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 idea of a “libertarian - authoritarian” spectrum is already false,
?
Like, etymologically?
As in liberty’s granted by those in power, and authority of the individual?
I’m guessing that’s not what you mean though, given the rest of what you’ve said.
what’s important is the class character of a society. Ie, are the working classes in control? Or are capitalists in control?
Glad we have you here to dictate what’s important.
You get that I’m not proposing replacing one singular scale with another though, right? It does not serve us and our comprehension of this stuff to reduce to one linear measure, be that solely an economic left/right scale, nor solely a liberty/authority scale (nor worse, reducing these to 1-big binary). It serves us better to see both. We’d not be able to do such, as you’ve just done, depicting marxist-leninist contrast to anarcho-communist, if we did not have both axes. So… what are we arguing about here? Are we just saying the same thing differently? I’m not sure what you’re attempting to throw out, with regards to the political compass. It’s simply one means of measuring this stuff, offering yet more subtle nuance. Where it falls short of this, is not helped by throwing it out, but by improving it (at least, potentially ~ I’ve seen some tragic failures of adding a 3rd dimension to it, poorly conceived, corrupted worse by the biases of whoever created it).
Are the working class totalitarianised, and have a council who are “more equal than others”?
Are the capitalists mere marketeers and not really reducing people to mere “capita”?
See? Even these qualifiers and terms are lacking in specificity that avoids conflations beyond how they may first be interpreted.
I’m no fan of either big brother, nor big baron.
Also, ~ though this may be drifting a mite off topic here ~ we’ll never achieve a true emancipation so long as we peg our political power to our labour… our enslavement. Bit of a “work makes you free”. Coercing corruption of the working class into complicity in maintaining the wealth extracting rents on all, with their wealth dependent upon the capitalists, (or the worker collective, if ridding any such egregious iniquitous capitalist ruler/owner).
I’ve seen some attempts to put small boxes all over the political compass, with the various names of political philosophies, and never seen it done where there’s not awkward misfits (perhaps most especially along the bottom, with all the anarchists ~ like where I saw one place “anarcho-monarchism” around -3,-10). It does not work like that. Admirable as it is to attempt such. But because the political compass lacks depth, this will always be a misfit. As is any map, compared to the terrain, as it’s not a 1 for 1 comparison, and merely an attempt to usefully help navigate the terrain.
Like I say… what the political compass needs, is more, to overcome these shortcomings. Not reduced to less. Lets not throw the map baby out with the not-terrain bathwater, in favour of an even worse map even more prone to orwellian contortions.
Endlessly, we see “left” and “right” used to hoodwink those wanting freedom, into allying themselves with their authoritarian counterparts, with the half-truth (or, quarter truth) fearmongering that the other “side” are the authoritarian ones trying to take your power and freedom away.
This can just as easily be done with the other axes, to whatever absolute economic dogma side’s currently most eager to so use such a manipulative ploy. Though more readily, it falls to using left and right to divide people into opposing (even, opposaming) groupthinks, with one one side eagerly getting back one freedom loudly, at the expense of two on the other side, and vice versa, sending us tacking ever towards totalitarian tyranny. At least while we keep falling for it.
And where the libertarian right have a mechanistic drift to authoritarianism, to monopoly, where money is power, and it takes money to “make” moneny, the consolidation of wealth (and therefor power) is inevitable, the libertarian left have a more wishy-washy slip of philosophy to look out for, too easily primed for it, in fear of big baron, feeling like they need big brother to fight big baron.
Whereas, if the libertarian left, and libertarian right (at least the middle diagonal halves of each), were to, instead of allying themselves with their authoritarian counterparts, ally with each other, for freedom, then there may be a more robust freedom for each and all, not merely a liberty at the expense of however much the central authority decrees is acceptable. ~ Which is an idea that seems to trouble the established authorities sufficient to keep peddling the misnomer that malarchy is “anarchy”, and committing all kinds of false flags to problem-reaction-solution us back into clamouring for big brother, big baron, big bully, big blight, big bot, big bank, whichever big b, to save them, even though that’s going right back into the arms of those who were already keeping the people down, and committing the false flag crimes pretending to be the unruly people that people cannot trust. And that’s just for one example of many, where the orwellian contortions gain easier traction, when people do not have a political compass.
