The Political Spectrum Is Dumb

[Ferg]

The term left wing, and right wing, and centrist is dumb. It's dumb because it's too black and white for politics which for me is very abstract. We should have the political web. The political spectrum is dumb because it puts conservatives with fascists (which conservatives are not). And it puts Marxists and Communists with Stalinists (which we are not). The political sprectrum leads to generalizing and associations which are incorrect. I think we should change it.

[razboz]

Maybe a political three dimensional continuum would eb better. where you could say hey im on the centre to forwards left middle backwards and people would be like wooow thats revolutionary."Buthen some other guy might say im on the right upwards to pink-flavoured extreme and people would say wow hes a fascist. The probelm is that more complicated systems cant work in a parlimentary democracy in which the very notion of "left" and "right" where formed. Not until we invent floating PMs. Which wont be until a while. So long as you know where you stand compared to everyone else i guess its fine.

[Ferg]

Well how about having no system at all just Conservatives, Fascists, Communists, Stalinists and they're not represented on any scale or spectrum.

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 01:13 PM
And it puts Marxists and Communists with Stalinists (which we are not).
1/3 of the world during the Cold War would beg to differ.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Communism_expansion.png/800px-Communism_expansion.png
"Oh, shit!" -1/3 of the world.

And even nowadays, I'm quite curious which tendency is dominant in the communist movement, if not Marxism-Leninism.

[razboz]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 02:11 PM
Well how about having no system at all just Conservatives, Fascists, Communists, Stalinists and they're not represented on any scale or spectrum.
So where would Anarchists go? Would it be they are assumed to be communists?

[Ferg]

No, Anarchists, are Anarchists. My point is not categorizing political beliefs.

[Sir Aunty Christ]

The best model I've come across is the political compass model where your traditional left/right is where you stand on economic matters but you also have authoritarianism/libertarianism. People who describe themselves as leftists will always be on the left but then it's a case of are you auritarian or libertarian. Anarchists will always be left libertarians whereas Stalinists wil probably be left authoritarians.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by Sir Aunty [email protected] 8 2006, 03:02 PM
The best model I've come across is the political compass model where your traditional left/right is where you stand on economic matters but you also have authoritarianism/libertarianism. People who describe themselves as leftists will always be on the left but then it's a case of are you auritarian or libertarian. Anarchists will always be left libertarians whereas Stalinists wil probably be left authoritarians.
The problem with that is defining just what left is. Is it the traditional meaning of control over the economy?

[Intelligitimate]

Originally posted by Sir Aunty [email protected] 8 2006, 03:02 PM
The best model I've come across is the political compass model where your traditional left/right is where you stand on economic matters but you also have authoritarianism/libertarianism. People who describe themselves as leftists will always be on the left but then it's a case of are you auritarian or libertarian. Anarchists will always be left libertarians whereas Stalinists wil probably be left authoritarians.
My last political compass score was :

Economic Left/Right: -9.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.18

The other "Stalinists" I have seen take the test scored even lower than me on the Social Libertarian/Authoritarian scale, so your idea is crap.

[Sir Aunty Christ]

QUOTE (Sir Aunty Christ @ Jul 8 2006, 03:02 PM)
The best model I've come across is the political compass model where your traditional left/right is where you stand on economic matters but you also have authoritarianism/libertarianism. People who describe themselves as leftists will always be on the left but then it's a case of are you auritarian or libertarian. Anarchists will always be left libertarians whereas Stalinists wil probably be left authoritarians.

The problem with that is defining just what left is. Is it the traditional meaning of control over the economy?

Well I think Ferg is coming at it from the right angle. Left v Right is too simplistic. It works for rightwingers who want to take Stalinism as the definition of communism and therefore throw that in our faces.

I feel that the political spectrum is generally used by the bourgeoisie to make sense of where ideologies lie. If the political compass were used in the mainstream it would, in the minds of conservatives, separate the strands of leftist thought and the left would not not be equated with Stalinism.

