Moderation is the process of eliminating or lessening extremes. It is used to ensure normality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted. Common uses of moderation include: *Ensuring consistency and accuracy in the marking of student assessments. *A moderator may remove unsuitable contributions from the

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

, forum or

chat room The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

they represent in accordance with their

moderation system On Internet websites that invite users to post comments, content moderation is the process of detecting contributions that are irrelevant, obscene, illegal, harmful, or insulting with regards to useful or informative contributions. The purpose of ...

. *A more proactive nuance is found in the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

church's use of the term for the heads of its conferences. *A neutron moderator is used to slow down

neutron The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...

s in a

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat fr ...

. *A way of life emphasizing perfect amounts of everything, not indulging in too much of one thing, hence moderation.

History

Ancient Greece

Moderation is also a principle of life. In ancient Greece, the temple of Apollo at Delphi bore the inscription ''Meden Agan'' () - 'Nothing in excess'. Doing something "in moderation" means not doing it excessively. For instance, someone who moderates their food consumption tries to eat all food groups, but limits their intake of those that may cause deleterious effects to harmless levels. According to the

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

and

sociologist of science The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociolog ...

Steven Shapin Steven Shapin (born 1943) is an American historian and sociologist of science. He is the Franklin L. Ford Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. He is considered one of the earliest scholars on the sociology of scienti ...

Christianity

Similarly, in

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

, ''moderationism'' is the position that drinking alcoholic beverages temperately is permissible, though

drunkenness Alcohol intoxication, also known as alcohol poisoning, commonly described as drunkenness or inebriation, is the negative behavior and physical effects caused by a recent consumption of alcohol. In addition to the toxicity of ethanol, the main ...

is forbidden (see

Christianity and alcohol Christian views on alcohol are varied. Throughout the first 1,800 years of Church history, Christians generally consumed alcoholic beverages as a common part of everyday life and used "the fruit of the vine" in their central rite—the Eucharist ...

). In the

Book of Wisdom The Book of Wisdom, or the Wisdom of Solomon, is a Jewish work written in Greek and most likely composed in Alexandria, Egypt. Generally dated to the mid-first century BCE, the central theme of the work is "wisdom" itself, appearing under two ...

moderation is listed among the greatest virtues.

Islam and Judaism

Wasat, also called ''wasatiyyah'' ( ar, وسطية) is the Arabic word for ''best'', ''middle'', ''centered'', ''balanced''. In the Islamic context, it refers to the ''"middle way"'' or ''"moderation"'', a justly balanced way of life, avoiding extremes and experiencing things in moderation. Moderate Muslims adhere to the concept of contextual relativism as a way to grasp meaning from the

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

. The Jewish philosopher

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...

, who was heavily influenced by Islamic and Aristotelian thought, also set forth moderation as an ideal within Judaism.

Taoism

Moderation is considered a key part of one's personal development in Chinese

Taoist Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Tao ...

philosophy and religion and is one of the three jewels of Taoist thought. There is nothing that cannot be moderated including one's actions, one's desires and even one's thoughts. It is believed that by doing so one achieves a more natural state, faces less resistance in life and recognises one's limits. Taken to the extreme, moderation is complex and can be difficult to not only accept, but also understand and implement. It can also be recursive in that one should moderate how much one moderates (i.e. to not be too worried about moderating everything or not to try too hard in finding a middle ground) Moderation as a principle of

Taoist philosophy Taoist philosophy ( Chinese: ; pinyin: '; ) also known as Taology refers to the various philosophical currents of Taoism, a tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the '' Dào'' (, also romanized as ''Tao''). The ' ...

turns up in all three of its main texts.

Others

Moderation is a characteristic of the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

national psyche, more specifically described by the Swedish synonym

Lagom ''Lagom'' (pronounced , ) is a Swedish word meaning "just the right amount" or "not too much, not too little". The word can be variously translated as "in moderation", "in balance", "perfect-simple", "just enough", "ideal" and "suitable" (in mat ...

. In an

internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

a moderator is one who enforces the rules.

References

External links

*{{Wiktionary-inline Morality Virtue