Perhaps, as has been suggested by several of my respondents to the Political Compass post above, there should be a third axis for a more specific position of socio-political opinions. For our times, I suggest that this axis should be attitude toward nature stretching from dirty-hippy, tree-hugging simbiotes like me all the way to God-gave-it-to-me-to-do-whatever-I-want, pollution profiteering corporations and their bought and sold politicians. This would also separate the theists from the secular, which may have already been done somewhat on the authoritarian/anarchy axis.
It is time we woke up to the fact that, by loving the earth we are all indigenous people being exploited by conquistadors as surely as the Aztecs and as surly as the indigenous people of Bolivia today awoke to the power of their majority to wrest control from the effete elite whose lifeblood was the people's labor and fear. Bolivia is a democracy built by the people instead of being imposed from the top down, as the US is prone to do.
On such an axis, I'd be right there with John Edwards, er, ah, right there with John Edwards' speech — I forgot he was a politician for a moment there.
1 comment:
I like your suggestion about adding a third axis that looks at the way we humans relate to our environment. This kind of thinking makes you a target for Gitmo. Eastern/indigenous thinking that seeks harmony instead of a way to divide the world into "good" and "evil" is very subversive thinking Greg!
Maybe there should also be a fourth axis that looks at racism squarely in the face. Kind of a "how racist are you?" scale.
This may shock you Greg, since so much of what I believe is determined through economics, but I'm open to the idea that the origin of our economic and political systems could very well be determined by our white supremacist thinking. We're talking Socrates, Plato and others handing down generation after generation of dualistic thinking that has positioned white men and Christians as "good," making little room for anything else. Perhaps then our economics were determined by attitudes of superiority, and not vice versa.
Similarly, we should learn how our "religion" for a lack of a better word determines our economic and political thinking.
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