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, forum or IRC channel they represent in accordance with their moderation system.
- A more proactive nuance is found in the Methodist church's use of the term for the heads of its conferences.
- A neutron moderator is used to slow down neutrons in a nuclear reactor.
- A way of life emphasizing perfect amounts of everything, not indulging in too much of one thing, hence moderation.
- A lifestyle choice by which many college students abide so as not to become alcoholics.
Moderation is also a principle of life. In ancient Greece, the temple of Apollo at Delphi bore the inscription Meden Agan (μηδὲν ἄγαν) - '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. Similarly in Christianity, moderationism is the position that drinking alcoholic beverages temperately is permissible, though drunkenness is forbidden (see Christianity and alcohol). Moderation is a characteristic of the Swedish national psyche, more specifically described by the Swedish synonym Lagom. Moderate Muslims adhere to the concept of contextual relativism as a way to grasp meaning from the Quran.
Read more about Moderation: Taoism
Famous quotes containing the word moderation:
“After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and imitable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a case like the present.”
—William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879)
“The honest Man has, I know, that modest Desire of Gain which is peculiar to those who understand better Things than Riches; and I dare say he would be contented with much less than what is called Wealth in that Quarter of the Town which he inhabits, and will oblige all his Customers with Demands agreeable to the Moderation of his Desires.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)