7 ms·

Serious question: how is this a novel idea given the historical context of people like Stalin and Mao? I feel like I am missing something here. Are Stalin and

Serious question: how is this a novel idea given the historical context of people like Stalin and Mao? I feel like I am missing something here. Are Stalin and Mao not considered authoritarians or are they not considered "leftists"?

me_me_me 5y ago
I think at this stage leftist and righist are meaningless. Stalin by all means run almost theocratic totalitarian regime. Communism was used as a slogan and means of rallying his followers. Same with Mao.
- justinmchase 5y ago
  That's why most political compasses are 2 dimensional. Most left v. right discussions are essentially a projection of some opinionated vector across the 2d landscape into a 1d line which they can then use to slander either end of the vector as authoritarian or communist or whatever. But these actual definitions lose a lot of information in that projection. The 2d map has left (socialism) v right (capitalism) and up (authoritarianism) v down (anarchism). Its probably even more complicated than that, you could at least add a 3rd dimension of time but projecting everything into a 1d line is nearly meaningless at this point.
  - jlkuester7 5y ago
    +1 for multi-dimensional analysis! Binary thinking on complex issues (like politics) is a recipe for fanaticism.
  - me_me_me 5y ago
    yes, and also things should be described by the actions not labels. N.Korea labels itself as democratic and people's but we all know thats not true.
  - OkayPhysicist 5y ago
    I've never really liked the standard 2D political compass, and I think the issue is that the two axes aren't actually independent. Right v. Left basically boils down to one's opinion on hierarchies. If one views hierarchies as good, they're on the right, if they see them as evil, they're on the left, and there's a whole spectrum of "necessary evil", "acceptable", etc, in between. Then you've got the Authoritarian v. Libertarian axis, which essentially boils down to "how much power should higher-ups in the hierarchy have over those who are lower?". With Monarchies and Dictatorships being "guy on top controls everything" to Anarchism saying "no one should control anyone". The problem is that, defined that way, certain areas in the space become absurd. What does it mean to completely reject hierarchies as evil, but think that people on top of the hierarchies ought have absolute power? What does it mean to think that hierarchies are good and just, but that there should be no power vested in them? This manifests outside the philosophical, in the real world as well. As you look at increasingly authoritarian ideologies, the differences between left-leaning and right-leaning ideologies shrink. Comparing the conditions of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR reveals far less difference than you see even amongst the spread of Liberal states today. Likewise, the number of hierarchies you hear objections to shrinks as you move right amongst Libertarians, until you basically only hear complaints about the government.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
I think that's the implicit joke of the article. It was loudly missing. Especially as it is a more recent history than Hitler.

me_me_me 5y ago

I think at this stage leftist and righist are meaningless. Stalin by all means run almost theocratic totalitarian regime. Communism was used as a slogan and means of rallying his followers. Same with Mao.

justinmchase 5y ago
That's why most political compasses are 2 dimensional. Most left v. right discussions are essentially a projection of some opinionated vector across the 2d landscape into a 1d line which they can then use to slander either end of the vector as authoritarian or communist or whatever. But these actual definitions lose a lot of information in that projection. The 2d map has left (socialism) v right (capitalism) and up (authoritarianism) v down (anarchism). Its probably even more complicated than that, you could at least add a 3rd dimension of time but projecting everything into a 1d line is nearly meaningless at this point.
- jlkuester7 5y ago
  +1 for multi-dimensional analysis! Binary thinking on complex issues (like politics) is a recipe for fanaticism.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  yes, and also things should be described by the actions not labels. N.Korea labels itself as democratic and people's but we all know thats not true.
- OkayPhysicist 5y ago
  I've never really liked the standard 2D political compass, and I think the issue is that the two axes aren't actually independent. Right v. Left basically boils down to one's opinion on hierarchies. If one views hierarchies as good, they're on the right, if they see them as evil, they're on the left, and there's a whole spectrum of "necessary evil", "acceptable", etc, in between. Then you've got the Authoritarian v. Libertarian axis, which essentially boils down to "how much power should higher-ups in the hierarchy have over those who are lower?". With Monarchies and Dictatorships being "guy on top controls everything" to Anarchism saying "no one should control anyone". The problem is that, defined that way, certain areas in the space become absurd. What does it mean to completely reject hierarchies as evil, but think that people on top of the hierarchies ought have absolute power? What does it mean to think that hierarchies are good and just, but that there should be no power vested in them? This manifests outside the philosophical, in the real world as well. As you look at increasingly authoritarian ideologies, the differences between left-leaning and right-leaning ideologies shrink. Comparing the conditions of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR reveals far less difference than you see even amongst the spread of Liberal states today. Likewise, the number of hierarchies you hear objections to shrinks as you move right amongst Libertarians, until you basically only hear complaints about the government.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

I think that's the implicit joke of the article. It was loudly missing. Especially as it is a more recent history than Hitler.