Often in the media, and sometimes other places like this one, statements or actions by groups are actually prefixed with "far-right" or "far-left". It occurred to me that these discussions could be far more productive if people stated the rubric they were using for the labels.
So, here's an example of what I would mean in discussing
funding of higher education:- Far left - Post secondary education should be free, and everyone should be accepted, so that no academically deserving student is prevented from attending based on finances
- Moderate left - Either some cost or some limits on acceptance are necessary
- Centre - There should be a balance of government money and student cost, so that academically deserving students can attend, but everyone has to invest their own finances so that they are motivated to succeed.
- Moderate right - Government money should generally be tied to performance, for instance through scholarships
- Far right - No government money should be spent on post-secondary education; since the benefit is to the student, the student should bear the cost. Since people with the most "skin in the game" will be most motivated to work hard
Here's an example of my "rubric" for discussions of health insurance:
- Far left - Like Cuba or China, where the government controls all kinds of aspects of professionals within the system, including theit overall salary, where they may work, etc.
- Moderate left - Like the UK NHS where medical professionals are essentially government employees, and everyone is covered by government insurance.
- Centre - A system like the *Canadian system, where doctors are not government employees, but everyone is covered by government insurance.
- Moderate right - American system after Obamacare (more or less) - Everyone, in principle, can be insured.
- Far right - American system before Obamacare - People being totally uninsured is possible.
(*I know there are many models of public insurance other than Canada's, but it's the one I'm most familiar with.)
Part of my point with this, is that in many discussions, I would say most people are actually "moderate" or "centre"; "far" is pretty uncommon. At any rate, by defining
qualitative factors for each point on the rubric it becomes easier to have a conversation.
Dumb idea, or useful idea?
Nah. Symbolic and fluid belief systems can't be pinned down in a rubric. I try my best to avoid "left," "right," "center," "far left," and "far right." The labels are part of a spectrum that was taught to me in high school civics, but it's not useful beyond high school or selling discourse to the gullible.
Your healthcare typology does not reflect a reality I recognize, partly because it mixes and matches benchmarks. I'm pretty far left, and I don't know of any of us who think that the government should have that level of fine-grained control over individual's lives. The far left isn't longing for Soviet Russia.
Similarly, your appeal to the NHS doesn't fit any moderate left I recognize, since the UK has a hybrid public/private model. Some centrists and lots of centre-right people like that idea, but few on the left do. It works better on the moderate left and centre angles when you consider what kinds of medical care are covered (e.g. pretty much everything in the UK vs. no dental or vision and patchy at best drugs in Canada).
If you find such characterizations helpful, that's great, although I worry that they lend themselves to caricature more than anything. But it's also not clear to me that this is really any issue most of us are having.
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 22, 2023, 05:03:26 AMOften in the media, and sometimes other places like this one, statements or actions by groups are actually prefixed with "far-right" or "far-left". It occurred to me that these discussions could be far more productive if people stated the rubric they were using for the labels.
So, here's an example of what I would mean in discussing funding of higher education:
- Far left - Post secondary education should be free, and everyone should be accepted, so that no academically deserving student is prevented from attending based on finances
- Moderate left - Either some cost or some limits on acceptance are necessary
- Centre - There should be a balance of government money and student cost, so that academically deserving students can attend, but everyone has to invest their own finances so that they are motivated to succeed.
- Moderate right - Government money should generally be tied to performance, for instance through scholarships
- Far right - No government money should be spent on post-secondary education; since the benefit is to the student, the student should bear the cost. Since people with the most "skin in the game" will be most motivated to work hard
Here's an example of my "rubric" for discussions of health insurance:
- Far left - Like Cuba or China, where the government controls all kinds of aspects of professionals within the system, including theit overall salary, where they may work, etc.
- Moderate left - Like the UK NHS where medical professionals are essentially government employees, and everyone is covered by government insurance.
- Centre - A system like the *Canadian system, where doctors are not government employees, but everyone is covered by government insurance.
- Moderate right - American system after Obamacare (more or less) - Everyone, in principle, can be insured.
- Far right - American system before Obamacare - People being totally uninsured is possible.
(*I know there are many models of public insurance other than Canada's, but it's the one I'm most familiar with.)
Part of my point with this, is that in many discussions, I would say most people are actually "moderate" or "centre"; "far" is pretty uncommon. At any rate, by defining qualitative factors for each point on the rubric it becomes easier to have a conversation.
Dumb idea, or useful idea?
Why not discuss the ideas of education, health, etc and the merits/limits of a particular approach instead of attempting to label the person trying to have the discussion?
My idea of "far left" is no government control. The "far right" also, particularly having to do with guns and education.
Sometimes people mistake DEI or public assistance for "control." I think this has a lot to do with the ironic rhetoric on the right as they try numerous routs, governmental, commercial, and private, to control peoples' lives----and I really think we know what we mean when we say "right" and "left." These polarities are in our faces every day.
While I like the idea, I don't think it really accounts for the Overton window. In 1992 I was a moderate republican voting for Bob Dole. In 2020, I was a moderate democrat voting for Joe Biden My overall fiscal and social opinions didn't changed much during that time.
In some ways, political attribution is like Middle class - Few people like to think of themselves as poor so they call themselves lower middle class. And few people are comfortable with the privilege they get from generational wealth or other systemic benefits that accrue to them, so they call themselves upper Middle class.
Quote from: ciao_yall on June 22, 2023, 08:19:10 AMWhy not discuss the ideas of education, health, etc and the merits/limits of a particular approach instead of attempting to label the person trying to have the discussion?
My motivation was that when I see protests and counter-protests in the news one group or the other is always labelled "far-" something. By doing so, it implicitly
prevents any honest discussion by suggesting
one side is completely
unreasonable (while, by contrast, suggesting the
other side is completely
reasonable). It's really sad when journalists and academics both do this, as these are the groups that historically have been counted on to promote calmly listening to both sides.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on June 22, 2023, 09:29:19 AMMy idea of "far left" is no government control. The "far right" also, particularly having to do with guns and education.
That really puzzles me. Communism is usually seen as the farthest left. (Although I think there's a distinction to be made between
social and
economic issues. Liberals tend to be for personal freedom on social issues but government control on economic issues, while conservatives tend to be for personal freedom on economic issues but more government control on social issues. Libertarians tend to be for less government control on both, so they don't quite fit on that single axis.)
QuoteSometimes people mistake DEI or public assistance for "control."
What purpose does DEI serve if it has no power? Is it just to provide advice?
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 22, 2023, 11:27:13 AMThat really puzzles me. Communism is usually seen as the farthest left. (Although I think there's a distinction to be made between social and economic issues. Liberals tend to be for personal freedom on social issues but government control on economic issues, while conservatives tend to be for personal freedom on economic issues but more government control on social issues. Libertarians tend to be for less government control on both, so they don't quite fit on that single axis.)
Traditional political spectra usually anchor anarchism at the leftmost end.
Exactly how extant governments fit onto traditional political spectra is hard to say, however. Remember that Communist Russia was a totalitarian state and, thus, had a lot of structural elements in common with other totalitarian states, including the far-right.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 22, 2023, 11:50:30 AMQuote from: marshwiggle on June 22, 2023, 11:27:13 AMThat really puzzles me. Communism is usually seen as the farthest left. (Although I think there's a distinction to be made between social and economic issues. Liberals tend to be for personal freedom on social issues but government control on economic issues, while conservatives tend to be for personal freedom on economic issues but more government control on social issues. Libertarians tend to be for less government control on both, so they don't quite fit on that single axis.)
Traditional political spectra usually anchor anarchism at the leftmost end.
Exactly how extant governments fit onto traditional political spectra is hard to say, however. Remember that Communist Russia was a totalitarian state and, thus, had a lot of structural elements in common with other totalitarian states, including the far-right.
Marsh started off insightfully: There are separate issues, and a voter can have different opinions about each of them. Perhaps his positions on any issue can be described and assigned an adjective. However, not many issues are amenable to distinction along a single dimension. Even something like "How much should government spend?" leaves unanswered the question on what, never mind positions on health care provision and financing. Virtually every policy issue is multidimensional.