Your question, ComradeOm, is essentially "What defines the left?" For me, what defines the left is a) opposition to capitalism, b) opposition to hierarchy and authority and c) solidarity with the oppressed.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I disagree that the political spectrum sucks. In fact, I think it helps separate the good ideas from the bad. Can anyone really give an example of where the right-wing is correct and the left is wrong? I've never seen one.

[Delta]

The best representation would be an infinite-dimensional space with each dimension corresponding to the slightest variation on any issue. You would then label a certain hypervolume as "anarchist", "communist", or whatever. But this is probably too complicated <_<

But yes, I agree, "left" and "right" is not very useful.

[Ferg]

Originally posted by Dooga Aetrus [email protected] 8 2006, 05:27 PM
I disagree that the political spectrum sucks. In fact, I think it helps separate the good ideas from the bad. Can anyone really give an example of where the right-wing is correct and the left is wrong? I&#39;ve never seen one.
Nova Scotia Provincial Government - Flourishing under Progressive Conservative Rodney MacDonald (A very good man, my ex-neighbour. He does lean more on the Progressive side than the conservative side). A good example where a conservative government was not oppressive at all, and people were happy.

Ontario Provincial Government under NDP - The more socialist party of Canada that was HORRIBLE. They drove Ontario into near economic ruin. They spent all kinds of money on social programs (which was good), but didn&#39;t find a way to pay for it and drove the province into sevre debt.

Also, Stalin wasen&#39;t 100% correct in all of his policies. No, he was not.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Originally posted by Ferg+Jul 9 2006, 01:49 AM--> (Ferg @ Jul 9 2006, 01:49 AM)
Dooga Aetrus [email protected] 8 2006, 05:27 PM
I disagree that the political spectrum sucks. In fact, I think it helps separate the good ideas from the bad. Can anyone really give an example of where the right-wing is correct and the left is wrong? I&#39;ve never seen one.
Nova Scotia Provincial Government - Flourishing under Progressive Conservative Rodney MacDonald (A very good man, my ex-neighbour. He does lean more on the Progressive side than the conservative side). A good example where a conservative government was not oppressive at all, and people were happy.

Ontario Provincial Government under NDP - The more socialist party of Canada that was HORRIBLE. They drove Ontario into near economic ruin. They spent all kinds of money on social programs (which was good), but didn&#39;t find a way to pay for it and drove the province into sevre debt.

Also, Stalin wasen&#39;t 100% correct in all of his policies. No, he was not. [/b]
I should have been more specific. I was not trying to say that right-wing individuals can never implement good policies or left-wing individuals always do. I was more suggesting that the general views on certain topics are, when correct, typically leftist.

For instance, if you ask whether social program A or economic program A should be implemented, the opinion of the radical leftist is typically correct. I am also going with a x-y axis model of the political spectrum, with the libertarian left in contrast to the authoritarian right as my view of the standard left-right spectrum.

Here is a more concrete example of what I meant:

Should gay marriage be legalized (assume a yes or no answer only):

Left: Yes
Right: No

Should the rich be taxed more heavily than the poor: (again, assume a yes or no only)

Left: Yes
Right: No

[Ferg]

I agree with both your statements however, what is right to use, is wrong to them and vice-versa. While the political spectrum may work broadly, it does not work specifically.


Joe Average stumbles one day into a political science course outlining the political spectrum. He sees the right side of the spectrum and it says Conservatives and Fascists. Joe Average thinks "Conservatives and Fascists on the same side? They must both be evil." Joe Average is incorrect and here&#39;s why.

Kill Blacks, Jews, and Poles to purify the world
Fascists - Yes
Conservatives - No

In fact, Conservatives are made up of Whites, Blacks, Poles and Jews plus other types of people.

