Ask a Centrist 1

You’re reading Ask a Centrist, the premier middle-of-the-road neoliberal advice column from successful pundit Jonathew Chaitglesias. Remember, the truth always lies at the exact midpoint between two extremist positions. The EXACT midpoint.

Dear Centrist,

Long time reader, first time writer. I am a proud landlord who owns a large apartment building filled with extremely poor people. (Guess you could say I’m their benevolent god, in a sense, ha ha, just kidding.) Recently, two of my roughly 1,000 tenants threw a Molotov cocktail out of their window to protest the fact that I shut off the water for a few months to cut costs. (What am I, made of dollars? Grow up.) I think it’s also possible that they were mad about me tossing a few of their fellow tenants off the roof recently for failing to pay their rent on time, as a friendly warning to the others. But who knows? It’s hard to say what goes through the mind of a vile criminal.

Anyway, the improvised explosives hit my van parked on the curb, vaporizing 20 of my favorite cousins, who were about to move into the newly vacated units of the folks I threw off the roof earlier. (That’s what family’s for.) Unfortunately the blast also leveled half a city block and killed five random people passing by on the street.

Obviously I must retaliate. My question is this: Should I just go ahead and burn the building down with all 1,000 tenants inside, just in case? Or should I, you know, not do that?

Sincerely,

The Energetic Evictor

Dearest EE,

What a terrific question! Thorny and thoughtful letters like yours are what make me pumped to get up in the morning and do this job.

The way I see it, the two options you’ve laid out are actually both pretty extreme. I’m just gonna say it, EE: Killing 1,000 people is a scooch on the radical side, and I’d actually advise against it. However, killing zero people is also itself a form of extremism, situated as it is at the opposite pole. And extremism, as we all know, is the absolute worst thing of all. It’s like my grandpappy used to say: Given the choice between a kick in the ass and a wet smooch on the ass, the wise man chooses the midpoint—a gentlemanly and respectful smack.

The only healthy and ethically defensible thing to do, then, is to find a middle-ground position. In your case, I would recommend killing only, say, 500 of your tenants. Or, rather, “encouraging their deaths to be hastened, somewhat.” Or, rather, “being indirectly semi-involved in the cessation of their bodily functions, allegedly.” Nothing too extreme. And then, rather than burning your entire building down (bad) or leaving it completely alone and non-burnt (also bad), again you should find the middle ground: Make most of the building unlivable, perhaps via controlled burns and various chemicals.

That’ll really get the message across, EE.

Now, if you find you’re having trouble getting just the right number of collateral casualties in, you might consider a two-birds approach: Tell the tenants of, say, the fifth floor that they must evacuate within 24 hours, at which point you plan to hose that floor down with military-grade white phosphorous. Instruct them to move down to the “safe zone” of the first floor. But then—and here’s the fun part—you ALSO do the phosphorous thing to the first floor, as soon as they arrive. Boom, that’s two floors down and a big chunk of your sensible number of regrettable losses of life taken care of. A little something I like to call efficiency.

I know it’s hard not to take extreme measures. After all, those guys killed your cousins, plus some other folks on the street. That’s murder! One of the worst crimes out there! But listen, EE: We need to keep the emotions in check and be reasonable here. And the only way to reasonably stop the cycle of bloodshed is to kill tons more people. Because honestly, who knows which floor those two bad dudes are on? There is literally no way to find out. Better to assume that all your tenants are in cahoots with the two explosive-throwers. Better safe than etcetera.

Also, I bet some of your fellow local large building owners would help you out, either in terms of giving you some sweet anti-tenant weaponry or even just financially, if you ask them. It’s called landlord solidarity—look it up.

I hope this helps, dearest EE. In closing, I’m reminded of the words of history’s awesomest landlord, Jesus Christ, who once said, “So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I will firmly high-five you with My mighty Hand” (paraphrased).

Yours in centrism,

Dear Centrist,

Help! I’m watching this brakeless, out-of-control trolley careen toward a guy tied to the tracks, for some reason. Probably a criminal? Not sure. I’m posted up near a rail-switch where I can easily divert the trolley toward a second set of tracks with, get this, ONE HUNDRED guys tied up!! Should I switch the switch or not? Should I passively allow one dude to die or actively save his life by killing a hundred dudes??

Please hurry,

Tense About Trolleys

Dear TAT,

Wow, talk about a bummer! Another great example of how the insidious creep of extremism shows up in our daily lives all the time. In my not inconsiderable experience, the path to wisdom typically lies bang through the center. Thread that needle. Let’s explore what that could look like in your situation, where multiple lives are, even as we speak, mere seconds away from the final oblivion of death.

The solution, as I see it, is simple: Gently pull the switch to the halfway point, which I’m assuming should only half-redirect the rails (not much of a train guy, I’m afraid). Then sit back and watch, secure in your ethical middle ground, as the trolley violently derails itself and falls to its side (probably), its momentum sliding it along with a metallic screech and a shower of sparks. Ideally, the derailed trolley-car will now continue at a breakneck pace on its side lengthwise along BOTH tracks, killing both your original guy and the one hundred guys, and possibly also the trolley driver (conductor? engineer?).

Problem solved! There is no need to select who gets to live—after all, who are you to decide? Are you the Almighty Creator of the universe? I can only assume from your anxious tone, TAT, that you are not. So you can, and should, opt out of this big gnarly nuisance of a moral dilemma, foisted upon you by an uncaring universe, by killing everyone, or, rather, by allowing the trolley to perform all of the killings it so clearly was designed for. Clean, simple, and ethical: the centrist’s trifecta.

Middlingly,