One of my favorite memes is the political compass grid:
I especially like this one.
I would change the authoritarian right to think the left are godless communists and degenerates however.
I have recently produced a political theory I call teleoformalism (see “The Political Theory of Teleoformalism“) and I thought it would be a fun exercise to see where it would fit in the coordinates of this grid. First I’m going to have to take the fun out of it by examining the grid too closely. The grid is very funny and intuitively seems to capture the popular political positions, but often when you ask where something would fit I end up scratching my head. For example, the right-left axis seems to be a measure of state vs. private power. And so classically the authoritarian left wants to use the state ownership of industry to produce material equality; the libertarian left wants to use the state to finance, or clean up the mess left over from, individual, usually hedonist, pursuits: paying for abortions, birth control, needles for addicts, drug treatment, and the like. However, where would the “woke” left fit? They would seemingly fit in the authoritarian left box since they want a forced material equality of results. But the woke left has not really fought for state enforcement, they have put all their efforts into forcing private institutions—businesses, schools, even churches—to support equality of results. We all thought equality of results died with the fall of communism but the left re-branded all the old communist concepts, switched from class to race and sex, and used the ole’ communist subversion in placing their commissars in all private institutions. They completely caught the right flat-footed who never could imagine that American private industry—the great bulwark against communism– could be so subverted. The left is truly awe-inspiring in a horrifying way in that they can invent concepts like “diversity, equity, inclusion” and seemingly six months later they have thousands of commissars and consultants installed in every institution. So if the left-right axis on the grid indicates state vs. corporate power where does the woke left belong? Authoritarian right? This is just to show that the 2×2 grid is insufficient and needs a couple of additional dimensions to capture all the different positions.
And if the left-right axis denotes state vs. private power how does that accommodate the authoritarian right which is supposed to include those who which to use state power for moral ends? So perhaps it is the authoritarian-libertarian axis which measures the use of state vs. private power. But then that excludes the libertarian left which is supposed to use state power to fund its ends.
Anyway, this post is supposed to be fun so I am going to try to cram teleoformalism into this grid anyway. But where? For example, where does having state meat production facility inspectors fit? Or, say, laws against advertising fraud, or child-labor laws, or workplace safety? Teleoformalism is fine with regulating the private sphere in such ways to make sure business interactions are mutually beneficial and negotiations between employer and employee are fair. Of the four choices these moderate positions seem to fall under authoritarian left, so is that where teleoformalism belongs? On the other hand, teleoformalism is strictly against state ownership of industry, and using state power to produce material equality. So it does not belong here. Or perhaps it belongs here but close to the center and not out on the fringes.
Lets move on to libertarian left. Would teleoformalism support libertarian left positions such as the state providing clean needles for drug addicts? The way to look at these issues is ask which of the four teleoformalist principles of justice would entail such a policy? (See “The Political Theory of Teleoformalism” for an explanation of these four principles.) Providing clean needles to drug addicts may be a good idea, it may save many lives (or it may enable addicts to continue in their self-destructive behavior as critics attest). But the question is whether the state taking by force people’s property through taxation to meet these ends is just. The policy could be justified under utilitarian grounds, that harming some people through taking their property, would create a greater good of saving lives and so is justified. But teleoformalism is strongly against utilitarianism in that principles of justice must be based on the four principles of evolved human Norms, and utilitarianism ‘aint. Providing needles to addicts falls under none of the four principles of justice and so could not be justified under teleoformalism. It seems to be a case where private charities would be the ones to provide this service. So I guess teleoformalism doesn’t fall under the libertarian left. Or does it? The libertarian left principle “what I do in the privacy of my own home is none of your business” does fit in that teleoformalism is strongly against any state interference in the private sphere (outside of child protection laws). So maybe teleoformalism does belong here but close to the center and not on the fringes.
Moving on to libertarian right, again we see that teleoformalism both does and does not belong. Teleoformalism would support libertarian positions against, say, the state financing a network of left-wing radio station networks, single-payer healthcare, or even public schools (while being in favor of providing funds for the poor to pay for private schools). But teleoformalism is in favor of all sorts of business regulations libertarianism is against: workplace safety, food safety, nondiscrimination, anti-fraud, environmental protections, and so on
Finally we come to authoritarian right. This position is often seen as “state enforced morality” (which again calls into question the meaning of the left-right axis). To answer this we need to move into the wider bioformalism complex where we see that morality is rightly taught not by the state but through the church aka controlling source (See “Religion as Source of the Social Emotions” for details.) So, no, teleoformalism does not believe in state enforced morality. However, it does condone the legislature’s right to produce public cooperative conventions such as rules against public nudity, or other offensive, provocative, or disgusting expression in publics, and I can’t see where else these policies would fit.
To answer the question of this post, teleoformalism claims that there are different spheres of society each with their own governing principle of justice: private, commercial, public, state. So draw a box around the center of the grid which extends part-way into each of the four cells of the grid. Label the box in authoritarian left “commercial sphere,” label the box in libertarian left “private sphere,” the box in libertarian right “state sphere,” and the box in authoritarian right “public/social sphere” and you have the answer. Teleoformalism confines each domain to its proper place and keeps them from extending where they do not belong and causing trouble. So everyone is happy, right? Or is everyone mad?
Darwinian Reactionary 