Steal from all and give to the rich
Fascists - Yes (they stole from the Jews, Poles, and Blacks and made themselves richer)
Conservatives - No (they believe that people should earn wealth through work and labour and not theft......well, the level headed ones do)

Opinion on Gay Marriage
Conservatives - No, we want to preserve marriage and believe that gays should have equal rights as straights....except this right.
Fascists - Kill them&#33;




Kill Blacks, Jews and Poles to purify the world
Communists - No, let us live in peace and prosperity
Stalinists - No, just kill everyone regardless of race

Steal from all and give to the rich
Communists - Share the wealth
Stalinists - Our 5 year plans spent all the wealth and we are poor in the short term and less poor in the long term

Opinion on Gay Marriage
Communists - Equal rights
Stalinists - Chances are they weren&#39;t being productive enough (like everyone else) and were killed so there are no gays to marry

As you can see, people on the left, don&#39;t always share the same opinion and same with the right. This is why I say the political spectrum is dumb, because it associates people together who have little in common. In fact, Stalinists and Fascists probablly have more in common than Stalinists and Communists do.

[RebelDog]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 01:13 PM
The term left wing, and right wing, and centrist is dumb. It&#39;s dumb because it&#39;s too black and white for politics which for me is very abstract. We should have the political web. The political spectrum is dumb because it puts conservatives with fascists (which conservatives are not). And it puts Marxists and Communists with Stalinists (which we are not). The political sprectrum leads to generalizing and associations which are incorrect. I think we should change it.
I disagree that it doesn&#39;t work for conservatives and fascists. Fascists are extreme conservatives on the far right. Conservative parties are full of racists who just don&#39;t like admitting it in public. Fascism preserves the stutus-quo when conservatives cannot themselves do it. Look at when Hitler was appointed chancellor. He was chancellor of a coalition government with the conservatives. The conservatives were crucial in the winning and consolidation of power for Hitler. I think in terms of our enemy we might as well put conservatives in with fascists.

[Si Pinto]

I wouldn&#39;t get too hung up about it.

Society always likes things to be in &#39;pigeon holes&#39;, whatever subject your talking about, Class, Music, Politics, Sociality etc.

It makes it easier to define things (so they think anyway).

So if I was a Hitler loving, Beethoven fan, who smokes dope and has long hair and attends festivals, I&#39;d be a Hippy-Nazi with classical leanings, or something like that.

The political spectrum is only a framework over which society tries to &#39;pigeon hole&#39; you depending on your beliefs.

You don&#39;t have to fit in, you can call yourself what you want, but you&#39;ll always be compared against this framework to see where you fit in.

I&#39;m always asked where I fit in to this framework, so I usually answer by saying &#39;far to the left of Karl Marx&#39;. ;)

[Ferg]

Originally posted by The Dissenter+Jul 9 2006, 11:13 AM--> (The Dissenter @ Jul 9 2006, 11:13 AM)
[email protected] 8 2006, 01:13 PM
The term left wing, and right wing, and centrist is dumb. It&#39;s dumb because it&#39;s too black and white for politics which for me is very abstract. We should have the political web. The political spectrum is dumb because it puts conservatives with fascists (which conservatives are not). And it puts Marxists and Communists with Stalinists (which we are not). The political sprectrum leads to generalizing and associations which are incorrect. I think we should change it.
I disagree that it doesn&#39;t work for conservatives and fascists. Fascists are extreme conservatives on the far right. Conservative parties are full of racists who just don&#39;t like admitting it in public. Fascism preserves the stutus-quo when conservatives cannot themselves do it. Look at when Hitler was appointed chancellor. He was chancellor of a coalition government with the conservatives. The conservatives were crucial in the winning and consolidation of power for Hitler. I think in terms of our enemy we might as well put conservatives in with fascists. [/b]
But conservatives aren&#39;t all racists, in fact, I know Jews, Blacks, Chinese, East Indian, and First Nations People who are part of the conservative parties here. One of my best friends, and his family are members of the conservative party here in Nova Scotia and he hangs around with a dude from Trinidad and Tobago so they are obviously not all rascists. In fact, some of them and the ones I know, hate rascists as much as we do. Most people don&#39;t understand what being conservative means. It means that they do not like moving forward in society as much and want to be traditional people. They are a group of people who want to keep things the way they are. I understand where you&#39;re comming from but some of the people here can be just as ignorant as so called rascists.

