The political compass is what politics looks like from a liberal perspective. It has no actual bearing on the reality of political thought, and has been disastrous for those trying to understand politics for the first time.
Despite its flaws (which are not what you’ve described), its 2 dimensions is still a vast improvement over the overly conflationary reductivism of linear depictions, or worse 1-bit binary.
The flaws are definitely in line with what I described, and more. Trying to describe left and right as a spectrun is already horribly reductive, trying to pretend “authoritarian” and “libertarian” is a spectrum is even worse. ideologies can be generally described as right or left depending on if they uphold capitalism or socialism, beyond that they are best compared by their actual stances and not a farcical grid.
Ideologies can be generally described as right or left depending on if they uphold capitalism or socialism, beyond that they are best compared by their actual stances and not a farcical grid.
Just don’t try to abstract complex views into a grid and compare them directly.
Sorry for the two sleepy hasty curt responses there.
So, you’re saying left and right is less reductive than a “spectrum” (not what that is, but okay)? Extraordinary.
And you’re certain about that, enough to not entertain and explore the idea? :3 Tell me you’re doing naive realism without telling me you’re doing naive realism. n_n Just gonna double down on that, like suffering narcissistic injury, rather than participate in Socratic dialogue with introspection and humility in the search for truth?
I was not saying “you’re wrong”. I was saying your opening line sounds like naive realism. That suggests a false dichotomy fallacy there…? Or if you were meaning when I said “Despite its flaws (which are not what you’ve described)”, yes, forgive me that was clumsily worded. I merely meant there are other flaws, and that those flaws you alluded to are perceptual and shared from different perspectives all around (one can encounter claims of such biases from every direction, not just the one you offered [~ bit of a “subjective vs objective” (again, see naive realism, “believing what I believe is reality”]), and further, they bleed into some of the other flaws, including such as rotational contortions oft abused by authorities or ideologues overly certain they have the one true way (likely not realizing they’re doing naive realism, especially when bolstered by the confirmation bias of an echo chamber, and lacking the mark of an educated mind (the ability to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting nor rejecting it), or flaws such as absence of sufficient nuance to not have distinction of agreement from opposite corners of moderates, or disagreement from same corners of moderates, and doubtless many more, that can be improved upon. Would be better if it were a spectrum, and somehow depicted so that it could be easily uttered in short.
For over 20 years I’ve sought an optimal 3rd dimension to overcome more of the still remaining conflations in the political compass. Optimal in its capacity to usefully elucidate expediently, without being overly redundant and clumping from being just a near reiteration of either the other two dimensions (or “axis” as is oft said). Besides this, there are so many other mapping systems worth exploring (variously), from simpler, like The Advocates’ Shortest Political Quiz (which likewise uses 2D result depiction, with 5 reductive labels, reducing the nuance, prioritizing easy familiar utterables), to more complex, like (perhaps most famously) 8values (which then becomes rather unwieldy). There may be a more “Myers Briggs” style depiction that may help, but then this too merely reduces to a set of binaries, rather than scales (not spectrums). Some are even more elaborate at teasing out the particulars to more genuinely be better “compared by their actual stances”, but become unwieldy in common parlance.
What I (and I’ve noticed, many others) find fun (as well as dangerously open to abuse, with dire consequences), is how broadly the terms get applied, in no small part from intentional Orwellianised misapplication. “Socialist”, “liberal”, “conservative”, being the first top three examples that come to my mind, in terms of being so overstretched they’ve rather lost their meaning, such that one could almost paint the entire political compass with them, and there would be some who would see no problem with that, maybe even blame the political compass, rather than the Orwellian conflation and contradiction, and then seek to throw it [the political compass] out, in favor of the reductive label slinging, rather than seek to improve for better uncorruptibility of/and intricacy in our communication of ideas. “Fascist” and “anarchist” are likewise having the “cry wolf” run-around done to them, as well as misapplication, like calling malarchy anarchy, similar(ish) drift from the anarchist’s originally coined term communism got usurped and applied as a marketing cover over totalitarianism, complete opposite of the original meaning, inverting its freedom conferring meaning, easily arguably the quintessential root of where we get the term Orwellianism from today. So I do find it more handy, more robust, to have a little test to tease out a depiction of where ones political philosophy currently resides, than to merely utter a label and presume (beyond all Wittgensteinian hurdles) the meaning is consistently shared so much as to be adequate as crudely generalized to “right or left” (oblivious to conflations and contortions) depending on if they uphold “capitalism” or “socialism” (oblivious to Orwellian name changing, and the other dimensions, that are open to abuse to trick people into false allegiances against their interests), or that, beyond that generalisation reducing to 1-bit binary, “they are best compared by their actual stances”, however one is defining and depicting that, however, that remains to be elaborated upon. Would love to hear more about what means are proposed for that. Though, given the assertion that 1-bit binary is less reductive than a pair of spectra(/scales/axes/gradients/whatevers), my initial guestimate is there’s not a lot of gold to mine here. Sorry if that’s a pessimistic guestimate in error from some misinterpretation yet to be cleared up, and I remain open to hearing it, to explore this further.
… Would not be surprised if this thoughtspace is not entertained and merely downvoted for my social ineptitude (and verbosity and use of vocabulary). XD But it’s an area of genuine interest and enthused deep investigation, far more than bothering to preen and pander to any popular social preferences apparent. Too important to give a shit about that socio-egotistical fluff. Dare I assert, there be genuine(ly not fallacious) slippery slopes here. Once over some Orwellian cusps, it can seem very hard to get back from, with our ability to communicate ideas, or even conceive of them, gone, at least, for a majority, or at least, a large minority of true believers, who then cajole another large minority to obey in fear, to form a majority… Such is the psychology of totalitarianism [… which happens to be the name of a great book by Mattias Desmet… the psychology of totalitarianism… good stuff for helping minds get out of groupthink>massformation>totalitarianism, with mere awareness of it ~ … better the nuance, than the reductive static side teaming identification and terror into social dominance, out of more intricate nuanced thought of the forebrain].
We can still mend this. And I don’t mean just the escalation of miscommunication in the small, here.
The idea of a “libertarian - authoritarian” spectrum is already false, what’s important is the class character of a society. Ie, are the working classes in control? Or are capitalists in control? Just nakedly calling something “libertarian” or “authoritarian” is meaningless without class analysis, and libertarianism isn’t necessarily non-authoritarian, revolution is the wielding of absolute authority over another group and that’s the most common method of gaining control.
If I say I’m a Marxist-Leninist, people generally know what that means. If someone says they are an anarcho-communist, then people know what that means. Even if the depth of knowledge someone has isn’t that great, it’s better than people trying to guess from a reductive quadrant based system that increases confusion, rather than decreasing it.
The political compass is what politics looks like from a liberal perspective. It has no actual bearing on the reality of political thought, and has been disastrous for those trying to understand politics for the first time.
Despite its flaws (which are not what you’ve described), its 2 dimensions is still a vast improvement over the overly conflationary reductivism of linear depictions, or worse 1-bit binary.
The flaws are definitely in line with what I described, and more. Trying to describe left and right as a spectrun is already horribly reductive, trying to pretend “authoritarian” and “libertarian” is a spectrum is even worse. ideologies can be generally described as right or left depending on if they uphold capitalism or socialism, beyond that they are best compared by their actual stances and not a farcical grid.
Sounds like naive realism.
Sounds like I know what I meant, and you saying “you’re wrong” has done nothing to challenge that.
Hey so a rule my partner and I have when trying to decide what to eat is that if you veto a suggestion, you have to come up with the next suggestion
Already did:
Just don’t try to abstract complex views into a grid and compare them directly.
Sorry for the two sleepy hasty curt responses there.
So, you’re saying left and right is less reductive than a “spectrum” (not what that is, but okay)? Extraordinary.
And you’re certain about that, enough to not entertain and explore the idea? :3 Tell me you’re doing naive realism without telling me you’re doing naive realism. n_n Just gonna double down on that, like suffering narcissistic injury, rather than participate in Socratic dialogue with introspection and humility in the search for truth?
I was not saying “you’re wrong”. I was saying your opening line sounds like naive realism. That suggests a false dichotomy fallacy there…? Or if you were meaning when I said “Despite its flaws (which are not what you’ve described)”, yes, forgive me that was clumsily worded. I merely meant there are other flaws, and that those flaws you alluded to are perceptual and shared from different perspectives all around (one can encounter claims of such biases from every direction, not just the one you offered [~ bit of a “subjective vs objective” (again, see naive realism, “believing what I believe is reality”]), and further, they bleed into some of the other flaws, including such as rotational contortions oft abused by authorities or ideologues overly certain they have the one true way (likely not realizing they’re doing naive realism, especially when bolstered by the confirmation bias of an echo chamber, and lacking the mark of an educated mind (the ability to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting nor rejecting it), or flaws such as absence of sufficient nuance to not have distinction of agreement from opposite corners of moderates, or disagreement from same corners of moderates, and doubtless many more, that can be improved upon. Would be better if it were a spectrum, and somehow depicted so that it could be easily uttered in short.