So again, I’m VERY keen, to hear what the better proposal is, so I can comprehend it without it seeming like a regression into worse reductivism and worse susceptability to having the Orwellian wool pulled over our eyes.
(watches video…
… gives itself away to have pre-decided, in its tone, from the start, rather than an impartial critique and exploration. It’s also misrepresenting it considerably. E.g.
depicting it as just 4 quadrants (rather than two intersecting scales both from -10 to 10), it is not that reductive… like your score does not come out as just which quadrant your answers put you in.
argues with tone against the political compasses decried folly of depicting left as government driven and right as market driven (… how much “government” is there at -10,-10? … how much government is there at 10,10), asserting, again, with scoffing smug tone, that the two axes are not better than one…
OMFG, this is an hour and a half long… This is already painful in the first 3 minutes.
She admits she’s biassed, but refuses to reveal her bias. … C’mon. There are FAR better critiques of the political compass out there than this. Sorry. Not going to put up with this. So many philosophical/epistemological blunders in this.
I’d probably agree with a significant amount of the critiques in this, but it’s too sickening to put up with. [Eesh… as it continues to play in the background as I type, the way she questions the statements so far, misses the point, and misses better critique and analysis of the statements, especially as to which directions they are weighed and interpreted ~ like I say… there are better critiques out there. (and again, not corroborating the idea of throwing it out in favour to leave us without a compass, rather than to improve the compass. ~ And, enjoyable irony, that she has an emotional argument against the emotional content rather than (for want of a better word) rational.]
great video
no.
Very sub-par, by my estimate.
(Ee-gads! She really needs a political compass too… making silly faux-pas, succumbing to government/corporate/cultural deceptions as if they’re reality, and the test needs to be corrected to that view. So painful. Jeez. … Ow my head… the biases asserted, decreeing what should be, while not acknowledging it as bias… naive realism… groupthink prone… cant get there from here. Ow. I’m guessing she made the intro (where she admits to secret biases) after the rest, to cover her ass for doing just the same thing lamented against. Not just hypocrisy, but narcissism detected. Guess this is all reflex from narcissistic injury. Lots of camouflage (ironically mirroring her face) and attack in place of introspection and consideration. Exhausting weak arguments, that I could do better than. And this is the means by which she’s (and you’re(?)) going to try throw the baby out with the bathwater??? … To advocate the magical words that we magically all understand the same and that would never be subject to Orwellian abuse into newspeak… ? I’m gonna need a stronger argument for that, and a stronger (or any) refutation of what I’ve said. ~ and without false dichotomy, strawman, equivocation, argumentum populum, appeal to authority, oversimplifiction, false analogy, circular reasoning and non-sequitur fallacies (and whatever more that slipped by my attention. Like I say… epistemological blunders. But I guess that’d be compelling, and even seem great, to those not actively seeking sound (not just valid) arguments to find the truth. Exhausting, says appeal-to-complexity me, hah!)
)
~ So, like I say… what’s better? (I recently explored a page with about 8 different alternatives on it, to varying wealth of insight ~ alas, lost that link ~ so there is ample room .
That’s the real quest.
Clearly, what’s better, is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And we cant get there from hypocritical lambasting of biases while having your own which you wont challenge nor show.
So, the quest continues. The search for better maps. Not succumbing to dancing reductive conflationary Orwellianised labels (and the groupthinks they inspire) as if we’re in la-la land beyond Wittgenstein’s warning.
Remember when I ended my initial reference to the political compass here with “for a start”?
*nods*. That.
Lets not run backwards from that.
Also, the venn diagram in the original post here, falls foul of much of what I’m railing against here. Orwellian conflations, leading to nonsensical conflations and cognitively dissonant implausibilities.
This ramble doesn’t really say anything. You meander around, and then fail to give any examples of how revolutionary th0t misses the point. You also keep going on and on about “big brother,” etc. The entire “libertarian/authoritarian” spectrum is false, as a worker run state has been enormously emancipatory historically.
My answer is simple, abandon the awful false spectra of the political compass in favor of direct comparison.
