Some more from Wendell Berry...

Selection From Wendell Berry
From A Continuous Harmony


“It appears to me that the governing middle, or the government, which supposedly represents the middle, has allowed the extremes of left and right to force it into an extremism of its own. These three extremes of left, right, and middle, egged on by and helplessly subservient to each other’s rhetoric, have now become so self-righteous and self-defensive as to have no social use. So large a ground of sanity and good sense and decency has been abandoned by these extremes that it becomes possible now to think of a New Middle made up of people conscious and knowledgeable enough to despise the blandishments and oversimplifications of the extremes – and roomy and diverse enough to permit a renewal of intelligent cultural dialogue. That is what I hope for: a chance to live and speak as a person, not as a function of some political bunch.” [p. 84]

This was first written in 1971 but it seems to me that it still has some "legs," as some like to say. And wouldn't that be nice, to be able to speak not "a function of some political bunch?" And it seems to me that a lot of people would like a New Middle....