OK MisterD,Originally Posted by MisterD
The first thing to note is that just the discussion of different ways to identify party and voter compatibility is an indication of open mindedness and extremely worthwhile.
There are many many ways that we can identify or classify the actions of political parties and reference them back to our own philosophies and our own personal cultures (specifically YOUR culture, not you family's, not your ethnic group etc; YOUR personal culture).
As part of my studies I had the opportunity to be exposed to many differnt paradigms and theories. I consider those of Geert Hofstede and Michael Bond invaluable as well as those of Maslow and many others. These people recognised that there are a myriad different cultures and ways of seeing the worlkd and they tried to offer more useful ways to categorise and understand.
I offered the political compass because it has that handy dandy test and is an attempt to get away from the quite ridiculous idea of merely left and right wing. It recognises that certain kinds of authority are likely to act in certain ways and seeks to identify these and compare/contrast yours with that baseline.
In that way the charts are extremely useful in exposing much political propaganda generally directed at "Right Wing" "Left Wing". You can see on the charts that some parties may be left wing but authoriatrian or right wing but liberal etc. That is a fundamentally important idea to understand in order to recognise propaganda and distinguish it from facts and valid opinions.
As I suggested to Lias, the 'issue' may not be one of left versus right but of social liberalism versus authoritarianism. It is no coincidence that Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Bush all feature very high on the authoritarianism scale; as they say: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Authoritarianism may be a fine concept but unless there are extremely good safequards, it often degrades to dictatorships, oligarchies and other forms of coercive power management. You can see by the chart that this can happen regardless of the right or leftness of the economic policies and the result is usually violence, discrimination, "us and them", racism etc.
On the other hand, the extreme of social liberalism is total anarchy. This rarely gains traction in modern societies but it's danger is the evntual collapse of society with a similar degradation into factions that consider themselves 'superior' in some way and more deserving. In a way that is a U-turn on liberalism and actually a return to authoritarianism but it is one of the possible scenarios. Anarchy is destructive for those who do not have the necessary skills to survive by themselves.
Obviously we need a balance between the two just as we need a balance between the extremes of communism and capitalism. If you've read and understoof Karl Marx you'll recognise that as socialism. Marx termed socialism as a mid way point between communism and capitalism; a place where elements of BOTH are practiced in society and benefit the people relatively equally.
Contrary to propaganda, socialism is NOT left wing, it is centrist on the economic scale.
Now back to my comment about the "propaganda scale".
I believe this is the most important to understand and yet the least well understood. We are all subject to propaganda all our lives: nationalism, race based debates, political, religious, philosophical. In these modern times most of us are exposed to the bulk of our 'news' through the mainstream media and, as anyone who has studied media knows, the media usually gives you 'news' in a way that frames it so that their own viewpoint is presented as the 'most valid'.
However, when we consider that mainstream media is predominantly owned and controlled by 'right wing authoritarians", we should understand that it is THAT viewpoint that is most emphasised.
The fact is that the various media are capitalist organisations that wish to make a profit. They do this not by subscription but through advertising. It is the power of the advertising dollar that most determines what is and what isn't news. If a large corporations suggests that it will pull it's advertising forever if a certain article or viewpoint is presented, then you should understand that the media is most likely to pull the story or rewrite it to minimise it's negative effect on the advertiser.
The myth of the left wing media is just that, a myth. Studies in the USA and other western nations have shown that the overall agendas of almost all mainstream media orgs is 'right wing authoritarian". That's not surprising when you consider that 90% plus of all the so called mainstream media is owned by just half a dozen extremely capitalist authoritarian organisations.
Obviously there is an awful lot kore to it but when I suggested that the "prpoaganda axis" skews 'your' perception in contrast to your fundamental human philosophy, it must be understood that most of the power of propaganda is through the media and therefore most of the 'push' is toward the right upper quadrant even though your score might have been very centrist and more like Labour's.
Things like the propaganda link suggesting that 'socialism is communism' that 'free markets will give everyone equal opportunity' etc DO tend to push people away from the lefy/lower quadrant even if they personally believe in left/lower human philosophies.
In the USA it's even worse with serious nationalism and militarism underlined and underpinned with things like singing the national anthem every day in school and recruiting for military cadets in junior high school before the kids really have the knowledge of what they are signing up for.
I'll leave it there at this point, I suspect I'm gonna have to break this post in parts anyway. I'm mopre than happy to continue if others also are.
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