Against the Political Compass

If one spends any time talking about politics on the internet, one encounters the “Political Compass”. It can be fun for stuff like political jokes.

But it is not a useful framework for understanding politics.

It is comprable to other toy categorization schemes like astrological Sun signs, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or the Dungeons & Dragons moral alignment system — fun, and maybe a little illuminating when used as a loose vocabulary, but not substantive. D&D complicating Good vs. Evil with an axis for Law vs. Chaos allows cute observations like naming a way that Darth Vader (“bringing order to the galaxy” because he is lawful evil) is different from The Joker (chaotic evil); I have done it myself. But it breaks down if you think about it for long. Heck, nerds will tell ya how it breaks down for Batman. D&D alignments cannot bear real weight because they emerge out of a weird history of fantasy fiction and D&D designer Gary Gygax’s peculiar Christian morality, not any serious moral philosophy.

Likewise, the Political Compass is a toy that emerges from “libertarian” propaganda. It developed from the Nolan Chart, which was explicitly libertarian propaganda.

Libertarians often try to dignify their fringe position by arguing that if one really understands politics there are three basic ideologies — left, right, and … of course … libertarian. (Never mind the distinction from “libs” that leftists insist on!)

Those who value civilization are called conservatives. For them the enemy is barbarism.

Those who value equality are called liberals. For them the enemy is exploitation, that is, the abuse of the free market by the rich or by the many to oppress the poor or the few.

Those who value liberty are called libertarians. For them the enemy is slavery, that is, the abuse of the authority of the sovereign to oppress the citizen.

The Compass goes so far as to give libertarians as much space as liberalism and conservatism put together, despite being a fringe ideology. This enables stuff like surveys that reveal to people “Surprise! You’re really a libertarian!” Propaganda.

The big four categorizations of the Compass are not useful enough, which is why political scientists don’t use it. The axes just don’t bear scrutiny.

When one examines at what Compass boosters mean by its authoritarian-libertarian axis, one finds the fingerprints of the libertarian tendency to collapse all other political ideologies into “statism”, because libertarians dread the coercive power of the state … and ignore different state policies, structurally disparate state institutions, and all other forms of coercion.

Sociologists & political scientists understand authoritarianism very differently from Amount Of State Power. I join them in finidng it important to conceive authoritianism in terms of unencumbered power, without rules, process, accountability, or other institutional limits getting in the way of its exercise. Unencumbered power is the useful parallel which one sees in authoritarian governments, religions, families, and more. It is how the capricious commissars of tsarist Russia, the capricious commissars of Stalinist Russia, and capricious oligarchs of Putinist Russia all resemble one another. It makes the supposedly-minarchist fantasies of many weird far right movements like neoreaction authoritarian: if the “CEO of the country” allows more “economic freedom” but can just singlehandedly issue whatever decrees they want, that is authoritarian. It is what makes the absolute monarchies of the feudal era more authoritarian than modern liberal democracies with greater state capacity: the king could capriciously exercise the power of life and death over subjects at a whim. The antithesis of authoritarianism is not “libertarianism” but limits like institutionalism, proceduralism, and a circumscribed scope to power, as in the rule of law and rights protections of liberal democracy.

Similarly, where the Compass conceives of the “left” and “right” as an “economic” axis, what the heck does it mean? The vibes are socialist-ish and capitalist-ish but mushy. What about that predicts the preferences of shaggy anarchist left-libertarians and hyper-capitalist right-libertarians?

This obscures the the meaning of “left” and “right”. They are a subtle, contested vocabulary, but one can summarize the distinction as reflecting egalitarian versus heirarchical social relations, rather than economic structures — unsurprising since the terms originated before the emergence of either capitalism or socialism! With that framework, one can examine different visions of equality and different heirarchies, making the left-right spectrum is the best simple model of political tendencies available, if one exercises it thoughtfully.

A dialogue about social justice praxis

In a discussion on a private forum about my post Social Justice Praxis Dreams, I got a reply from a social justice advocate with whom I have had decades of fraught conversations.