Surprising. Arguing tone (perhaps even ad-hominem fallacy), with a strawman, missing the multiple points made (to both what you wrote, and the video) evasively and dismissively saying the “ramble” doesn’t really say anything, then offer mere restatement (in the same false dichotomy oversimplification fallacy) without tackling any of the counterarguments, again walking straight back into falling foul of what was pointed out, without further reasoning nor counterargument, just circular reasoning. Ironically (apparently) not realising the assertion about the worker run state is itself an appeal to authority fallacy. The admitted simple answer (an oversimplification fallacy btw), using unqualified weasel words, misusing spectra again, offering vague “direct comparison”, merely arrogantly asserts a stubborn restatement without entertaining the critiques nor offering any reasoning at all, let alone valid, and of course even further from any sound reasoning. This density of cognitive dissonance, selective examples and perceptions, fallacies galore, and the reasserting the one true way, has more than a strong smell of a totalitarianised psyche [“When someone dismisses nuance, repeats false dichotomies, and appeals to authority without evidence, it mirrors the rhetorical tactics of totalitarian regimes. That’s not a personal attack—it’s a warning sign we should all be wary of”]. So, I’ve low expectations forming (like next will be moved goalposts, and whataboutism, more overt ad-hominem attacks, and so on, to defend dogma)… but, if you can catch all that in introspective reflection, and tend to the substance, and provide reasoning (rather than restatement of conclusion) I’m genuinely curious, perhaps most especially how do you reconcile the historical examples of the ideological slip from emancipatory(/libertarian) political philosophies / revolutions, into authoritarianism of worker-run states with your claim that they’re ‘emancipatory’? … Is it like an economist hyperfocus/blinkered stubbornly persistent unchallenged dogma in ongoing denial of the freedom dimension**?** Or some other measure (perhaps even one that’s so obvious to you it’s hard to put words to, or even that you’re oblivious to, like the fish oblivious to water)? So like, Kropotkin’s just the same as Mao, in your view**?** Or for an example on the other side, Ayn Rand’s just the same as Pinnochaet**?** Wondering how far this reassertion of dogma may go, or if considerate scrutiny, or clarification of nuances poorly expressed so far, can interrupt it.
Looking forward to hearing your reasoning. Sorry I’m not better at coaxing it from you.
The direct answer is that socialist states throughout history have implemented strong democratizations of society and created impressive systems to take care of the needs of the people. Things like “authoritarianism,” when divorced from class analysis, mean nothing at all beyond that a state exists and enforces the will of the class in power. In socialist states, though, that class is the working classes, and as such wield authority in the interests of bringing immense liberty and emancipation to the broad majority of society.
Still strawman redherring arguments [… who are you telling about this divorce from class analysis? and why? ~ some misinterpretation, imagining I (/and/or the political compass) say that?] that are mere restatements ignoring in denial without reason, further looking like groupthink dogma, mass formation, totalitarian propaganda…
Your purple prose is superfluous and annoying.
My what? Sorry, I don’t comprehend what you mean there. What’s my “purple prose”? … Just more arguing tone? Take a look at Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement, and see if you can offer anything at or above counter argument.
Speaking of superfluous and annoying… You keep on seeming to attempt to offer arguments against not what I’ve said, stuff I’d not say nor agree with, as if you don’t understand what I’ve said nor what the substance here is, like you’re snagged on a false dichotomy here (which would fit with the crux of your argument). Fallacies and restatement in place of reason. Also not answering any of my questions. This is not a discussion. See how lopsided this is? You just restating your position over and over. I’m not sure if you’re aware you’re doing that. Restatement of a conclusion is not offering reason, let alone steelmaning and exploring other possibilities with an open mind.
There is one thing you’re verging on answering though, albeit apparently unwittingly, that, yes, it appears your contention with liberty and authority is (/may be) near as much as I first proposed, which you neither confirmed nor denied after I proposed it, that it’s the etymology at play, and that the wording is fumblesome as popularly deployed. Ironic, given my mentions of Orwell and Wittgenstein. Also, (if I’ve understood what you’ve been saying) you seem to be rather contradicting yourself, needing to use the words authority and liberty to explain what you mean, even though having fearquoted “authoritarianism” just prior in the same breath… … and so, can you explain to me again [without false dichotomy fallacy, nor strawman fallacy] how this is bunk, and the political compass is more reductive and bunk, even though (despite its shortcomings) it still has over a thousand times more fidelity? I wonder… did you not really ever explore the political compass, and just watched that video emotively critiquing it with a strawman that misses the point that it’s not just 4 quadrants only?
