainstream. Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson's The Cultural Creatives (Random House, 2000) says radical middle values first took shape in the political movements of the 1970s. David Brooks's Bobos in Paradise (Simon & Schuster, 2000) says radical middle values are actually a combination of 1960s free spiritedness and 1980s fascination with the business world.

Futurist Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class (Basic / Perseus, 2002) says that radical middle knowledge workers have become as powerful as capitalists in the 21st century American economy. And you ain't seen nothin' yet. According to Neil Howe and William Strauss's Millennials Rising (Random House, 2000), the tail end of Generation X and the entire Generation Y will be the first cohort that's largely radical middle in outlook.

If you're a history buff, you can find glimmers of the radical middle philosophy in pre-Reagan Era authors like Peter Drucker, Jane Jacobs, and Alvin and Heidi Toffler. If you want to go way back, Walter Isaacson's surprise bestseller Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (Simon & Schuster, 2003) will convince you that Franklin was the radical middle Founding Father, just as Thomas Jefferson was the liberals' (and libertarians') and George Washington was the conservatives'.

Q. Interesting, interesting. But why is the radical middle relevant now, just before the 2004 elections?

A. There is a hunger in this country for a new kind of politics! It is not the politics of anger of Howard Dean and it is not the politics of righteousness of George W. Bush.

It is a hunger for a politics that can take us beyond the usual venomous blame games of Washington, D.C. It is a hunger for a politics that expresses us as we really are -- practical and visionary, mature and imaginative, sensible and creative, all at once.

Because the radical middle offers a fresh and often controversial take on politics, it can help open up the political dialogue during the campaign season by provoking Republicans and Democrats alike to think in constructive new ways about our future. In my public and radio appearances, I will deliberately try to be a provocateur. It's the only way we'll get beyond our present stuck-ness.

Another reason the radical middle is relevant now is that certain Presidential candidates and figures have a radical middle quality about them.

On the Republican side, John McCain and Colin Powell will not of course be running in 2004. But both embody the maturity and independent-mindedness that you'd expect to find in a truly radical middle Presidential candidate.

On the Democratic side, Howard Dean has demonstrated the radical middle's propensity to take the best from the left and right -- for example, he'd give every child health insurance and move the nation toward a balanced budget. And John Kerry has demonstrated the courage to stand up for two of the most contentious ideas in my version of radical middle -- economic-class-based affirmative action, and national service.

Q. So how did you get involved in the radical middle movement?

A. As a young man I got caught up in the political movements of the 1960s. I went to Mississippi to work for civil rights, was president of my college chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, and refused to serve in the Vietnam war -- emigrated to Canada instead, and co-founded and ran the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, the major group helping young Americans come to Canada.

Eventually I outgrew the anger and resentment that was everywhere in the New Left, and turned to New Age political pursuits -- I wrote the book New Age Politics: Healing Self and Society (Dell, 1979), co-founded a political group called the New World Alliance, and edited an award-winning and very idealistic political newsletter called New Options.

In the 1990s I tired of the self-righteousness and easy answers you too often find in the New Age, went to a great law school -- New York University School of Law -- and worked for a mediator and then a business litigator on multi-million-dollar legal cases. Although I enjoyed that work intellectually (and financially!), it was not as humanly satisfying as I'd have liked.

I got involved in the radical middle because I began to feel a need to bring together the three very different parts of my life. From my New Left years I took a love of political struggle. From my New Age years I took an understanding that politics needs to be about more than endless struggle -- that we need to search for healing and reconciliation. From my time in the legal Establishment I took an understanding that sincerity and passion are not enough -- that to be truly effective in this world one needs to be credible and expert.

Putting all three understandings together brought me to the radical middle. Now I make my living editing Radical Middle, a Washington, D.C. newsletter that keeps readers up on exciting new radical middle ideas and organizations.

Many Americans are living complicated lives now -- few of us have moved through life in a straight line. I think many of us would benefit from trying to synthesize the complicated political lessons we've learned over the years. When we do, I think many of us will end up where I have -- at the radical middle.

THE RADICAL MIDDLE CONCEPT:

Why "Radical Middle"?

Over 40 Good People (Try to) Describe the Radical Middle

50 Best Radical Middle Books of the '00s (so far)

Five Best Radical Middle Magazines, annotated

Over 20 Arguably Radical Middle National POLITICIANS

GREAT RADICAL MIDDLE GROUPS AND BLOGS:

NEW:
Over 250 Great Radical Centrist Groups and Organizations - all linked to their home pages AND to our articles!

Over 50 Great Radical Centrist Blogs - all with their bloggers named and described!

NOT JUST RADICAL MIDDLE:

Ten Best U.S. Political Novels, annotated

25 RED- HOT RADICAL MIDDLE INITIATIVES: