The political spectrum

[Ripheus23]

For some time, I had believed that terms like “conservative” and “leftwing” were not very informative or useful when it came to reporting political outlooks. However, I have since revised this opinion in light of a concept that allows for the intuitive sense of this terminology to fit together into a spectrum of concepts. The base concept is from ethical analysis and is that of retributive tyranny. The idea is that, of the categories of making amends—apologies, forgiveness, redemption, and punishment—it is the last that requires political authority, since as Kant argues, metaphysically-speaking self-punishment is impossible. (There is a psychological self-punishment that is possible but this is grounded in an incoherent principle.) Now, we can imagine systems of retribution diverging along the lines of two factors, namely range and degree. Supposing a relative maximum of either, retributive tyranny is maximum number of punishable offenses and maximum sentences for offenses. This is also equivalent to totalitarianism, in which, to satisfy the totalitarian urge to kill, anything can become a crime, and any crime can deserve death.

Now, for this maximum, there can be a minimum. I stipulate that Arendt’s term, “isonomy,” or the American phrase, “libertarianism,” applies to the system in which there are the fewest punishable offenses, and the weakest forms of punishment for those offenses. Our spectrum thus commenced with goes:

Isonomy --------------------------- Totality

Now, between a maximum and a minimum we can imagine a median, which corresponds here exactly to so-called moderate or centrist political outlooks, in which there are a moderate number of punishable offenses and moderate range of severity when it comes to sentencing those guilty of such offenses:

Isonomy ----------- Centrism ----------- Totality

Having thus fixed these points, let us imagine, in turn, the following variants: minimum range & moderate degree, moderate range and minimum degree (the "nanny state"), minimum range and maximum degree, maximum range and minimum degree, moderate range and maximum degree, maximum range and moderate degree. These would be mapped to the spectrum as follows, I think:

Right

Isonomy --- Conservative/Liberal --- Center --- Nationalism/Socialism --- Totality

Left

… which dovetails nicely with our representation of National Socialism, Nazism, as totalitarianism par excellence. Now, the idea is that nations and societies are comparable categories, with an emphasis on national unity motivating harsh penalties for violations of national unity which itself might be sparsely determined (entirely or primarily by demographic geography, I suppose), whereas social unity requires more community rules than intensities of retribution for infractions of rules, as things go.

Of course, even this spectrum might be incomplete. For example, we might define convergent outlooks, e.g. communism is socialism converging towards totality, and fascism is nationalism converging towards totality. Or democracies per se are liberalism converging towards isonomy, and republics are conservatism converging towards isonomy.

There is also the hyperpolitical level of retributive determination, in which rather than the relative comparison, we refer to an absolute comparison, namely the difference between zero and infinity. Zero range and degree of punishment is anarchy, which is therefore congruent but not equivalent to isonomy or libertarianism; infinite range and degree of punishment is, quite clearly, thearchy or theonomy, in which an all-encompassing legislator sends “criminals” into a state of eternal damnation as their sentence.

QED?

[StrikerEZ]

Your posts confuse me so much. I read and understood each individual word in this post, but I have no idea how they relate to each other, or what they mean all together. 

[Ripheus23]

Basically, what is it to be a conservative, or a moderate, or whatever? In one era, a position might be thought to be liberal that by now is conservative, so rather than define these perspectives based on sets of issues, I look at them as representing a general attitude towards punishment by government agents. The idea is that the essential purpose of a government is to administer punishment for violations of rules, since to punish someone, you have to have physical power over them, and a government agent without physical power over his or her subjects isn't really a government agent.

[Just a Lifetime]

This sounds similar to the Political Compass, which supplements a left vs. right "economic scale" with authoritarianism vs. libertarianism on a "social scale".  The earliest example of this sort of thing that I've stumbled across (from the '50s) is in Robert Daniels's The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia, which used for its two axes "hard" vs. "soft" and "mass-interest" vs. "[ruling-]class-interest".

Edit to clarify: My intent in this post is not to explain or advocate the Political Compass or similar approaches, but just to point out the site and refer those interested to the extensive explanations and FAQs it provides.  For those hungry for more scholarly approaches to this sort of thing, the site cites Wilhelm Reich, Hans Eysenck and Theodor Adorno as influences.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Just a Lifetime
Clarify

[Silverblade5]

On 1/10/2019 at 2:20 AM, Just a Lifetime said:

This sounds similar to the Political Compass, which supplements a left vs. right "economic scale" with authoritarianism vs. libertarianism on a "social scale".  The earliest example of this sort of thing that I've stumbled across (from the '50s) is in Robert Daniels's The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia, which used for its two axes "hard" vs. "soft" and "mass-interest" vs. "[ruling-]class-interest".

Edit to clarify: My intent in this post is not to explain or advocate the Political Compass or similar approaches, but just to point out the site and refer those interested to the extensive explanations and FAQs it provides.  For those hungry for more scholarly approaches to this sort of thing, the site cites Wilhelm Reich, Hans Eysenck and Theodor Adorno as influences.

There is also the political triangle, which takes it to three variables, three dimensions of analysis.