"Moderate" doesn't mean "agreeable", it means "opposed to radical/extreme change". These beliefs are moderate by definition, it's not tautological or subjective.
In Saudi Arabia, death penalty for homosexuals would be considered moderate. They would consider your attitude toward free speech around the prophet radical.
What you consider moderate is always a result of your ideology. There is no objective moderate, there is only moderate within your ideology.
That's exactly what ideology is: It determines what you perceive as "normal" or "moderate".
You're observing that the definition of "moderate" is relative, not ideological. It's just like the definition of "median", my height might be close to the median in a US context, but I would be tall in a Nigerian context. This doesn't imply that the definition of "median" is ideological.
Yes, "moderate" describes ideology (no one in this thread questions that), but the OP's claim is that the definition of "moderate" is itself an ideological question. It's a bit meta.
> Of course "moderate" is relative. But relative to what?
Relative to your ideology.
Incorrect, not relative to one’s ideology, but relative to the implicit political context (such as “US politics” or “Saudi politics”. If it were relative to each person’s own ideology, then everyone would identify as a moderate: “My ideology is moderate relative to my ideology”.
> You'd be a moderate in the US and a radical in Saudi Arabia relative to the prevailing ideology.
This is correct, but it contradicts your earlier claim that the definition of “moderate” is itself ideological. It’s contextual but not ideological.
Yes, I was being precise. “Moderate” is relative to “the prevalent ideology” (although it’s not conventionally thought of as a single ideology, hence my phrasing). The point is that the definition isn’t an ideological matter.
