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If socialism and liberalism are distinct strands of Enlightenment humanism, then socialists are the hipsters of that humanism, advocating on particular issues before they're cool (also, like hipsters, socialists tend to have horrible beards). Today's easy liberal consensus--gender equality, racial equality, the idea that peg-legged tubercular five-year-olds should get statutory holidays from their coal-sorting jobs--is almost always yesterday's fiery and decidedly un-pragmatic socialist whinge. As it turns out, the middle of the political spectrum is a far more fun, sophisticated place to be after your comrades have already expended a lot of blood, sweat and tears yanking it in the proper direction for you (and guess which direction that usually is?).
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