Still bending over backwards here trying to give you ample grace to explain, and trying to invite you to explore the ideas…
And, again, sorry if my low verbal aptitude and communication try-hard style is failing and only pushing you into doubling down on dogma, rather than inviting you to explore the ideas
I just re-read a post on diaspora that in one part said:
We are told “hate” is bad, but when the government do it, its fine.
#we are living in a horror movie as the workers are complicit in murder
People of the government and the workers are evil
which while can be described as an absolutist over-statement in itself, the other way, it does at least highlight the folly and fallacy of your own erroneous criteria, where it’s as if merely the workers are infallably virtuous, beyond succumbing to complicity, or beyond becoming the ruling class distinct from those they rule over, like power cannot corrupt the workers, like hierarchical power structures with such distinctions of roles are still workers ruling same as the workers ruled… Rather reminds me of the Labour Party conference, where one can play a drinking game to stay sober, taking a drink every time you see someone working class there, towit when mentioned prior someone (I think maybe on Lemmy here) suggested one MP (Angela Rayner ~ that took longer to remember/find than I want to admit), who, when I looked at her stats, is worth (iirc) over 5 million, gets near about 200 thousand a year, plus expenses, plus unknown other bribes and kickbacks… And it’s like, wouldn’t that be nice if all “working class” had such access to resources and power. Strikingly Orwellian to even call “representative democracy” democracy at all. Seems a problem worsened by denying the freedom axis, as if economics alone confers freedom that we need not be concerned about it, much as Marx did, when he did not heed Bakunin’s warnings and advice, drifting from the fuller political philosophy of his youth, to the more blinkered economics dogma, that handed over his work (and the word communism, (originally coined by anarchists, btw)) to the tankie cascade through trotsky, lenin, stalin… which not only regressed, obviously, on the freedom dimension, but also economically, half way back to the middle. Which when snug along the top line of the political compass, means half way to Hitler. Revolutionary ferver alone, in ignorance of this, screams loud to me as this most dire folly. So, please, tell me again~ er, for the first time, rather, why this dimension does not matter, and how the political compass is more reductive than what you’re offering, even though it looks as though you’ve a naive-realist conflation of the map for the terrain where a few labels are taken as offering more fidelity than the four million points of the political compass. why and how?
And yes, it’s 4 million. Not 4. (2 dimensions, -10.00 to 10,00 = 4,000,000).
And I’d like it to be 8,000,000,000 with a 3rd dimension! Do you think we can come up with enough labels for that? XD
… ps,
Also, in the comments on that post (part of one of my comments),
It’s a comforting blanket to imagine if the workers were “in control”, such would not have happened, and would not be happening, and worse would not be happening.
When I say your comments are filled with purple prose but are superfluous, I mean the language is flowery and elaborate, lengthy and complex, but devoid of any substance. It’s linguistic gymnastics and theatrics to dodge making an actual point.
My point was quite clear: when you don’t analyze authority’s relationship to class, you miss the nature of authority. There’s no such thing as an “authoritarian/libertarian” scale, because an increase in state power can also coincide with an increase in liberty for the broad majority of society if said state power is directed in the interests of the working class. This is true in existing and historical socialist states. Your tirade against existing socialism and against Marx is also done in flowery terms, but without any point.
You keep repeating the phrasemongering of British fed, antisemite, and rapist Eric Blair, as though “Orwellian” terms are scientific and not literary tools used by the CIA to push anti-communist agendas. Same with other idealist (ie, non-materialist) notions of “power corrupting,” like a spectral force haunting the planet made real. These are all devoid of materialist analysis, yet you hold them to be equal.
The Political Compass represents a false spectrum, as authority and liberty are not counterposed and are in reality most contingent on class character. Further, left and right are not really binaries or spectrums, trying to claim something is “more left” or “more right” more often than not requires redefining what left and right mean each time. Anarchism is no more left than Marxism-Leninism, they each answer the questions posed by capitalist society in a different way but are no more or less “left” than each other.
Adding more dimensions doesn’t fix anything because the chart itself is based on 2 false spectra, one that doesn’t actually counterpose the other, the other that’s based more on vibes when forced into a graph rather than a simple question of affirming socialism or capitalism.