I find after the many years we’ve been wrestling with the deeper foundations of this conversation, that my current position is that Western liberal philosophy has a white supremacy problem baked into it, and that we need to restart from a place of de-emphasizing European historic philosophy and finding ways of valuing other folkways … because a lot of the toxicity is originating in the choice of source materials.

I replied:

After the many years we’ve been wrestling with the deeper foundations of this conversation, I have lost patience with your inability to articulate what the fuck you actually want me to do.

These points [from the original post] are for you:

• … which does not enable narcissistic abuse. e.g.: If someone has stepped wrong, they can expect clear feedback about how to correct the error, and if they make the correction we consider the matter closed.
• … which understands the liberal school and identity politics school as counterweights to each other’s limitations.
• … very enthusiastic about addressing clearly & specifically what individuals in privilege can & should do.
• … with a sophisticated ethos for dialogue between the privileged and the marginalized.

so the problem is “clear feedback” because “well tell me exactly how to fix it” when the problem is “assuming the supremacy of Western liberal philosophy” and that there isn’t a monolithic homogeneity in the non-Western source materials (and also that centuries of Western imperialism have destroyed the access to non-Western materials) … we then have a problem.

That is a non-answer. Tell me what the fuck you want me to actually do.

What, if not liberal democracy?

you’re judging this based on the idea that there should be a rigidly (and safely, if adhered to) laid out set of instructions, when the flip side is actually “learn to detach from the idea that orthropraxy is protective from error”

You have accused me of demanding a perfect error-free orthopraxy before. I recognize the familiar pattern of privileged deflection which leads to that objection, the people who demand an explanation but will never find anything adequate because they are just resisting having to change.

But no, that is not what I am calling for. I am calling for good-enough principles plus practices for pursuing improvement when those principles are not enough. As I have discussed with you literally for decades.

I do not accept your refusal to name a praxis. I think you are demonstrating one of the worst dysfunctions of social justice advocacy culture.

I have had too damm many encounters — many of them with you — in which I have said …

I believe that I stepped wrong and I stand ready to address the harms for which I am responsible. But I do not understand what my error was, so I am stuck unable to make proper apology or amends, unable to avoid the error in the future. I want to do better, so I would appreciate help.

… and then got responses along the lines of …

• “it is not my job to educate you”
• “I already told you but you are just not listening”
• “it is your responsibility to figure that out, not mine”
• “let go of white norms”

… and I hesitate to grumble about it, because that puts me in very bad company.

There are good reasons for those responses! Pragmatically, sometimes people just don’t have capacity at the moment of truth; injustice is fatiguing. Morally, responsibility for correcting injustice rests entirely on the privileged; the marginalized shouldn’t have to lift a finger.

But.

I have experienced social justice advocacy culture going from rightly supporting the pragmatic limits of delivering “clarity” to the stubborn privileged … to absurdly casting refusal to engage as a positive good. I know someone who had a paid antiracist trainer tell them “it is not my job to educate you”.

This is ineffective.

This is ideologically paradoxical. One cannot maintain both that the privileged are blind to the mechanics of injustice and that the privileged have to dismantle those mechanics on their own.

This is, at its worst, poisonous. Saying “you harmed me, and it was your responsibility to understand my needs without me naming them, and it is your responsibility to figure out how to satisfy me without me saying how” is a narcissistic abuse pattern.

I think that, as a general praxis, we need to turn back the dial a few notches.

And very particularly, with you, after all this time, I will not permit you to keep doing it. Stop.

literally I have noted that step one is to give up on the idea of the superiority of Western canon and that there can be a singular correct praxis

The fact that this leaves you bereft because you want a praxis to replace the previous one is … simply what is, and not an indictment of the need for dismantling a desire for One Superior Correct Praxis.

I am not demanding One Superior Correct Praxis. Read what I actually said:

I am calling for good-enough principles plus practices for pursuing improvement when those principles are not enough.

