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This reminds me of a 1980s magazine called World Press Review. WPR would take a number of topics every month. For each topic they would print a number of edit

This reminds me of a 1980s magazine called World Press Review. WPR would take a number of topics every month. For each topic they would print a number of editorials from various points of view. Each editorial was accompanied by the source's masthead and a short note about the source's political perspective. For the most part they used the labels each source used to describe itself (conservative, libertarian, socialist, labor, etc) rather than words like "left" or "right". What I liked about WPR was that you got a sense that the world was more complex than a simple one-dimensional binary left/right, black/white, true/false. I believe that left/right language obscures this complexity. Worse, labels like "extreme left" and "leans right" and assert that there is a "center" or a default. "Centrism" or "moderate" is really just a cluster of political positions, though they may be the most common ones. The real world is not binary left/right. It's more like Princess Mononoke, with the wolves, the boars, the apes, the Imperial soldiers, the humans of Iron Town, the human raised by wolves, and the last Emishi prince. Update: WPR lives on as Worldpress.org but seems to now carry mostly original content rather than reprints.

Hadjimina 6y ago
Good point. Since I use adfontsmedia rating and wanted to have a very simple website I chose to reduce adfontes 2 axis to a single axis, which is, as you have pointed out heavily oversimplified. The default "center" position was chose simple because at this point there are the most news outlets.
- jefurii 6y ago
  As a developer I can appreciate that you have to start somewhere, and even left/center/right does a real service in our political climate. I'm glad you chose a source that at least has two axes! Thanks for putting this project together - I'll be sharing it with friends!
pessimizer 6y ago
That might be a brand to look into purchasing for the OP.
the_only_law 6y ago
> The real world is not binary left/right. It's more like Princess Mononoke, with the wolves, the boars, the apes, the Imperial soldiers, the humans of Iron Town, the human raised by wolves, and the last Emishi prince. Not familiar with the reference, but I get the idea, and mostly agree. But particularly in places like the US where there are only two “real” parties it seems that most of the groups will ally with each other, even if otherwise vehemently opposed and form two vague alliances which you could perhaps classify as left or right if you so wished. This is even more frightening to me as I realize you can’t trust anyone’s words and see certain factions “courting” other ones (and perhaps in my view, very dangerous ones) in attempt to fight the other side while still trying to claim ideas incompatible with those they’ve allied with and help provide power to.

Hadjimina 6y ago

Good point. Since I use adfontsmedia rating and wanted to have a very simple website I chose to reduce adfontes 2 axis to a single axis, which is, as you have pointed out heavily oversimplified. The default "center" position was chose simple because at this point there are the most news outlets.

jefurii 6y ago
As a developer I can appreciate that you have to start somewhere, and even left/center/right does a real service in our political climate. I'm glad you chose a source that at least has two axes! Thanks for putting this project together - I'll be sharing it with friends!

pessimizer 6y ago

That might be a brand to look into purchasing for the OP.

the_only_law 6y ago

> The real world is not binary left/right. It's more like Princess Mononoke, with the wolves, the boars, the apes, the Imperial soldiers, the humans of Iron Town, the human raised by wolves, and the last Emishi prince. Not familiar with the reference, but I get the idea, and mostly agree. But particularly in places like the US where there are only two “real” parties it seems that most of the groups will ally with each other, even if otherwise vehemently opposed and form two vague alliances which you could perhaps classify as left or right if you so wished. This is even more frightening to me as I realize you can’t trust anyone’s words and see certain factions “courting” other ones (and perhaps in my view, very dangerous ones) in attempt to fight the other side while still trying to claim ideas incompatible with those they’ve allied with and help provide power to.