reading jonathon delacour's revelation that he's "conservative" makes it clear to me that the old left-right axis is almost entirely useless. i generally consider myself "liberal", but i generally agree with jonathon's opinions, as expressed in his weblog. so either i'm not really "liberal", or he's not really "conservative", or those words aren't really important. i strongly suspect the last option.
so along comes the political compass, which explains itself:
The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left' , established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape.
i took the test and ended up a lefty libertarian, which wasn't surprising. what was surprising to me was the the political compass itself, specifically it's use of "libertarian" and "authoritarian" as a second axis. i was immediately reminded of seeing a strikingly similar political compass at libertarian.org. this site is currently in transition, and seems slightly less influenced by the libertarian party than it was back when i first saw that compass, but as the site points out, it was originally developed by chris whitten, a libertarian himself.
while putting "libertarian" at the opposite end of the spectrum as "authoritatian" is something libertarians like to do, i think it's ridiculous. "authoritarian" is not the opposite of "libertarian". dictionary.com defines "authoritarian" in part as against individual freedom
. the problem is that "libertarian" means both advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state
(as dictionary.com recognizes) and "member of the libertarian party". were the word not capitalized at the political compass, the compass may not so strongly imply that anyone not a member of that party is against individual freedom (which is not the same thing as individual rights - another way in which the labeling is inappropriate), but it is capitalized.
we see this problem with the word "democrat", which dictionary.com properly defines as both An advocate of democracy
and A member of the Democratic Party
. we commonly show the difference by capitalizing when referring to the party. but imagine if the political compass had "Democrat" at one end and "Authoritarian" at the other. authoritarians are, after all, against democracy, so this would be reasonable were there not an established political party with that name. but as there is a democratic party, this compass would imply that all republicans are authoritarians, which, current administration aside, is an unfair characterization. that's my problem with using "libertarian" and "authoritarian" as opposite ends of an axis.
i think there's a real need for something to move us beyond thinking of politics in terms of "left" and "right", but i don't think the political compass is a solution. rather than adding another axis, i think we need to get rid of the axes altogether. a new axis just doubles the number of ways in which you can be "with us or against us". i'd like to think my agreement with "conservative" jonathon or my support of a presidential candidate the political compass has placed in the completely opposite end as myself are indications that you can be with us and against us.