Dean's World

On Political Spectrums

Dean

Our friend Steven Malcolm Anderson has written an interesting series on spectrums--political and otherwise. It's enjoyable reading. It's currently up to five parts:

Introduction to Spectrumology Part I.

The Quiz.

The "MAD" Spectrum.

But Let's Look Deeper.

Some Books from Lakoff to LaPonce.

Related Posts (on one page):

More On Spectrums
On Political Spectrums

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Steven Malcolm Anderson (www):

Dear Dean:

THANK YOU!!!!

2.3.2005 2:38am

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Steven Malcolm Anderson (www):

I admire Dean
For marrying the Queen.

I admire the Queen
For marrying Dean.

HAIL TO THE KING!!!!

2.3.2005 2:56am

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Robert B.:

Dean and Steven:

This is a truly wonderful post. I have read many of those same sources. I am particularly impressed with the ostensibly descriptive (i.e. not normative) first 20 or so chapters of Lakoff's "Moral Politics" because he is able to provide a relatively simple, compelling, explanation of the apparent contradictions in viewpoints. Hence in the endless debates versus what the left and right say - accusations of cherry picking the data and revisionism abound. I think Lakoff actually provides a more satisfying explanation in that both sides see the same data but place different value judgments on them.

What I am beginning to believe is also increasingly relevant is the role of design features/bugs in the way our brains process information and make decisions, especially in emotionally loaded situations. When Churchill quipped about 20 year old / 30 year old liberal/conservative duality he was asserting that someone can move categories from left to right merely by aging. If you believe the description of an "emotional hijacking" in Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence" it appears entirely likely that fear or other strong emotions could probably cause someone to temporarily change categories. Is it possible that there could be a drug like Prozac that temporarily turns liberals into conservatives or vice versa?

2.3.2005 1:53pm

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Steven Malcolm Anderson (www):

Most interesting! The idea of a pill that turns a Leftist into a Rightist (if we can define what those are, which is the whole condundrum of spectrums!) reminds me of the evil kid in the lunchroom in junior high school who said to me: "I have a pill that will turn you into a Protestant." ha! ha! ha! ha! Perhaps Mark Noonan has a pill that will turn him into a Catholic!

John Jay Ray, of Dissecting Leftism, recently speculated that Left-Right orientations may be genetic. It may well be. Ideological preferences do seem to be tied to certain personality traits, e.g., some more optimistic and some more pessimistic, some more skeptical and others more believing, some liking change and others liking permanence, some preferring looser and more egalitarian relationships, others preferring more structured and hierarchical relationships, etc.. Using the Myers-Briggs typology, it has been observed that top echelons in business and the military tend to be disproportionately ISTJ. Conversely, I have noted that the 1969 Woodstock festival was very much an ENFP phenomenon.

I must say that I have always had a problem with the famous Churchill quote ("If you're not a socialist when you're 20, you have no heart. If you're still a socialist when you're 30, you have no head."), as well as with Thomas Sowell's "constrained"-"unconstrained" polarity: It concedes idealism to the socialists. Ayn Rand showed that individualism, the uncompromised self and all the values that flow from that, is more idealistic than socialism. Young people are often drawn to "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" precisely because they appeal to the desire for the heroic. And traditional conservative values ("God, family, country"), the kind of values Churchill constantly invoked when he urged his countrymen to keep on fighting the Nazis, are just as noble and idealistic as anything socialism or Communism has to offer, are indeed worth dying for.

The saying had more truth in Churchill's day than it does now. It was more true in the beginning of the French Revolution. But, with each successive Reign of Terror, with each purge trial, with each Nazi-Soviet Pact, with each revelation of famines and gulags, with each 9/11/2001, it becomes less and less true all the time. The Left is progressively (to use their favorite word) becoming less and less idealistic all the time and more and more nihilistic. I have to agree with J. A. LaPonce's conclusion that, ultimately, the Left is the side of entropy.

2.3.2005 4:33pm

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Steven Malcolm Anderson (www):

I've really got to stop ragging on the evils of the Left soon, though. They lost the election, not only the Presidency but also the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. While they tend to predominate in much of the media and educational institutions, the power of religion, the most powerful force in history, is arrayed against them. My most formidable enemies are on the Right, e.g., Bork, Santorum, Coburn, etc.. Both my preferred enemies and my preferred allies are on the Right.

2.4.2005 2:42am