For decades you have told me that I am thinking wrong and acting wrong, and then refusing to name something better. I cannot come up with a charitable theory of what you are trying to achieve.

They did not reply, but shortly after that exchange, they did post this to their own space:

There’s a conversation I’ve been having for years with many different people, where well-meaning individuals of demographic privilege truly want to “do better” and ardently wish for specific instruction sets or checklists so that they can “do better”.

…the problem is that this is doomed to failure, except in very specific contexts where there’s actually an assessor with authority who is committed to only using the agreed-upon checklist.

[It can be noted here that there are indeed specific contexts like this, with what are supposed to be agreed-upon checklists, and it’s the violation of those parameters that we pursue with lawsuits and petitions]

But the thing is, every single time any attempt at an instruction set is presented, people of privilege will start arguing with the instructions and parameters, and trying to game the system. Because that’s what is trained in through generations of success and survival in this kind of system. There are entire cultural traditions that involve training people to look for the loopholes.

And we’re supposed to — “in the West” — live in a system of “rule of law” and fairly and evenly applied checklists. That’s the promise.

… except we know that’s not reality, and most cynically the checklist is loudly declaimed while the violation of the checklist is clearly visible to everyone observing. Because the checklist is mainly an emotional shield for the people designated as protected under systemic oppression. It provides a rationale for “as long as [anyone] follows the rules…” and promises that the only people brutalized are those who break rules.

And it encourages the protected to think of “rules” as electrified fences that they dare not breach. (And thus to want new rules imposed with proof of safety before the previous set are ever flouted.)

There are other ways to organize the world, with different flaws. Asking for the current system to remain in place until a flawless replacement is available sounds philosophically appropriate until you notice that this results in maintaining the current pattern of protecting certain groups by feeding the blood of others into the machine.

Transparently a comment on our exchange, reframing it … without pointing to what I actually said.

I have seen this many times before in social justice advocacy culture: offering a criticism of a pattern, person, commentary, or event which is not quite an outright lie, but does evoke an image very different from the reality. This is a form of the motte-and-bailey move “in which someone switches between a ‘motte’ (an easier-to-defend and sometimes common-sense statement) and a ‘bailey’ (a harder-to-defend and more controversial statement)”.

Distaste for this pattern is one reason why my post about social media shitstorms says:

Shitstorms sow confusion. Resist this. Everything one says every time one engages must pursue clarity — especially about what actually happened. Return as much as possible to the known specifics of what people said and did. Push back against the telephone game effect.

This sort of thing does not compromise the righteousness of the project of social justice, or my commitment to working for it. It does complicate my engagement with the culture of social justice advocacy, which is the pits because I recognize that as an individual one must work in alliance with movements which never fully align with one’s preferences. But I sure don’t like that I have learned that I cannot trust second-hand accounts of events from my comrades in the movement.

Social justice praxis dreams

Over on Bluesky discussion of “Woke 2.0” like this from William B. Fuckley …

I think that specific activist language is probably dead, the next round is going to sound more like labor organizing than a college class. Woke 2 will have somewhat more limited aims and also be far more ruthless about political power.

Yeah, my predictions are that Woke 2 will be more successful, but much more limited. A reclamation rather than a revolution.

Less “Folx” and more “no, gay people do get to exist in public actually, fuck you”.

I do think a lot of the stuff that generated so much sound and fury last time was kind of based on an assumption that 2020 was the worst society could get and that flawed liberal democracy was the floor. A kind activist version of ZIRP. I don’t think anyone will be under that illusion in a few years.

… inspired Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li to ask:

alright why not. woke 2 takes. let’s have ’em people

I fell into a little rant-thread which did not quite answer the question but seemed worth capturing:

Bitter experience teaches me not to make predictions beyond “I will not get the things that I want” but since you ask, these are some things I want and therefore expect to Not Get. I confess to the inclinations of my own privileged position affecting my center of gravity; I am who I am.