And then, how do you convert positions on any one issue, assumed to have been accomplished, into a position on all issues? How do you convert a vector into a scalar?
Political scientists and psychologists have attempted to do so. The best they can do is claim, or perhaps induce, based on opinions expressed in questionnaires, that positions on a small number of dimensions describe voters. It's not all meaningless. After all, political parties are conglomerates of opinions held by voters. There must be
some difference between the conglomerates!
As for the words "left" and "right", we know where their use originated, but it has been claimed that they are used nowadays only to malign opponents. A hardly existent distinction between fascists and the left was invented by Stalin, a masterstroke, and has been put to good use ever since -- for the left. I appreciate that anarchism was a leftish phenomenon. If so, I tend to leftism! :-) But there are libertarians today, with no trace of collectivism in them, who are little more than anarchists. [They won't take me, on account I'm too far left!]
Left and right are a bunch of words, and we have to be careful to not misuse them too badly.
Dungeons & Dragons character alignments do a better job than the left-center-right spectrum that we get taught in high school. My friends and I in high school figured that out real fast. Here's your rubric.
Lawful Good Lawful Neutral Lawful Evil
Neutral Good Neutral Neutral Evil
Chaotic Good Chaotic Neutral Chaotic Evil
Quote from: lightning on June 22, 2023, 02:05:52 PMDungeons & Dragons character alignments do a better job than the left-center-right spectrum that we get taught in high school. My friends and I in high school figured that out real fast. Here's your rubric.
Lawful Good Lawful Neutral Lawful Evil
Neutral Good Neutral Neutral Evil
Chaotic Good Chaotic Neutral Chaotic Evil
I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something, and knowing something.
--Richard Feynman
Quote from: dismalist on June 22, 2023, 02:31:03 PMQuote from: lightning on June 22, 2023, 02:05:52 PMDungeons & Dragons character alignments do a better job than the left-center-right spectrum that we get taught in high school. My friends and I in high school figured that out real fast. Here's your rubric.
Lawful Good Lawful Neutral Lawful Evil
Neutral Good Neutral Neutral Evil
Chaotic Good Chaotic Neutral Chaotic Evil
I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something, and knowing something.
--Richard Feynman
there are those that win on the Price is Right and there are those that argue with the "correct" prices on the Price is Right
I am basically fine with Marsh's framework. And I agree with several of the points he is making in the op:
- people throw around these labels all the time without really thinking about it,
- it would be good to think about politics more systematically, especially when categorizing,
- most of the people on this board are fairly moderate and few are on the 'far' side of the spectrum.
But I'm not convinced it will meaningfully enrich conversation around here. What conversational usefulness does it carry beyond "so-and-so is moderate right on this topic by on the Marsh-scale"?
Quote from: Sun_Worshiper on June 22, 2023, 04:21:50 PMI am basically fine with Marsh's framework. And I agree with several of the points he is making in the op:
- people throw around these labels all the time without really thinking about it,
- it would be good to think about politics more systematically, especially when categorizing,
- most of the people on this board are fairly moderate and few are on the 'far' side of the spectrum.
But I'm not convinced it will meaningfully enrich conversation around here. What conversational usefulness does it carry beyond "so-and-so is moderate right on this topic by on the Marsh-scale"?
Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting the "Marsh-scale" is
correct; I'm merely stating that if someone prefaces their comments by their
own scale, then it makes it easier to see how a productive discussion may be had. For instance, for post-secondary education,
I think "free-for everyone" and "students pay all their own costs" are both extreme positions. So,
for me, anyone who isn't tied to one of those positions is someone I think I can have a useful discussion with about
how to allocate government funding and to/for
whom.
(I kind of make an implicit assumption that most people will see
themselves as non-extreme; in other words, I don't imagine many people would describe their
own views as extreme, but I may be wrong.)
But using the example of PSE again, if someone has a different scale than I do, even
seeing their scale and
where they'd place themselves on it would be much more useful than just hearing their
position, because it would give an idea about where the Overton window would be
for them.
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 23, 2023, 06:32:04 AMQuote from: Sun_Worshiper on June 22, 2023, 04:21:50 PMI am basically fine with Marsh's framework. And I agree with several of the points he is making in the op:
- people throw around these labels all the time without really thinking about it,
- it would be good to think about politics more systematically, especially when categorizing,
- most of the people on this board are fairly moderate and few are on the 'far' side of the spectrum.
But I'm not convinced it will meaningfully enrich conversation around here. What conversational usefulness does it carry beyond "so-and-so is moderate right on this topic by on the Marsh-scale"?
Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting the "Marsh-scale" is correct; I'm merely stating that if someone prefaces their comments by their own scale, then it makes it easier to see how a productive discussion may be had. For instance, for post-secondary education, I think "free-for everyone" and "students pay all their own costs" are both extreme positions. So, for me, anyone who isn't tied to one of those positions is someone I think I can have a useful discussion with about how to allocate government funding and to/for whom.
(I kind of make an implicit assumption that most people will see themselves as non-extreme; in other words, I don't imagine many people would describe their own views as extreme, but I may be wrong.)
But using the example of PSE again, if someone has a different scale than I do, even seeing their scale and where they'd place themselves on it would be much more useful than just hearing their position, because it would give an idea about where the Overton window would be for them.
Fair enough. Seems like quite a production for every poster to lay out their vision of the left-right spectrum before each post, but your point is well taken that doing so would give us a clearer sense of how they see the issue.
I think most people know, roughly, the continuum of views on such issues. The problem is that many don't really care about that spectrum. They just want to discuss their views. They'll tend toward being pejorative for any view other than their own.
For the most part, you appear to be asking people to be a bit more charitable in their argumentation.
That's probably not a bad thing.
Quote from: Ruralguy on June 23, 2023, 08:44:25 AMI think most people know, roughly, the continuum of views on such issues. The problem is that many don't really care about that spectrum. They just want to discuss their views. They'll tend toward being pejorative for any view other than their own.
For the most part, you appear to be asking people to be a bit more charitable in their argumentation.
That's probably not a bad thing.
I think I'd say "transparent" rather than charitable. If I accuse someone of holding an "extreme" position that I disagree with, then that implies there must be some position
in between them that I still disagree with, but that I consider "moderate".
For instance, during the riots in the summer of 2020, *ANTIFA represented the far left by engaging in violence and property crime. By definition, anyone holding many of the same views
but still respecting the rule of law would be more moderate.
(* or whoever was setting things on fire, looting, creating "the CHAZ/CHOP", etc.)
When someone refers to "far-right anti-abortion protesters" then I'd like to hear how they would define "moderate-right anti-abortion protesters". Presumably that would involve either what they believe or how they express it.
(Clarification: It makes no sense to define "moderate" as holding the same views as "extreme" but simply not expressing them publicly. Carrying that to its logical conclusion would mean that publicly expressing
any compromise position would be morally unacceptable.)
Quote from: marshwiggle on June 23, 2023, 11:15:10 AMQuote from: Ruralguy on June 23, 2023, 08:44:25 AMI think most people know, roughly, the continuum of views on such issues. The problem is that many don't really care about that spectrum. They just want to discuss their views. They'll tend toward being pejorative for any view other than their own.
For the most part, you appear to be asking people to be a bit more charitable in their argumentation.
That's probably not a bad thing.
I think I'd say "transparent" rather than charitable. If I accuse someone of holding an "extreme" position that I disagree with, then that implies there must be some position in between them that I still disagree with, but that I consider "moderate".
For instance, during the riots in the summer of 2020, *ANTIFA represented the far left by engaging in violence and property crime. By definition, anyone holding many of the same views but still respecting the rule of law would be more moderate.
(* or whoever was setting things on fire, looting, creating "the CHAZ/CHOP", etc.)
When someone refers to "far-right anti-abortion protesters" then I'd like to hear how they would define "moderate-right anti-abortion protesters". Presumably that would involve either what they believe or how they express it.
(Clarification: It makes no sense to define "moderate" as holding the same views as "extreme" but simply not expressing them publicly. Carrying that to its logical conclusion would mean that publicly expressing any compromise position would be morally unacceptable.)
And that's why I maintain that rubrics are useless. The rubrics themselves are reflexive and can be plotted on yet another fluid spectrum, defined by whoever and whomever wants to define it. Yes, we can indicate our own rubric to introduce our ideas, but that only subjects the rubric to yet another rubric attempting to be objective.
The more you try to be objective when it comes to labels and symbols, the harder it becomes to be objective. When trying to define a symbol with a rubric, whether as a preface or for interpretation, the rubric itself becomes a fluid symbol. Antifa, BLM, the confederate flag, taking a knee, Republican, Democrat-- these are all symbols.
Anarcholibertarians seem to fall on the right in that they favor private property and respecting cultural traditions. What is called far right in Europe includes people who believe in guaranteed jobs, healthcare and strict environmental protections. As someone who has studied all extremes I do notice that far left and far right have a lot of common ground which would support the horseshoe theory. Many ideas start out as fringe and extremist but then become mainstream and that also works in the reverse direction. I just find that these labels are too vague to have any good meaning for serious discussions.
It seems really obvious to me that there are codifiable conservative vs liberal beliefs readily available in the public sphere.
Liberals:
---guaranteed universal income / tax the rich
---reparations
---LGBTQ rights
---gun control
---separation of church and state
---Trump lost
etc.
Conservatives:
---business first / tax loopholes a God given right
---end Affirmative Action
---no "Special rights"
---Second Amendment
---America founded by Christians
---Trump was cheated by an amazingly well constructed Democratic conspiracy; the Jan. 6th patriots are being railroaded & the charges against Trump are a politically motivated witch hunt but Killary, on the other hand, needs to be locked up along with Hunter
etc.
And we all know these things and where they fall when they come up.
As someone has said, the individual viewpoints are far too messy, however, for an easy matrix. Trump, a Clinton or two, the "Mainstream Media," and the Second Amendment can make some otherwise mainstream, sane, law-abiding people literally dangerous. And the catalysts are ridiculous. Antifa are loud, stupid kids. Communism has been dead in North America for 40 years or so. The Proud Boys are a teeny-tiny minority of hard-right activists.
What strikes me is how much the conservative base has changed in my lifetime. My parents were both Depression-era babies and Eisenhower-era young adults. The only time my father said a bigoted thing in his life was when he saw a couple of young men wearing high heels in New York City. They hated long hair, rock'n'roll, most TV programs, and obnoxious '80s fashions. The Flower Power and late Boomer generations were very boggling to them and actually made them angry for no particular reason. When my widowed grandfather brought his girlfriend for a visit, my father made them rent a hotel room because he would not have unmarried people sharing a bed in his house. The world was full of evils that are now commonplace.
Now even Trump tries to dance to rock music, and a good many conservatives are sporting long Metalhead hair, listening to Green Day and Metallica, and staying up all night watching Netflix and engaging in premarital sex openly and unabashedly. Approximately half of all conservatives are fine with gay rights.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/compare/views-about-homosexuality/by/state/among/party-affiliation/republican-lean-rep/
The country is slowly becoming more liberal in outlook, even with the current culture wars. This, I believe, is part of the reason there has been such a conservative backlash of late. Bud Light abides.
Wahoo Redux, what did liberal and conservative mean 60 years ago when these topics were not even a thing back then? UBI and reparations only seem to have been on the table for the past decade.
Quote from: Anselm on June 24, 2023, 05:43:21 PMWahoo Redux, what did liberal and conservative mean 60 years ago when these topics were not even a thing back then? UBI and reparations only seem to have been on the table for the past decade.
Well, in the first place, I was thinking 40 or 45 years ago.
In any event, I just mentioned the ones that I personally saw----Rock'n'Roll, the "longhairs," premarital sex, and unmarried couples cohabitating----I left off drugs, the Vietnam war, abortion, and Richard Nixon. And, most ridiculous of all, boys with pierced ears. My father was mad about tattoos too and predicted financial and cultural ruin on anyone with a tattoo.
I mentioned reparations only because anyone familiar with American society will know how a conservative will most likely react vs. how a liberal will most likely react, acknowledging that there are plenty of variations on both sides. The point was that we pretty much know how society is divided based upon the issue at play. Please reread, because that was a separate commentary than the one about how society was changing.