[Ferg]

Originally posted by Si [email protected] 9 2006, 12:03 PM
I wouldn&#39;t get too hung up about it.

Society always likes things to be in &#39;pigeon holes&#39;, whatever subject your talking about, Class, Music, Politics, Sociality etc.

It makes it easier to define things (so they think anyway).

So if I was a Hitler loving, Beethoven fan, who smokes dope and has long hair and attends festivals, I&#39;d be a Hippy-Nazi with classical leanings, or something like that.

The political spectrum is only a framework over which society tries to &#39;pigeon hole&#39; you depending on your beliefs.

You don&#39;t have to fit in, you can call yourself what you want, but you&#39;ll always be compared against this framework to see where you fit in.

I&#39;m always asked where I fit in to this framework, so I usually answer by saying &#39;far to the left of Karl Marx&#39;. ;)
That&#39;s true and I wasen&#39;t saying to abolish it, I was saying that it is a flawed system....which it is.

[RebelDog]

Originally posted by Ferg+Jul 9 2006, 02:16 PM--> (Ferg @ Jul 9 2006, 02:16 PM)
Originally posted by The [email protected] 9 2006, 11:13 AM

[email protected] 8 2006, 01:13 PM
The term left wing, and right wing, and centrist is dumb. It&#39;s dumb because it&#39;s too black and white for politics which for me is very abstract. We should have the political web. The political spectrum is dumb because it puts conservatives with fascists (which conservatives are not). And it puts Marxists and Communists with Stalinists (which we are not). The political sprectrum leads to generalizing and associations which are incorrect. I think we should change it.
I disagree that it doesn&#39;t work for conservatives and fascists. Fascists are extreme conservatives on the far right. Conservative parties are full of racists who just don&#39;t like admitting it in public. Fascism preserves the stutus-quo when conservatives cannot themselves do it. Look at when Hitler was appointed chancellor. He was chancellor of a coalition government with the conservatives. The conservatives were crucial in the winning and consolidation of power for Hitler. I think in terms of our enemy we might as well put conservatives in with fascists.
But conservatives aren&#39;t all racists, in fact, I know Jews, Blacks, Chinese, East Indian, and First Nations People who are part of the conservative parties here. One of my best friends, and his family are members of the conservative party here in Nova Scotia and he hangs around with a dude from Trinidad and Tobago so they are obviously not all rascists. In fact, some of them and the ones I know, hate rascists as much as we do. Most people don&#39;t understand what being conservative means. It means that they do not like moving forward in society as much and want to be traditional people. They are a group of people who want to keep things the way they are. I understand where you&#39;re comming from but some of the people here can be just as ignorant as so called rascists. [/b]
I never said all conservatives are racists. I would say that here in the UK the conservative party is full of racists and basically disagreeable people who I would not give the time of day to. But as you point out I don&#39;t understand what a conservative is and I have misjudged them and all they want is to keep things the way they are.

What they want is to keep the tiny elite that rules this planet the same and all the misery and death and murder that goes with it. I don&#39;t think conservatives deserve anything other than my complete hostility and I shall continue to give it freely.

[apathy maybe]

Originally posted by razboy+--> (razboy)The probelm is that more complicated systems cant work in a parlimentary democracy in which the very notion of "left" and "right" where formed.[/b]Who gives a shit? Who wants a parlimentary "democracy" anyway?


Originally posted by Ferg+--> (Ferg) Well how about having no system at all just Conservatives, Fascists, Communists, Stalinists and they&#39;re not represented on any scale or spectrum.[/b]Interesting idea, but Conservativism is not really an ideology. It is more a way of thinking, thus it changes depending on the time and place. Besides you can have Green Fascists and Green Communists and non-Green for each as well. You start getting too many labels.


Originally posted by Sir Aunty Christ
The best model I&#39;ve come across is the political compass model where your traditional left/right is where you stand on economic matters but you also have authoritarianism/libertarianism. People who describe themselves as leftists will always be on the left but then it&#39;s a case of are you auritarian or libertarian. Anarchists will always be left libertarians whereas Stalinists wil probably be left authoritarians.The Political Compass model is also too simple. As above it doesn&#39;t address where a person sits regarding environmental issues or issues regarding other "non-politcal" things. Besides the actual test is crap and flawed and doesn&#39;t tell me where I sit in relation to other people. I&#39;ve seen people with near -10 -10 and I disagree with them on lots of things.