I flipped out at 45 minutes into the vid… had to stop it… the hypocriticality and non-sequitors just got too much for my poor autistic INTP brain to take any more of. Holy fuuuuuuu~
Gonna need some time away from computer to restore homeostasis. Wow was that bad. If she were in my presence, in sharing a conversation on critiquing the political compass, I’d feel compelled to assert “Stay off my side!”. XD Ilithiophobia triggered.
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.
?
Like, etymologically?
As in liberty’s granted by those in power, and authority of the individual?
I’m guessing that’s not what you mean though, given the rest of what you’ve said.
Glad we have you here to dictate what’s important.
You get that I’m not proposing replacing one singular scale with another though, right? It does not serve us and our comprehension of this stuff to reduce to one linear measure, be that solely an economic left/right scale, nor solely a liberty/authority scale (nor worse, reducing these to 1-big binary). It serves us better to see both. We’d not be able to do such, as you’ve just done, depicting marxist-leninist contrast to anarcho-communist, if we did not have both axes. So… what are we arguing about here? Are we just saying the same thing differently? I’m not sure what you’re attempting to throw out, with regards to the political compass. It’s simply one means of measuring this stuff, offering yet more subtle nuance. Where it falls short of this, is not helped by throwing it out, but by improving it (at least, potentially ~ I’ve seen some tragic failures of adding a 3rd dimension to it, poorly conceived, corrupted worse by the biases of whoever created it).
Are the working class totalitarianised, and have a council who are “more equal than others”?
Are the capitalists mere marketeers and not really reducing people to mere “capita”?
See? Even these qualifiers and terms are lacking in specificity that avoids conflations beyond how they may first be interpreted.
I’m no fan of either big brother, nor big baron.
Also, ~ though this may be drifting a mite off topic here ~ we’ll never achieve a true emancipation so long as we peg our political power to our labour… our enslavement. Bit of a “work makes you free”. Coercing corruption of the working class into complicity in maintaining the wealth extracting rents on all, with their wealth dependent upon the capitalists, (or the worker collective, if ridding any such egregious iniquitous capitalist ruler/owner).
I’ve seen some attempts to put small boxes all over the political compass, with the various names of political philosophies, and never seen it done where there’s not awkward misfits (perhaps most especially along the bottom, with all the anarchists ~ like where I saw one place “anarcho-monarchism” around -3,-10). It does not work like that. Admirable as it is to attempt such. But because the political compass lacks depth, this will always be a misfit. As is any map, compared to the terrain, as it’s not a 1 for 1 comparison, and merely an attempt to usefully help navigate the terrain.
Like I say… what the political compass needs, is more, to overcome these shortcomings. Not reduced to less. Lets not throw the map baby out with the not-terrain bathwater, in favour of an even worse map even more prone to orwellian contortions.
Endlessly, we see “left” and “right” used to hoodwink those wanting freedom, into allying themselves with their authoritarian counterparts, with the half-truth (or, quarter truth) fearmongering that the other “side” are the authoritarian ones trying to take your power and freedom away.
This can just as easily be done with the other axes, to whatever absolute economic dogma side’s currently most eager to so use such a manipulative ploy. Though more readily, it falls to using left and right to divide people into opposing (even, opposaming) groupthinks, with one one side eagerly getting back one freedom loudly, at the expense of two on the other side, and vice versa, sending us tacking ever towards totalitarian tyranny. At least while we keep falling for it.
And where the libertarian right have a mechanistic drift to authoritarianism, to monopoly, where money is power, and it takes money to “make” moneny, the consolidation of wealth (and therefor power) is inevitable, the libertarian left have a more wishy-washy slip of philosophy to look out for, too easily primed for it, in fear of big baron, feeling like they need big brother to fight big baron.
Whereas, if the libertarian left, and libertarian right (at least the middle diagonal halves of each), were to, instead of allying themselves with their authoritarian counterparts, ally with each other, for freedom, then there may be a more robust freedom for each and all, not merely a liberty at the expense of however much the central authority decrees is acceptable. ~ Which is an idea that seems to trouble the established authorities sufficient to keep peddling the misnomer that malarchy is “anarchy”, and committing all kinds of false flags to problem-reaction-solution us back into clamouring for big brother, big baron, big bully, big blight, big bot, big bank, whichever big b, to save them, even though that’s going right back into the arms of those who were already keeping the people down, and committing the false flag crimes pretending to be the unruly people that people cannot trust. And that’s just for one example of many, where the orwellian contortions gain easier traction, when people do not have a political compass.
