Political compass for the21st century

[Bill the Piper]

(09-21-2018, 11:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You put social democrats in the red quint-drant, is that a word, or what's the word? The same one as Marx and Stalin, who are not democrats, but tyrants. Traditionalist means little in itself; the definition of conservative is to uphold the people in power. Politics is about power, and who has it.

Traditional, working class oriented social democracy has mostly fused with the New Left in such a way that there is now no difference between them. One is a social democrat economically, but New Leftist on the cultural issues like LGBT rights, migration or drug legalisation.

Traditionalism, as a political idea, means enforcing traditional morality by force. It is always theocratic to some degree, although moderates like the Christian Democrat focus on "natural law" rather than divine commandments as such.

Your concept of conservatism is meaningless. In Saudi Arabia, your conservatives are the Wahhabis. In Europe, the Eurocrats. In 1980s Russia, hardcore Bolsheviks.

Quote:There's no clear right and left on your chart.

You see that the Red and Purple sector are on the left, Black and Blue on the right. That is intuitive. The Yellow sector is neither left nor right. Some "market liberals" call themselves "up-wing". But mostly, Left and Right are terms without a clear meaning. If Right means power to the elites, the Bolsheviks would be right-wing!

BTW, If you like the Nolan chart better, I'm not going to dissuade you from using it.

Quote:The emergence of Trumpism is probably a main reason you propose your 5-sided chart as "21st century." I would look on Trumpism more as a temporary spasm that already existed and is fully accounted for on the old chart.

Seriously, nationalism (as opposed to simple tribalism or ethnocentrism) exists since the 19th century. All anti-colonial movements of the 1960s like Baathism were distinctly nationalist without really being traditionalist or religious. Trumpism is nothing new.

Quote:The polarity between statism and anarchy is most useful in distinguishing between Reagan or Falwell and people like Pinochet and other despots who kill people. The closer you are to the bottom, the more you use the state to exert absolute power.

I didn't focus on the means, but on the goals. Absolute power is not a goal in itself, it always aims at something: enforcing racial purity (Nazism), religious orthodoxy (Taliban), or the hegemony of the working class (Bolsheviks).