Political spectrum
| Political spectrum link (Polarising perspective) | |
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| A metaphorical mapping from all conceivable political systems onto a single dimension. As extreme simplifications go, it was remarkably effective in the 20th and early 21st centuries at polarising political debate and limiting options. |
The political spectrum (also known as left-right politics) is a model which attempts to simplify the relationship between political ideologies. It polarises people and dumbs down political debate. Its traditional manifestation has only a single dimension, although it may have 2 dimensions, in which case it is called a "political compass".
Conventional usage
Although more complex, (multi-dimensional) usages are possible, the traditional representation is to classify political ideologies on a single dimension, from 'left' (communist, socialist) to right (conservative, fascist).
Concerns
The 'political spectrum' concept although popular with commercially-controlled media is is understood to be a polarising oversimplification; although left and right are opposites in a physical sense, they are clearly not in a political sense. {{#subobject: |Has superobject=Political spectrum |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Jimmy Falls|+sep=, |Has text=“The right is cast as wanting little to no government, while the left advocates for big government. But upon closer examination, this doesn’t hold up: both the left and right seem to want big government; the question is, where?
The right traditionally wants a large military and ever increasing defense budgets, while the left favors domestic entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Those not wishing to get caught in this perilous conflict don’t really have a spot on the traditional political spectrum because it only offers a binary choice.” |Is about=Political spectrum,|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate=26 March 2017 |Sourced from=WhoWhatWhy |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName=WhoWhatWhy |Has sourceURL=http://whowhatwhy.org/2017/03/26/moving-past-left-right-divide/
}}
“The right is cast as wanting little to no government, while the left advocates for big government. But upon closer examination, this doesn’t hold up: both the left and right seem to want big government; the question is, where?
The right traditionally wants a large military and ever increasing defense budgets, while the left favors domestic entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Those not wishing to get caught in this perilous conflict don’t really have a spot on the traditional political spectrum because it only offers a binary choice.”
Jimmy Falls (26 March 2017) [1]
Polarisation
- Full article: Polarising perspective
- Full article: Polarising perspective
The nature of the political spectrum invites its usesrs, unless they place themselves in the exact center, to label themselves "left" or "right". Either group of people is purported - according to the spectrum metaphor - to have a lot in common. This polarising perspective has long been exploited as a divide and conquer tactic of social control.
Political compass
A popular refinement of the one-dimensional concept of the political spectrum is to add a second dimension corresponding to the relationship between the individual to the state, resulting in the "political compass". Libertarian David Nolan introduced the Nolan Chart, which uses an X-axis defined as “Economic Freedom” and a Y-axis as “Personal Freedom”.[2]
Deep political perspective
Apart from rejecting such polarising perspectives, Wikispooks generally rejects the claim that modern nation states are actually "democratic" in that they faithfully represent the will of the people, so it is recommended not to use the "left"/"right" labels here.