Redefining the Political Spectrum - The Rational Spectrum

[viscousmemories]

I just read this interesting article: Redefining the Political Spectrum - The Rational Spectrum (http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/redefining_the_political_spectru.htm)

As I've mentioned here I have only just recently begun dipping my toes into debates and discussions about politics and economics. This article was really fascinating to me. I lack a solid framework to judge whether it's factual, biased or whatever. However, intuitively - and with respect to my own life experience - it makes a lot of sense to me and helps me understand the political landscape better.

Selected excerpt:

Both the Political Compass and Nolan systems present the same fallacy, and project the similar wrong ideas. Those wrong ideas being that one side, "Left" or "Right" represents "freedom" or "lack of restrictions", while the other represents "control" or "regulation." The Political Compass system also labels economic left as "Collectivism" and economic right as "Libertarianism", as shown three images down.

This is not the case though. Benito Mussolini's fascism offers the perfect example of why these systems fail to property depict the real political spectrum. Mussolini was clearly right wing in both the economic and social sense, and at the same time, none of his policies can be considered "liberal," or "libertarian," in nature. Likewise, it leads to the incorrect characterization of "Fascism" and "Communism" being similar or the same, when in fact the Fascists and Communists disagreed on virtually every point, aside from the fact that they opposed Liberalism.

Both of these systems take a false dichotomy and simply double the number of axis used to represent the same false dichotomy. They both make use of the concept of "freedom" and present one side as representing freedom, while the other represents complete lack of freedom, but this entire scheme is misrepresentative and trivializes the actual ideologies and positions.

I should have some brilliant commentary or analysis to offer after taking in all that information, but sadly I don't. Maybe someone else would like to get us started...

[Ymir's blood]

The article echoes a lot of my own feelings about the perceptions of the political spectrum in America. I certainly agree with the assessment of US politics as being overly simplistic in the way issues and politicians are labeled. I don't have enough knowledge of political history to know if everything said was true, but it seems to mesh in with what I do know about the time period.

It would have been nice if the charts were more fully explained. For instance the last chart (preceded by the text, "The result is that American politics today can be depicted as shown below in relation to the Rational Spectrum:") has a circle in the middle and a large purple rectangle, neither of which are mentioned in the legend. :foggy:

[viscousmemories]

It would have been nice if the charts were more fully explained. For instance the last chart (preceded by the text, "The result is that American politics today can be depicted as shown below in relation to the Rational Spectrum:") has a circle in the middle and a large purple rectangle, neither of which are mentioned in the legend. :foggy:
I'm pretty sure the circle represents "Liberalism" (as defined in an earlier graphic) and the rectangle represents mainstream politics in America today. At least that's how I understood it.

[Ymir's blood]

I'm pretty sure the circle represents "Liberalism" (as defined in an earlier graphic) and the rectangle represents mainstream politics in America today. At least that's how I understood it.
You could be right. I was thinking that it represented American society in general. Just below the chart it reads, "American politics today is very much shifted to the Right economically and socially, yet American society in general is relatively liberal in the social sense." However, either interpretation would place the circle in the same position.

[Farren]

Perhaps you should PM or mail Malachi151 (AKA Geoff Price) on IIDB and tell him his efforts are appreciated. He's been lambasted several times in the past for posting links to his website for "shameless self promotion" but I think his motives are pure. I don;t always agree with what he has to say but I appreciate his industry in writing and committing to some kind of permanent format his carefully thought out and edited thoughts.

That said, the idea of "left" and "right" being oversimplistic is far from new. My understanding, by proxy (via Political Science graduates from both here and the States thanks to the surfiet of young intellectuals from Europe and the States I met immediately after Apartheid's demise), is that no serious sudent of PS considers the left/right dichotomy valid at all. The best description I've heard of the real state of politics is a "multidimensional space which can't even be expressed in 3D. In order to arrive at the real picture one must conceptualise (since visualising is impossible) as many axes as there are issues and place each personally held set of opinions on that graph" (paraphrase).

I once suggested to Geoff, when he was seeking advice on a better graph, the following:

http://home.icon.co.za/~farren/3axis.gif

since it allows 3 axis of determination, at least. Unfortunately he never responded. But even this would be inadequate to come close to fully expressing the full range of human opinion. I can't help feeling that ultimately set theory, best expressed in the "crow's feet" diagrams of database design would be the closest we could come to a coherent political mapping - and, as elegant as that is - its already too complex for most people to readily grasp.

That said, I really do appreciate the industry and commitment that Geoff puts into sharing his thoughts. If only he weren't such an idealist.

[viscousmemories]

Perhaps you should PM or mail Malachi151 (AKA Geoff Price) on IIDB and tell him his efforts are appreciated. He's been lambasted several times in the past for posting links to his website for "shameless self promotion" but I think his motives are pure. I don;t always agree with what he has to say but I appreciate his industry in writing and committing to some kind of permanent format his carefully thought out and edited thoughts.
I did PM him to compliment him, offer some typo corrections and invite him to come read this thread shortly after I wrote it. I didn't realize he had any kind of reputation at IIDB 'cause I don't read PD much, but I hope he'll come by.

That said, the idea of "left" and "right" being oversimplistic is far from new. My understanding, by proxy (via Political Science graduates from both here and the States thanks to the surfiet of young intellectuals from Europe and the States I met immediately after Apartheid's demise), is that no serious sudent of PS considers the left/right dichotomy valid at all. The best description I've heard of the real state of politics is a "multidimensional space which can't even be expressed in 3D. In order to arrive at the real picture one must conceptualise (since visualising is impossible) as many axes as there are issues and place each personally held set of opinions on that graph" (paraphrase).
That seems self-evident to me, given the intellectual diversity of humans. I wouldn't know anything about whether his map is superior, inferior or just different from others though. I just haven't seen any others. Except of course the one's he cites in the article, and his make more sense to me just intuitively, plus because he avoids the loaded terms 'freedom' and 'liberty'. As he says:

The use of terms like "freedom" and "liberty" are also problematic in terms of trying to understand politics objectively because these are terms that are highly propagandistic and are typically self defined.

I once suggested to Geoff, when he was seeking advice on a better graph, the following:

http://home.icon.co.za/~farren/3axis.gif

since it allows 3 axis of determination, at least.
Okay now that just looks crazy to me. Where's the legend? :)

Unfortunately he never responded. But even this would be inadequate to come close to fully expressing the full range of human opinion. I can't help feeling that ultimately set theory, best expressed in the "crow's feet" diagrams of database design would be the closest we could come to a coherent political mapping - and, as elegant as that is - its already too complex for most people to readily grasp.
Do you have an example of what you mean by crows feet?

That said, I really do appreciate the industry and commitment that Geoff puts into sharing his thoughts. If only he weren't such an idealist.
He does seem to know his subject well. :)

[Farren]

The graph provided isn't meant to have a legend. It was intended as a suggested format for representing at least 3 axis clearly and two-dimensionally. The suggestion was to label each axis as he saw fit.

Geoff is a good thinker, but he is a self-declared Marxist and sometimes his logic angles towards an ideal rather than being simply rational analysis.

I'll get back to you on the crows feet diagrams because I've just realised I'm not really sure how one would represent political affiliation using them. I had something in mind when I wrote it but I really can't remember.