Book contents
- WHY NOT MODERATION?
- Why Not Moderation?
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Caveat lector!
- About This Book
- Prologue Why Radical Moderation?
- PART I THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
- PART II WHAT KIND OF VIRTUE IS MODERATION?
- PART III DO MODERATES HAVE A POLITICAL VISION?
- Interlude
- 1 The Limits of Moral Clarity
- 2 Against the Politics of Warfare
- 3 No Manichaeism and No Litmus Tests
- 4 Compromise
- 5 Trimming and Balance
- 6 Centrism
- 7 Eclecticism and Pluralism
- 8 Dialogue
- PART IV THE ETHOS OF MODERATION
- PART V WHO NEEDS MODERATION TODAY?
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
7 - Eclecticism and Pluralism
from PART III - DO MODERATES HAVE A POLITICAL VISION?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 October 2023
- WHY NOT MODERATION?
- Why Not Moderation?
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Caveat lector!
- About This Book
- Prologue Why Radical Moderation?
- PART I THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
- PART II WHAT KIND OF VIRTUE IS MODERATION?
- PART III DO MODERATES HAVE A POLITICAL VISION?
- Interlude
- 1 The Limits of Moral Clarity
- 2 Against the Politics of Warfare
- 3 No Manichaeism and No Litmus Tests
- 4 Compromise
- 5 Trimming and Balance
- 6 Centrism
- 7 Eclecticism and Pluralism
- 8 Dialogue
- PART IV THE ETHOS OF MODERATION
- PART V WHO NEEDS MODERATION TODAY?
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
Summary
This chapter focuses on eclecticism as a face of political moderation. Starting from the definition of eclecticism given by Michel de Montaigne in his Essays, it shows that eclecticism has important implications for the ways in whicb we conceive of our political attachments. It then considers the justification of eclecticism given by Daniel Bell in his book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976) and compares it to the eclecticism at the heart of the fusionist movement initiated by Frank Meyer in the 1960s. Finally, it presents eclecticism as a way to avoid any form of “blueprint thinking.”
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- Information
- Why Not Moderation?Letters to Young Radicals, pp. 127 - 134Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023