So again, I’m VERY keen, to hear what the better proposal is, so I can comprehend it without it seeming like a regression into worse reductivism and worse susceptability to having the Orwellian wool pulled over our eyes.
(watches video… … gives itself away to have pre-decided, in its tone, from the start, rather than an impartial critique and exploration. It’s also misrepresenting it considerably. E.g.
OMFG, this is an hour and a half long… This is already painful in the first 3 minutes.
She admits she’s biassed, but refuses to reveal her bias. … C’mon. There are FAR better critiques of the political compass out there than this. Sorry. Not going to put up with this. So many philosophical/epistemological blunders in this.
I’d probably agree with a significant amount of the critiques in this, but it’s too sickening to put up with. [Eesh… as it continues to play in the background as I type, the way she questions the statements so far, misses the point, and misses better critique and analysis of the statements, especially as to which directions they are weighed and interpreted ~ like I say… there are better critiques out there. (and again, not corroborating the idea of throwing it out in favour to leave us without a compass, rather than to improve the compass. ~ And, enjoyable irony, that she has an emotional argument against the emotional content rather than (for want of a better word) rational.]
no.
Very sub-par, by my estimate.
(Ee-gads! She really needs a political compass too… making silly faux-pas, succumbing to government/corporate/cultural deceptions as if they’re reality, and the test needs to be corrected to that view. So painful. Jeez. … Ow my head… the biases asserted, decreeing what should be, while not acknowledging it as bias… naive realism… groupthink prone… cant get there from here. Ow. I’m guessing she made the intro (where she admits to secret biases) after the rest, to cover her ass for doing just the same thing lamented against. Not just hypocrisy, but narcissism detected. Guess this is all reflex from narcissistic injury. Lots of camouflage (ironically mirroring her face) and attack in place of introspection and consideration. Exhausting weak arguments, that I could do better than. And this is the means by which she’s (and you’re(?)) going to try throw the baby out with the bathwater??? … To advocate the magical words that we magically all understand the same and that would never be subject to Orwellian abuse into newspeak… ? I’m gonna need a stronger argument for that, and a stronger (or any) refutation of what I’ve said. ~ and without false dichotomy, strawman, equivocation, argumentum populum, appeal to authority, oversimplifiction, false analogy, circular reasoning and non-sequitur fallacies (and whatever more that slipped by my attention. Like I say… epistemological blunders. But I guess that’d be compelling, and even seem great, to those not actively seeking sound (not just valid) arguments to find the truth. Exhausting, says appeal-to-complexity me, hah!) )
~ So, like I say… what’s better? (I recently explored a page with about 8 different alternatives on it, to varying wealth of insight ~ alas, lost that link ~ so there is ample room .
That’s the real quest.
Clearly, what’s better, is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And we cant get there from hypocritical lambasting of biases while having your own which you wont challenge nor show.
So, the quest continues. The search for better maps. Not succumbing to dancing reductive conflationary Orwellianised labels (and the groupthinks they inspire) as if we’re in la-la land beyond Wittgenstein’s warning.
Remember when I ended my initial reference to the political compass here with “for a start”?
*nods*. That.
Lets not run backwards from that.
Also, the venn diagram in the original post here, falls foul of much of what I’m railing against here. Orwellian conflations, leading to nonsensical conflations and cognitively dissonant implausibilities.
Better maps still needed. :)
This ramble doesn’t really say anything. You meander around, and then fail to give any examples of how revolutionary th0t misses the point. You also keep going on and on about “big brother,” etc. The entire “libertarian/authoritarian” spectrum is false, as a worker run state has been enormously emancipatory historically.
My answer is simple, abandon the awful false spectra of the political compass in favor of direct comparison.