Dooga Aetrus [email protected]
I disagree that the political spectrum sucks. In fact, I think it helps separate the good ideas from the bad. Can anyone really give an example of where the right-wing is correct and the left is wrong? I&#39;ve never seen one.The original Liberals were all for freedom and liberty. Sure they had a incorrect conception of the ideas (that they were somehow natural and that a state was needed to protect the rights), but at least they wanted them.


Delta
The best representation would be an infinite-dimensional space with each dimension corresponding to the slightest variation on any issue. You would then label a certain hypervolume as "anarchist", "communist", or whatever. But this is probably too complicated dry.gifI agree&#33; This would be ideal, but too complicated. So the next best is to have many finite dimensions.

[Neo Bolshevik]

The political compass is a farce, conjured by right wing libertarian idiots who have no grip on reality.

I&#39;m not convinced there is a specific &#39;spectrum&#39; for political ideologies. I&#39;m wondering where one would put, say, Michel Foucault, various Anarcho-communitarians, or hardcore anarcho-nihilists like Max Stirner, on a scale from left to right.

The so-called political spectrum is simply a weapon wielded by the system to congeal its various resisting forces into one coherant glob it can compromise with on various non-essential levels, such as racism and feminism (feminism, arguably, is a leftist position - however, feminism also drives women into the labour market, and then turns them into consumers-producers which works quite nicely for the bourgeois - same goes for anti-racism).

[hoopla]

Wasn&#39;t the political compass invented by some kind of Anarchist. Could be wrong.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by Sir Aunty [email protected] 8 2006, 10:02 AM
The best model I&#39;ve come across is the political compass model where your traditional left/right is where you stand on economic matters but you also have authoritarianism/libertarianism. People who describe themselves as leftists will always be on the left but then it&#39;s a case of are you auritarian or libertarian. Anarchists will always be left libertarians whereas Stalinists wil probably be left authoritarians.
that&#39;s a really bad model
i&#39;ve seen Stalinists get the same score as anarchists
that test also doesn&#39;t take into account revolutionary politics and the fact that we envision a society totally different from the one in which we presently reside

if you wanna define political currents, just say "so-and-so is a black-supremacist anarchist; so-and-so follows Juche and is a bisexual activist technocrat; so-and-so is a third-wave feminist neo-nazi"

spectrums are useless

[LSD]

1/3 of the world during the Cold War would beg to differ.

:lol:

And how many people would that be now?

Which would be your "Marxist-Leninist" flag-state these days? China? Vietnam? North Korea? :lol:

"Marxism-Leninism" may have dominated the communist movement for most of the twentieth century, but there are very specific, very historical reasons, for that ...and most of those reasons are no longer relevent.

Ultimately, it&#39;s an unfortunate historical accident that Lenin&#39;s "theories" (or, even more commonly, misinterprations and corruptions of Lenin&#39;s "theories") came to represent "communism" in the eyes of most of the world. But it&#39;s an undeniably powerful accident.

Thankfully, with the fall of Stalinism in all but a few remote regions (and, no, I&#39;m not including China anymore; it hasn&#39;t been "Maoist" since 1976), that cannot help but change.

The libertarian and "ultra-left" branches of communist thought, the council communists, the Spartikans, the anarchosyndicalists, the true radical revolutionaries who were for so long oppressed by "red" bureaucratic tyrants -- they&#39;re coming back into the forefront.

Leninism has had its time, but that time peaked seventy years ago; frankly it&#39;s time to let all those dead Russians stay dead so the rest of us can get on with the business of modern revolution.

There are lessons to be learned from revolutions of the past, especially those which ultimately ended in failure, but those lessons must be viewed from a modern theoretical perspective.

What Lenin did still matters today, but what he wrote mostly doesn&#39;t.