Q. Just the other day, you painted quite an elaborate picture of the political spectrum. Could you simplify it a little?
A. I can do one better than that. After having given the matter some thought, I've found several points of potential contention, and decided to completely reframe it.
First, it has to be remembered that labels matter; choice of label significantly influences the way that people think about things. The same action will be interpreted differently depending on the label applied to the actor.
Secondly, it must be understood that a stable civilisation cannot exist without prioritising the recognition of the fundamental irregular organic humanity of its citizens. This is why successful societies place individual liberty as their most cherished value to be protected above all others. When freedom is the default, any number of caveats may be introduced to restrict that freedom for the sake of peaceful co-existence, providing they can reasonably be justified. People will accept them as responsibilities that must necessarily go with the freedoms.
So with that said, I would describe the political spectrum as follows:
There are two binary political leanings, with no absolutes and no middle ground. These, we will provisionally refer to as pro-humanity and anti-liberty. The pro-humanity camp can be further subdivided into two broad groups—advocates of the status quo and advocates of evolution.
Advocates of the status quo broadly believe that their civilised society is just fine the way it is, and that unnecessary change will make it worse not better. Advocates of evolution on the other hand broadly believe that while their civilised society is indeed very good, it could still be improved upon. Both sides agree that their civilisation is for the most part just great, they just have differing opinions on where to go from there.
On the other hand, those who are (often unwittingly) anti-liberty believe that civilisation as it exists is largely overrated, and should just be scrapped and begun again from scratch. And guess what—they know exactly how to go about it. Spoilers: It doesn't end well. In fact, their own attempts are so fragile they need to be held together by duct tape and guns.
Such attempts at non-organic civilisations fail precisely because they deny the fundamental humanity of their citizens, replacing its nuance and complexity with simple equations. "Communism would work, if only people would (insert equation here)," is the first step down a short spiral staircase into chaos. There are many common ideologies that fall into a similar trap—how many can you think of?
So now that the camps have been established, we can start bringing in some familiar labels so that people know where they stand.
Pro-humanity advocates of the status quo fit rather nicely into an existing label, and that is 'right wing conservative'. I doubt many would argue with that.
Anti-liberty advocation, on the other hand, is evident in most forms of totalitarian governance. These invariably represent an expression of current left wing values taken to their logical end, so to label them as 'left wing' seems reasonable.
And that leaves our pro-humanity advocates of evolution. Under the currently accepted political spectrum, they would be thought of as 'left wing', the 'liberal left' (despite not being liberal), the 'progressive left' etc., but frankly I find it an insult to group them in with the lunatics described above. No, they are pro-humanity, so that puts them much closer to the 'right wing conservatives'. I therefore suggest they be given the new label of 'right wing progressive'.
Now what you may notice here is that both moderate sides of the currently accepted political spectrum are now on the same team. They don't have to be enemies anymore. So when anybody tells you they're left wing, ask them if they are insane. If they answer that they aren't, you can tell them that they are actually right wing. Let me know how that goes.
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