Surprising. Arguing tone (perhaps even ad-hominem fallacy), with a strawman, missing the multiple points made (to both what you wrote, and the video) evasively and dismissively saying the “ramble” doesn’t really say anything, then offer mere restatement (in the same false dichotomy oversimplification fallacy) without tackling any of the counterarguments, again walking straight back into falling foul of what was pointed out, without further reasoning nor counterargument, just circular reasoning. Ironically (apparently) not realising the assertion about the worker run state is itself an appeal to authority fallacy. The admitted simple answer (an oversimplification fallacy btw), using unqualified weasel words, misusing spectra again, offering vague “direct comparison”, merely arrogantly asserts a stubborn restatement without entertaining the critiques nor offering any reasoning at all, let alone valid, and of course even further from any sound reasoning. This density of cognitive dissonance, selective examples and perceptions, fallacies galore, and the reasserting the one true way, has more than a strong smell of a totalitarianised psyche [“When someone dismisses nuance, repeats false dichotomies, and appeals to authority without evidence, it mirrors the rhetorical tactics of totalitarian regimes. That’s not a personal attack—it’s a warning sign we should all be wary of”]. So, I’ve low expectations forming (like next will be moved goalposts, and whataboutism, more overt ad-hominem attacks, and so on, to defend dogma)… but, if you can catch all that in introspective reflection, and tend to the substance, and provide reasoning (rather than restatement of conclusion) I’m genuinely curious, perhaps most especially how do you reconcile the historical examples of the ideological slip from emancipatory(/libertarian) political philosophies / revolutions, into authoritarianism of worker-run states with your claim that they’re ‘emancipatory’? … Is it like an economist hyperfocus/blinkered stubbornly persistent unchallenged dogma in ongoing denial of the freedom dimension**?** Or some other measure (perhaps even one that’s so obvious to you it’s hard to put words to, or even that you’re oblivious to, like the fish oblivious to water)? So like, Kropotkin’s just the same as Mao, in your view**?** Or for an example on the other side, Ayn Rand’s just the same as Pinnochaet**?** Wondering how far this reassertion of dogma may go, or if considerate scrutiny, or clarification of nuances poorly expressed so far, can interrupt it.
Looking forward to hearing your reasoning. Sorry I’m not better at coaxing it from you.
The direct answer is that socialist states throughout history have implemented strong democratizations of society and created impressive systems to take care of the needs of the people. Things like “authoritarianism,” when divorced from class analysis, mean nothing at all beyond that a state exists and enforces the will of the class in power. In socialist states, though, that class is the working classes, and as such wield authority in the interests of bringing immense liberty and emancipation to the broad majority of society.
Your purple prose is superfluous and annoying.
Still strawman redherring arguments [… who are you telling about this divorce from class analysis? and why? ~ some misinterpretation, imagining I (/and/or the political compass) say that?] that are mere restatements ignoring in denial without reason, further looking like groupthink dogma, mass formation, totalitarian propaganda…
My what? Sorry, I don’t comprehend what you mean there. What’s my “purple prose”? … Just more arguing tone? Take a look at Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement, and see if you can offer anything at or above counter argument.
Speaking of superfluous and annoying… You keep on seeming to attempt to offer arguments against not what I’ve said, stuff I’d not say nor agree with, as if you don’t understand what I’ve said nor what the substance here is, like you’re snagged on a false dichotomy here (which would fit with the crux of your argument). Fallacies and restatement in place of reason. Also not answering any of my questions. This is not a discussion. See how lopsided this is? You just restating your position over and over. I’m not sure if you’re aware you’re doing that. Restatement of a conclusion is not offering reason, let alone steelmaning and exploring other possibilities with an open mind.
There is one thing you’re verging on answering though, albeit apparently unwittingly, that, yes, it appears your contention with liberty and authority is (/may be) near as much as I first proposed, which you neither confirmed nor denied after I proposed it, that it’s the etymology at play, and that the wording is fumblesome as popularly deployed. Ironic, given my mentions of Orwell and Wittgenstein. Also, (if I’ve understood what you’ve been saying) you seem to be rather contradicting yourself, needing to use the words authority and liberty to explain what you mean, even though having fearquoted “authoritarianism” just prior in the same breath… … and so, can you explain to me again [without false dichotomy fallacy, nor strawman fallacy] how this is bunk, and the political compass is more reductive and bunk, even though (despite its shortcomings) it still has over a thousand times more fidelity? I wonder… did you not really ever explore the political compass, and just watched that video emotively critiquing it with a strawman that misses the point that it’s not just 4 quadrants only?
Still bending over backwards here trying to give you ample grace to explain, and trying to invite you to explore the ideas…
And, again, sorry if my low verbal aptitude and communication try-hard style is failing and only pushing you into doubling down on dogma, rather than inviting you to explore the ideas
I just re-read a post on diaspora that in one part said:
which while can be described as an absolutist over-statement in itself, the other way, it does at least highlight the folly and fallacy of your own erroneous criteria, where it’s as if merely the workers are infallably virtuous, beyond succumbing to complicity, or beyond becoming the ruling class distinct from those they rule over, like power cannot corrupt the workers, like hierarchical power structures with such distinctions of roles are still workers ruling same as the workers ruled… Rather reminds me of the Labour Party conference, where one can play a drinking game to stay sober, taking a drink every time you see someone working class there, towit when mentioned prior someone (I think maybe on Lemmy here) suggested one MP (Angela Rayner ~ that took longer to remember/find than I want to admit), who, when I looked at her stats, is worth (iirc) over 5 million, gets near about 200 thousand a year, plus expenses, plus unknown other bribes and kickbacks… And it’s like, wouldn’t that be nice if all “working class” had such access to resources and power. Strikingly Orwellian to even call “representative democracy” democracy at all. Seems a problem worsened by denying the freedom axis, as if economics alone confers freedom that we need not be concerned about it, much as Marx did, when he did not heed Bakunin’s warnings and advice, drifting from the fuller political philosophy of his youth, to the more blinkered economics dogma, that handed over his work (and the word communism, (originally coined by anarchists, btw)) to the tankie cascade through trotsky, lenin, stalin… which not only regressed, obviously, on the freedom dimension, but also economically, half way back to the middle. Which when snug along the top line of the political compass, means half way to Hitler. Revolutionary ferver alone, in ignorance of this, screams loud to me as this most dire folly. So, please, tell me again~ er, for the first time, rather, why this dimension does not matter, and how the political compass is more reductive than what you’re offering, even though it looks as though you’ve a naive-realist conflation of the map for the terrain where a few labels are taken as offering more fidelity than the four million points of the political compass. why and how?
And yes, it’s 4 million. Not 4. (2 dimensions, -10.00 to 10,00 = 4,000,000).
And I’d like it to be 8,000,000,000 with a 3rd dimension! Do you think we can come up with enough labels for that? XD
… ps,
Also, in the comments on that post (part of one of my comments),
It’s a comforting blanket to imagine if the workers were “in control”, such would not have happened, and would not be happening, and worse would not be happening.
When I say your comments are filled with purple prose but are superfluous, I mean the language is flowery and elaborate, lengthy and complex, but devoid of any substance. It’s linguistic gymnastics and theatrics to dodge making an actual point.
My point was quite clear: when you don’t analyze authority’s relationship to class, you miss the nature of authority. There’s no such thing as an “authoritarian/libertarian” scale, because an increase in state power can also coincide with an increase in liberty for the broad majority of society if said state power is directed in the interests of the working class. This is true in existing and historical socialist states. Your tirade against existing socialism and against Marx is also done in flowery terms, but without any point.
You keep repeating the phrasemongering of British fed, antisemite, and rapist Eric Blair, as though “Orwellian” terms are scientific and not literary tools used by the CIA to push anti-communist agendas. Same with other idealist (ie, non-materialist) notions of “power corrupting,” like a spectral force haunting the planet made real. These are all devoid of materialist analysis, yet you hold them to be equal.
The Political Compass represents a false spectrum, as authority and liberty are not counterposed and are in reality most contingent on class character. Further, left and right are not really binaries or spectrums, trying to claim something is “more left” or “more right” more often than not requires redefining what left and right mean each time. Anarchism is no more left than Marxism-Leninism, they each answer the questions posed by capitalist society in a different way but are no more or less “left” than each other.
Adding more dimensions doesn’t fix anything because the chart itself is based on 2 false spectra, one that doesn’t actually counterpose the other, the other that’s based more on vibes when forced into a graph rather than a simple question of affirming socialism or capitalism.
I flipped out at 45 minutes into the vid… had to stop it… the hypocriticality and non-sequitors just got too much for my poor autistic INTP brain to take any more of. Holy fuuuuuuu~
Gonna need some time away from computer to restore homeostasis. Wow was that bad. If she were in my presence, in sharing a conversation on critiquing the political compass, I’d feel compelled to assert “Stay off my side!”. XD Ilithiophobia triggered.
And that was fun to paste that whole exchange (thus far) into an LLM for analysis.