Pure Common Sense

We often hear the realm of political ideology and philosophy discussed in terms of the oversimplifying, but convenient Left-Right spectrum.  On the extreme right we have Fascism.  On the extreme left we have Communism.  Fascism is defined by extreme Nationalism.  Communism is the most extreme and absolute form of Socialism.  In between is everything else.  Around the center is what we think of as a Western-style democracy.  Liberal Democracy* is slightly toward the right and Social Democracy is slightly toward the left, with Socialism proper a little farther toward the left.  Fascism and Communism were pretty much wiped off the face of the globe in the Twentieth Century, so history and philosophy is defined by those placed in between them.  It feels good to be in the center, doesn’t it?  Not identifying with either radical extreme which killed millions of people each.  Of course, alliances throughout that historical period did not necessarily correlate with those ideologies.  The political ideologies in the center tend to be more “free” by nature.  So this is all being defined by the liberty lovers in the center.  You know, people used to define the Sun as rotating around the Earth at the center of the Universe.

*(“Liberal” as in Classical Liberalism – social and economic liberty, not “liberal” as in American politics; both left and right of mainstream American politics fall under this category.)

There are definitely flaws in this espoused dogmatic mindset that is the Conventional Wisdom of the traditional political spectrum.  A two-dimensional “spectrum” should imply that the points at either end are opposites.  Those are Fascism and Communism:  extreme totalitarian nationalism and extreme totalitarian socialism.  Since they are endpoints of the spectrum, the word “extreme” is implied, so let’s remove that from the equation for right now.  They are both TOTALITARIAN, though.  Equation:  totalitarian plus totalitarian equals two totalitarians divided by two equals totalitarian again!  The average of totalitarian and totalitarian is – surprise – totalitarian.  If these are supposed to be opposites on a two-dimensional spectrum, everything in between must also be totalitarian, which is of course nonsense.  Like I said before, there are “free” ideologies in the center which helped to define this spectrum in the first place.

So what separates the two extremes now is nationalism and socialism, which means that these surely MUST be opposites, right?  Wrong.  They are not polar opposites.  In fact, they often intertwine with one another.  The Dashnak Party of Armenia, along with countless others across the world, employs a slightly nationalist and slightly socialist sentiment within a democratic (at least in theory) society.  Many European political parties are similar.  The Vietcong were communists AND nationalists trying to expel what they saw as outside imperialism.  The People’s Republic of China is a famous example of a Communist State, even though it has adopted more Neo-Liberal economic policies in the past few decades.  However, its predecessor state, the Republic of China, was founded in 1912 by Sun Yat-Sen, a nationalist with a social democratic sentiment.  Nationalism and socialism are not opposites.  To say so is indirectly implying that ethnicity and social class are opposites.  The extreme forms of nationalism and socialism involve social engineering to mold a would-be utopia at the expense of lives and freedom.  This is a dangerous commonality which implies similarity between the two ideologies.  Margaret Sanger, an early twentieth century social engineer who has since been exposed as a radical eugenicist slut is a prime example of why this is the way it is.  She founded the American Birth Control League in the early 1920s.  Legalizing birth control is not an unjust cause, but Sanger set out with the wrong intentions, which had little or nothing to do with civil freedom.  Sanger was a promoter of selective breeding against “inferior” human individuals and races.  This was popular at the time – especially in Nazi Germany, which requires no explanation.  Not that Sanger was a Nazi, but she supported the flawed ideology of eugenics and her organization later evolved into Planned Parenthood.  Sanger envisioned a world where perfection of collective humanity was a high ideal to be striven for.  The name of the organization reveals part of this – “Planned” Parenthood – as in central planning, a characteristic of a communist system, on the part of the human gene pool.  And nationalism was also implicit in the philosophy of eugenics, as some races were deemed inferior/superior to one another.  Therefore, Sanger is a prime example of the similarity between the extreme doses of the traditional political spectrum.

The nature of the extreme positions aside, the fact that issues and individuals cross over each other so often is a good reason why the two-dimensional model itself is a bad one to view politics.  Various factions in American politics share different beliefs on foreign policy, domestic policy and social policy.  Blue Dogs, Third Way, Neo-cons, Paleo-cons, Democratic Socialists, Dominionists, Christian Democrats and various forms of Libertarianism (Green, paleo, neo, proper, etc.)  Also, since the traditional political spectrum refers to ideologies of international scale like fascism, communism and social democracy, it must be examined from an international level.  What is considered conservative and liberal varies greatly by region.  In France, right-wing politicians before World War II were associated with authoritarianism and imperialism.  Since then, the conservative right in France espouses restrictions on immigration and lower taxes.  But unlike the American version of conservatism they support a large and burdensome welfare state.  And in Islamic countries, it is considered conservative to support the archaic practice of polygamy.  In America, however, such an idea being proposed might sound libertine or coming from a leftist anarchist or other sort of radical.

The multidimensional nature of politics negated the traditional political spectrum and the points used to measure it.  People like simplification, but simplifying things comes with the expense of wisdom.  I’m sorry to say that I myself don’t fully know what the replacement should look like.  It is preferable to have a new solution to take its place when going against the norm.  However, just because I don’t have the right answer, that’s no reason to stick with the wrong one now that we know that it is wrong.  I like the setup of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz, with economic and social liberty being the primary determinants rather than nationalism and socialism.  Its three-dimensional, which is a little better than two-dimensional.  It’s fairly vague and simple though, hence the name.  I’ll keep pondering it.