What is the best way to combat ideological intolerance, on the left and on the right?
Yelling and uncompromisingly? Or with moderation and an invitation to debate? The second option, which at first glance seems to be the most reasonable, gained strong support with the launch of the journalist’s book.
The former executive editor of Veja magazine provides a clear diagnosis of the threats that extremism poses — and why it is necessary to combat it. According to the definition of the political scientist, cited by Schelp, extremism is characterized by “the rejection of popular sovereignty through voting, the constitutional order and, by extension, democracy itself.” In the journalist’s paraphrase, the extreme right and extreme left “aim to replace democratic regimes with dictatorships”.
This is the first and fundamental threat. But extremists and radicals also create problems before the threat is realized, as they simply work to achieve their illiberal goals. For example, by demonizing opponents, inciting acts of political violence, such as the one they tried to explode in Brasília, in December 2022, or the depredation of the headquarters of the three Powers, weeks later, in 2023.
The remedy that Schelp suggests for the malaise of contemporary politics — in which radicalism seems to organize the debate — is based on his professional experience. The recipe is for more dialogue and conflict mediation, he says.
After receiving stones from the left for his texts at Veja, Schelp became an ideological sparring partner at , where he worked, during the years when Jair Bolsonaro was president, as a moderate voice in debates with the radical right.
Schelp considers the experience to be worth it. “I felt that there was a social function in what I was doing. One of the big debates was about the vaccine, during the I received messages from people in the audience who called themselves Bolsonarists and who said: ‘You made me think. I decided that I’m going to vaccinate my family because you mentioned on the program today that I don’t need to buy the whole package [da direita radical].”
The emphasis of the book is on this procedural character of moderation. In the way of interacting with radicals. When debating, it is necessary to be tolerant, have civility, prudence, humility. When acting politically, gradualism and reformism are preferable to “violent ruptures, terrorism or revolutions with unpredictable consequences”.
The principles that are intended to be protected, with this type of procedure, remain in the background. On purpose, explains Schelp. Political moderation “is a stance, a way of dealing with the conflicts inherent in any society”, writes the journalist. “As such, it cannot be defined as an ideology […]. Political moderation does not have a set of beliefs or dogmas that people adhere to and that generate a cohesive group identity.”
That’s where the problems start. Schelp himself presents the reader with difficulties that can arise from an emphasis on the form rather than the content of ideological debate.
Depending on the principles you want to defend, is moderation the best path? In the case of slavery, is gradualism appropriate? And the fight for civil rights? Schelp cites , who in the 1960s criticized “white moderates” who said they were against racism, but who were “more devoted to ‘order’ than Justice.”
As a way out of situations like this, Schelp proposes, depending on the circumstances, “moderate moderation”.
A simple defense of those would reach faster, and more directly, support for Luther King’s cause or opposition to the apartheid regime in South Africa, also mentioned by the journalist.
Schelp’s defense of dialogue should not be undeserved. He rigorously presents the value of listening, consideration and openness to others. But the centrality of rhetoric makes the book take unnecessary risks. For example, when Lula and Bolsonaro are brought together in the 2022 elections, treating both as “candidates who demonize each other”.
How much did the equivalent lack of rhetorical moderation, on both sides, really matter at that moment? Especially in comparison with concrete attitudes towards democracy? Schelp does not fail to note, in the same paragraph, that only one of the candidates was convicted of conspiring “to carry out a coup d’état and remain in power”.
Ultimately, moderation is not the only possible response to extremism. The position that is neither radical left nor radical right is not just reactive: it has its own principles and values, starting with the defense of democracy, the guarantee of minority rights, pluralism of ideas, the rule of law.
Anyone who is “neither communist nor fascist” does not need to be just a polite accommodator of radicalism, a mediator of nonsense. There is no need to shout, but neither should we give up on principles, on the clash of ideas. Against extremism, sometimes you have to be intransigent.