I want social justice praxis …

• … which understands the liberal school and identity politics school as counterweights to each other’s limitations. “The law in its majestic equality …”
• … which recognizes that tendencies are not absolutes. e.g.: “This person stands in a position of privilege so they miss a lot, but they do have a point about this particular thing, which that marginalized person did not happen to know.”
• … which recognizes that its terms of art are terms of art and says so. e.g.: “When we use the word ‘privilege’, we are not using it the ordinary way …”
• … which does not enable narcissistic abuse. e.g.: If someone has stepped wrong, they can expect clear feedback about how to correct the error, and if they make the correction we consider the matter closed.
• … liberal enough to reject diffuse, unaccountable processes … and leftist enough to reject depriving people of their livelihoods.
• … enthusiastic about creating clear write-ups of what the heck happened.
• … enthusiastic about digging in to imperfect efforts e.g.: “Without forgiving ABC for the error XYZ we can appreciate that ABC is good enough to be worth criticizing deeply, and then look closely at the problems with XYZ …”
• … which talks as frequently and profoundly about class as it does about race.
• … equipped to recognize that racism is a single-edged blade which cuts PoCs deeply and white people not at all, while sexism is a double-edged blade much sharper on one side that cuts men pretty damm deeply even though it cuts women far worse.
• … liberal enough to prefer universalist policy solutions but smart enough to know that universalist policy is rarely enough by itself.
• … very enthusiastic about addressing clearly & specifically what individuals in privilege can & should do.
• … which actually understands what the word “systemic” means. e.g.: “There is plenty of bigotry to address … and without structural interventions inequities will reproduce themselves even without bigotry.”
• … which understands the difference between punishing bad actors and depriving them of power, and vigorously prefers the latter.
• … with a sophisticated ethos for dialogue between the privileged and the marginalized.

Linda Hamilton

Talking to a friend, I was reminded of how Linda Hamilton deserved a better career. In the original The Terminator, her line reading of “move it, Reese; on your feet, soldier” sells the entire damm movie. Good actors are the best special effect.

I once read an interview with director James Cameron about making Terminator 2: Judgment Day where he told a story I have not been able to source, but remember vividly. He resisted making a Terminator sequel for years — did you see my movie? it ends pretty definitively — but Carolco finally came him with such a huge budget that he just could not say No. So he told them, “Okay … if I can get both Schwarzenegger & Hamilton to come back.”

When he talked to Arnold, the conversation took all of ten seconds. “You made me a star. Of course I’m in. Whatever you want to do.”

With Linda Hamilton, he laid out his whole idea. Sarah Connor is no longer the befuddled waitress, she has learned all this Army stuff. And she starts out in a mental hospital, because she has been ranting about killer robots from the future.

Linda Hamilton replies, “I have one question and one condition.”

As I remember it, Cameron said that he thought this is gonna be good.

“You say you want me to go to boot camp and to the gym. How far will you let me take that?”

I like to imagine Cameron’s grin. “As far as you want.”

“Good.”

This is 1991. Schwarzenegger is on the A-list, but women in movies are not buff.

“What’s your condition?”

“So first they have to break Sarah out of the mental hospital. Cool. But also: she really is crazy.”

And Cameron realizes, oh, that’s better.

Good actors are the best special effect. Give Hamilton a retroactive Oscar just for her line reading of, “How’s the knee?”

And she’s still got it. Look at how much she does in just a few dozen words.

Against politics without politics

The dangerous temptation of anti-politics

Politics is a bummer. People have incompatible visions of a good society. There are hard trade-offs — in priorities, in limited resources, in irreconcilable interests. Industrial society tends toward institutional infrastructure full of politics — legislation & regulation, bureaucracies to implement those, et cetera.

Mid-20^th liberal political philosophers like Isaiah Berlin & Karl Popper looked at the totalitarian movements of the new century and concluded that many of them emerged paradoxically from a dream of escaping from the politics of politics, somehow creating a world without political processes and political strife.

