That left-right continuum

John has been posting voluminously recently regarding definitions of “right” or “left”, “liberal” or “conservative.” My objections have been noted in comments to his posts.

Let me get more fundamental: the linear “right/left” continuum promoted by many analysts is too simplistic as well as grossly subjective (eg, personal definitions of right/left, with people getting offended if their favourite ideologies or ideologues are binned in the “wrong” category).

Some think the simplicity is to be favored for its explanatory power - I disagree. Based on these linear political arguments, I, for example, am neither “right” nor “left”, and I certainly am no “centrist”!

Before the 2004 Presidential primary season I took a political questionnaire to see whether my support for any one candidates could be predicted. The closest match was George W. Bush, a man I deeply despise and with whom I disagree on virtually every single issue. Interestingly, Sharpton was in the middle of the pack - presumably because of the Iraq war and my views on that.

What does that say? Well, it does say that American “democracy” is a politically narrow farce in which the closest candidate to my beliefs is one that I disagree with on virtually every issue, and that the gap between a Bush and a Sharpton is not as wide as many people believe. More to the point of this post, it shows that the current linear right/left continuum, coupled with a shortened political spectrum in which “leftie” Bush is a “conservative”, is woefully inadequate.

Maybe we need a 2-D political square, rather than a 1-D line, in which one axis represents ultimate interests (genetic interests, group interests, etc.) while the second axis represents the more traditional political, social, and economic issues that people think of in the right/left context.

Maybe a third axis - moral and aesthetic sensibilities - is needed, creating a 3-D political cube, in which someone can pinpoint his ideology. Or are 3 axes not enough? Do we need more complex questionnaires covering the full range of ultimate and proximate concerns?

In the current political jargon, my views are “all over the place”, and in America’s political system, I am an ideological non-entity. Certainly, the forces of the globalist, multiculturalist establishment (that includes GNXP and, perhaps, at least one blogger here?) would like to keep things this way, and prevent Salterian thought from entering “mainstream” politics.

I for one, though, register my protest.

Posted by JW Holliday on Monday, June 6, 2005 at 09:07 AM in No particular place to go
Comments (9) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Geoff Beck on June 06, 2005, 09:31 AM | #

Notice the agreement among the so called left-right spectrum in the US. Both are for Empire, State Power, White Dispossession. All are multiculturalists and diversophiles. And all agree that the State is the sole arbitor of right & wrong.

If we are to regain our liberty the entire political class and the elites they are dependent on must be “decapitated” in some manner.

Posted by jonjayray on June 06, 2005, 04:03 PM | #

You will get outliers from any regression line. This blog is for such people. So what?

Posted by Mark Richardson on June 06, 2005, 06:25 PM | #

Traditionalists are likely to end up as centrists in any such political quizzes.

That’s because the left/right spectrum is designed to measure differences in liberal political opinion.

The more free market liberals are put on the right, whilst those rejecting the free market are put on the left.

Since traditionalists are not radically libertarian free marketeers, nor as radically hostile to the market as some leftists, we are going to be placed somewhere in the centre.

Posted by Anon on June 06, 2005, 09:31 PM | #

www.politicalcompass.org

The X axis is used for economic left/right, while the Y is used for social libertarian/authoritarian.

Quadrant one is non-libertarian rightists (“conservatives”); quadrant two, authoritarian leftists; quadrant three, libertarian leftists (oxymoron!); and quadrant four, libertarian rightists.

Economic Left/Right: 6.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 1.00
Quadrant I

Give it a try…

Posted by Mark Richardson on June 07, 2005, 06:38 AM | #

Actually, Anon, it’s possible to be a libertarian leftist. Yes, there are leftists who in rejecting the free market as a regulator of wills turn instead to “state socialism”: to the “scientific” regulation of society by the state.

But there’s another left-wing tradition which rejects both the free market and the state - namely the anarchists. And don’t forget that the ideal for Marxists is for the state to wither away after the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The interesting thing is that in the middle of the liberal political spectrum you get statists (with the left-wing of the social democratic parties being the most statist) and at either end of the spectrum you get anti-statists (right-wing libertarians at one end and left-wing anarchists at the other).

Posted by jonjayray on June 07, 2005, 06:47 AM | #

Mark
The extremes are very small so are irrelevant to overall dimensionality

Posted by Charles Copeland on June 07, 2005, 04:09 PM | #

“the linear “right/left” continuum promoted by many analysts is too simplistic as well as grossly subjective ...

You take the words from my mouth. A far more useful continuum than left-right is, in my opinion, that of the scientific versus the unscientific attitude of mind.

The distinction is not so much between left and right as between those who follow the argument wherever it goes (the Socratics) and the also-rans – the wishful thinkers, the ideologists, the plain opportunists and summer soldiers. The former are looking for what is there, i.e. they are truth-seekers, while the latter always find what they are looking for – consolation, or power, or wish-fulfillment.

William Graham Sumner’s essay ‘The Scientific Attitude of Mind’, (written in 1905) which I’ve put on the net for the first time, is worth more than a thousand pages seeking to determine the ‘essence’ of the right as opposed to that if the left:

http://www.globalidiot.net/Sumner01.html

Posted by anon on June 07, 2005, 11:08 PM | #

Actually, Anon, it’s possible to be a libertarian leftist.

I know, but nowadays they’re as rare as hens’ teeth. The only modern libertarian leftist I can think of is Noam Chomsky.

Posted by ben tillman on June 08, 2005, 04:55 PM | #

That test was constructed by someone who has little understanding of political philosophy. The concepts were so garbled that I cam out almost dead center:

Economic Left/Right: 1.50

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.21

That puts me closest to ... Gerhard Schroeder?

Next entry: The Bear’s Lair: Removing the stooges

Previous entry: Salter, strawmen and a box of matches

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