steer a middle course

To compromise between two extreme or polarizing alternatives; to find a solution, policy, or course of action that is acceptable or agreeable to two different or opposing sides. The small sovereign nation has gotten along for years by steering a middle course between the two global superpowers on either sides of its border. The president's popularity among the more extreme members of his party was diminished by his attempts to steer a middle course with some bipartisan policies.

steer (or take) a middle course

adopt a policy which avoids extremes.

follow/steer/take a middle ˈcourse

find, etc. a/the middle ˈway

follow, find, etc. a plan that is halfway between two opposing plans; compromise: Kate wanted to stay for the rest of the week, and I wanted to leave straight away, so in the end we followed a middle course and stayed a couple of days. ♢ In politics you often have to steer a middle course. OPPOSITE: go to extremes

See also: course, follow, middle, steer, take

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

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References in periodicals archive

The impression this sort of liberal argument conveys to students -- wrongly, I would assert -- is that it is possible to steer a middle course between the notion that what historians do is analyze a discourse (in all its verbal, visual and artifactual forms) according to a set of disciplinary conventions, and the position that historians uncover the truths of the past.

Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice

It's a judgment call, and we try to steer a middle course.

Puzzlements

Hoffmann states that Erasmus took his clue from the orthodox Fathers and sought to steer a middle course between over-allegorizing and under-allegorizing, but he does not note that Erasmus frequently criticizes even his favorite Fathers, Origen, Jerome and Ambrose, for straying too far from the letter in their fanciful exegeses.

Rhetoric and Theology: The Hermeneutic of Erasmus

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