For over 20 years I’ve sought an optimal 3rd dimension to overcome more of the still remaining conflations in the political compass. Optimal in its capacity to usefully elucidate expediently, without being overly redundant and clumping from being just a near reiteration of either the other two dimensions (or “axis” as is oft said). Besides this, there are so many other mapping systems worth exploring (variously), from simpler, like The Advocates’ Shortest Political Quiz (which likewise uses 2D result depiction, with 5 reductive labels, reducing the nuance, prioritizing easy familiar utterables), to more complex, like (perhaps most famously) 8values (which then becomes rather unwieldy). There may be a more “Myers Briggs” style depiction that may help, but then this too merely reduces to a set of binaries, rather than scales (not spectrums). Some are even more elaborate at teasing out the particulars to more genuinely be better “compared by their actual stances”, but become unwieldy in common parlance.
What I (and I’ve noticed, many others) find fun (as well as dangerously open to abuse, with dire consequences), is how broadly the terms get applied, in no small part from intentional Orwellianised misapplication. “Socialist”, “liberal”, “conservative”, being the first top three examples that come to my mind, in terms of being so overstretched they’ve rather lost their meaning, such that one could almost paint the entire political compass with them, and there would be some who would see no problem with that, maybe even blame the political compass, rather than the Orwellian conflation and contradiction, and then seek to throw it [the political compass] out, in favor of the reductive label slinging, rather than seek to improve for better uncorruptibility of/and intricacy in our communication of ideas. “Fascist” and “anarchist” are likewise having the “cry wolf” run-around done to them, as well as misapplication, like calling malarchy anarchy, similar(ish) drift from the anarchist’s originally coined term communism got usurped and applied as a marketing cover over totalitarianism, complete opposite of the original meaning, inverting its freedom conferring meaning, easily arguably the quintessential root of where we get the term Orwellianism from today. So I do find it more handy, more robust, to have a little test to tease out a depiction of where ones political philosophy currently resides, than to merely utter a label and presume (beyond all Wittgensteinian hurdles) the meaning is consistently shared so much as to be adequate as crudely generalized to “right or left” (oblivious to conflations and contortions) depending on if they uphold “capitalism” or “socialism” (oblivious to Orwellian name changing, and the other dimensions, that are open to abuse to trick people into false allegiances against their interests), or that, beyond that generalisation reducing to 1-bit binary, “they are best compared by their actual stances”, however one is defining and depicting that, however, that remains to be elaborated upon. Would love to hear more about what means are proposed for that. Though, given the assertion that 1-bit binary is less reductive than a pair of spectra(/scales/axes/gradients/whatevers), my initial guestimate is there’s not a lot of gold to mine here. Sorry if that’s a pessimistic guestimate in error from some misinterpretation yet to be cleared up, and I remain open to hearing it, to explore this further.
… Would not be surprised if this thoughtspace is not entertained and merely downvoted for my social ineptitude (and verbosity and use of vocabulary). XD But it’s an area of genuine interest and enthused deep investigation, far more than bothering to preen and pander to any popular social preferences apparent. Too important to give a shit about that socio-egotistical fluff. Dare I assert, there be genuine(ly not fallacious) slippery slopes here. Once over some Orwellian cusps, it can seem very hard to get back from, with our ability to communicate ideas, or even conceive of them, gone, at least, for a majority, or at least, a large minority of true believers, who then cajole another large minority to obey in fear, to form a majority… Such is the psychology of totalitarianism [… which happens to be the name of a great book by Mattias Desmet… the psychology of totalitarianism… good stuff for helping minds get out of groupthink>massformation>totalitarianism, with mere awareness of it ~ … better the nuance, than the reductive static side teaming identification and terror into social dominance, out of more intricate nuanced thought of the forebrain].
We can still mend this. And I don’t mean just the escalation of miscommunication in the small, here.
The idea of a “libertarian - authoritarian” spectrum is already false, what’s important is the class character of a society. Ie, are the working classes in control? Or are capitalists in control? Just nakedly calling something “libertarian” or “authoritarian” is meaningless without class analysis, and libertarianism isn’t necessarily non-authoritarian, revolution is the wielding of absolute authority over another group and that’s the most common method of gaining control.
If I say I’m a Marxist-Leninist, people generally know what that means. If someone says they are an anarcho-communist, then people know what that means. Even if the depth of knowledge someone has isn’t that great, it’s better than people trying to guess from a reductive quadrant based system that increases confusion, rather than decreasing it.
Here’s a great video going over the political compass’s absurdities.
And that was fun to paste that whole exchange (thus far) into an LLM for analysis.