Both Sides

I've been reading Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. This new edition of the 2010 publication features a Foreword by former Vice President Al Gore, author of An Inconvenient Truth.

Scientist who fought the growing evidence that cigarette smoke was instrumental in causing lung cancer argued that we should all consider "both sides" of the question--this, after data had piled up very convincingly on the anti-tobacco side.  The authors point out that both sides are not equally correct. You can't insist on fairness when one side is simply wrong.

At a press conference on August 15, 2017 , then-President Trump responded to questions from reporters about his reaction to violent protests in Charlottesville, VA, "you also had people, that were very fine people, on both sides." This response has become the classic example of moral equivalency, or "both-sides-ism."

How can we look at this through the mountaintop image of Centrism? It’s very simple: there is not just one “other side” with a mountaintop (contrary to what the bear climbed up to see.) That’s what you’ve got when you’re down in the valley. From the top, it’s a 360° view in 3D. You see the whole picture. There are not two sides to the whole picture, but just the whole puzzle fit together.  Even if the whole view is not completely visible for some reason, there is not “the other side,” but the rest of the picture.   In almost every situation there will be further intricacies to explore, but not a different side.

This is what Centrism is all about: the full circle view.