We could all live together in peace, harmony, and prosperity if we just …

… eliminate the state

… smash capitalism

… give this brilliant leader total power

… all embrace the One True Religion

     et cetera

Those liberals insisted that there was no getting away from the grubbiness of politics, that anti-politics was doomed to disaster. They framed liberalism as, in large part, reflecting a commitment to engaging in political process and an effort to make it as just and effective as possible despite a deep pessimism about the impossibility of perfect process, outcomes, or justice.

My own commitment to liberal democracy rests largely on that analysis.

On the left

That I am a liberal in that libdem Isaiah Berlin sense is not to say that I am a “liberal” in the sense that many leftists use the term to object to positions lacking political imagination any further left than the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. I am a leftist. My deepest political dreams are unmistakably radical. Socialism. Institutional changes that ultimately require re-writing the US Constitution. Dignified universal basic income. Transformative cultural politics.

Despite my fundamental alliance, I often feel uneasy among leftists. Partly this reflects a common rejection of “liberalism” which unnecessarily throws out the rights & rule-of-law baby with the capitalism bathwater, partly it reflects too little skepticism about the authoritarianism embedded in left ideologies downstream of Lenin, but aside from those ideological objections which one can confront directly, there is the slipperier problem of too many of my comrades frighteningly tempted by anti-politics fantasies. Even many strains of left-anarchism — inherently resilient against authoritarianism — are comparably scary in assuming that simply eliminating the state automatically eliminates coercion and politics.

Anti-politics is not at all universal on the left, even among radicals, but it is worryingly common.

On the right

Anti-politics is a distinct problem from the right’s opposition to equality which always emerges as opposition to liberal democracy among their radicals. Not everyone on the right suffers from the anti-politics fantasy, even among the radicals. The maniacs who both understand the feudal social / political order and yearn for its revival dream of more politics in their politics. But anti-politics is common, and it is currently ascendent.

Fascism exemplifies the problem of anti-politics, asserting that if we can purge the nation of the people who corrupt its essence, politics and policy challenges will just evaporate. This creates a fascist slide toward totalitarianism as they scramble for control in response to the failures of their nonsensical plans.

It is important to understand how anti-politics paradoxically rationalizes fascism’s authoritarian essence as anti-authoritarian in the minds of true believers. Fash read the liberal order (as in liberal democracy) and liberal order (as in an imagined dominance by “leftists”) as “authoritarian” (or even “totalitarian”) because these step outside of what they see as the correct role of government, by enfranchising & materially supporting the undeserving. In the US fash often frame themselves as not merely anti-authoritarian but anti-government, perverting our democratic civil language to cast “We The People” (real Americans) in opposition to the government. Among savvy fash leadership this is deliberate bad faith kayfabe, but many fash followers take it at face value.

No horseshoe

This post emerged from an online discussion with friends. One of them read these objections to anti-politics (and other problems in radical movements) as an embrace of the horseshoe theory that the far left & right wrap around to meet each other. It is not.

Dumb radicals on the left & right resemble each other in being dumb.

Likewise, anti-politics resembles anti-politics. There are radicals on both sides who do not indulge in anti-politics; there are moderates on both sides who do. Democratic Party stalwarts who say “had we won I would be enjoying brunch instead of thinking about politics” drift into anti-politics. Smart moderate conservatives turn out to have anti-politics baked into their thinking.

My friend who saw a horseshoe in my thinking is the kind of Dem many leftists disdain as a “lib”, and he returns their disdain, finding the left all dangerously unrealistic. I deeply disagree with him about the project of the left, but he is correct in seeing us aligned in dreading anti-politics. I will take informed libdem pragmatism like his over the anti-political fantasies of many of my comrades seven days a week and twice on Sundays.

Action movie dreams

On the one hand, I am radically opposed to violence, and my cishet masculinity is more than a little askew.

On the other hand, there is a part of me which desperately wants my life to be like this: