Addendum - A Political Worldview with Depth

Now my previous post had very little to do with evangelism. That said, this is a ministry that is being piloted in the DC area, and even when politics is not the specific topic of a conversation, it is often the setting. I wrote this post in the hope that an alternative framework might help our volunteers avoid the trappings of “left vs. right.” The binary aspect of this false political narrative is dangerous and I hope that our volunteers will offer a nuanced, informed and compassionate perspective to anyone they meet with.

That said, we actually got quite a bit of feedback from our previous post, so I wanted to follow up on it to make a few corrections and highlight a few insights that came from you.

1. The most stable political systems appear to strike a negotiated balance between the extremes of these poles – for example, an elected executive with limited terms is a negotiation between democracy and monarchy. This balance allows a nation to “have its cake and eat it too” by having a functional executive and with public investment. Other examples abound with regard to economic frameworks.

2. The axes chosen for this model are items that can be measured somewhat objectively, which gives it a significant advantage because we can avoid some deep philosophical debates. For example:

   • Distribution of votes – this is perhaps the most straightforward as we can see % of population who are able to vote in a meaningful way (glares suspiciously at authoritarian regimes.)

   • Distribution of wealth – there are many objective meaningful tools that we can use to measure this, including the median income and relative wealth.

   • Size of government - also quite objective, The Bureau of Economic Analysis provides one figure for measuring this by looking at government spending relative to GDP, but there are other models available, as well.

3. Other models have attempted to map political positions along 2 axes and 3 axes but these models have some fundamental flaws. My two main thoughts are:

   • 2 Axes, while the view of economics as an axis is spot on, the conflation of issues on the ‘social scales’ makes it difficult to make any truly objective measurements.

   • 3 Axes, while there is plenty of room for critique for the axes themselves, my largest critique is that by flattening out the model, you lose the intersectionality that differing policy positions have on one another. For example, certain economic policies dictate other foreign and domestic policies and vice versa. These relationships are hard to see on a flattened model like this.

4. This model does appear to produce more productive political discourse in contrast to traditional “Left vs. Right” ideologies. For example, instead of simply talking about gun control as a matter of public safety, participants are forced to map how this issue affects the size of government, the ability of people to vote, and potential economic implications.

5. While a stance on individual issues may be mapped into this model, the design is geared toward macro political alignment. That is to say, you may be able to fit a position on here about gun control, but don’t be surprised when it lands on a polar opposite position for national defense within the same political party.

6. Finally, it was suggested that egalitarianism may be a more fitting axis label in contrast to socialism, I actually like this quite a bit, but egalitarianism is a more comprehensive social political model without defined social implications. Until I can find a better word, we’ll just have to keep it ‘as is.’

To sum up, when there is no agreed upon “center” position, traditional “left and right” politics makes no sense. We, as a free and educated people, deserve better. I hope that this framework helps you identify a center, so that you can better map where you are, and where you would like society to be.

Finally, I wanted to add a correction.  Napoleon, while successful in many respects abroad, actually returned from Egypt after his army was defeated, mea culpa on that historical tidbit. The campaign was successful in some respects in that the French did plunder quite a bit while out on campaign (just check out the Louvre), and it was quite successful in that it did disrupt trade between Great Britain and their colonies, at least for the length of the campaign.

Thank you all for your feedback, please post your insights and thoughts below and God bless!

-BG