The thing about any dimension of a political continuum is that movement along it can be associated with change of one quality. Other qualities may also change, but one quality is definitive. And, if there is no one identifiable quality, it isn’t one dimension.
When Jim or I claim that there is a dimension with maximal individual liberty at one end and minimal individual liberty at the other, the quality is right there in my description.
When you insist that there is a dimension that has tyranny at one end, and a Hobbesian state-of-nature at the other, I don’t see one defining quality. That doesn’t mean that there is no one quality, but I don’t see it and I didn’t hear you identify it.
Even if there is a dimension with tyranny at one end and chaos at the other, the existence of such a dimension is in no way a disproof of the existence of the dimension as such that Jim and I see. Rather, you might instead make a case that a mapping with a tyranny-anarchy dimension is more useful than one with a liberty-oppression dimension.
Related to this distinction between usefulness and existence, I think that your way of focussing how a group regards and treats insiders and outsiders is hugely useful, and plausibly far better for distinguishing and explaining the major division of political tribes than other descriptions. However, one could still meaningfully speak and write of, for example, a dimension characterized by whether one felt that material wealth should be divided equally or unequally.
As to the pervasiveness of con-jobs in politics, I think it’s important to note in discussion [1] that the most successful confidence rackets take advantage of the desire for unearned wealth; [2] that, as people find themselves losing ground as a consequence of falling for previous con jobs, many of them are loathe to admit fully or even partially what happened, desperate for recovery, and more susceptible to falling for a new iteration of one of the previous con jobs, or for some con job for which they have not previously fallen.
Perhaps that last point is illustrated by the results of recent political polls.
Wirkman Comment
The thing about any dimension of a political continuum is that movement along it can be associated with change of one quality. Other qualities may also change, but one quality is definitive. And, if there is no one identifiable quality, it isn’t one dimension.
When Jim or I claim that there is a dimension with maximal individual liberty at one end and minimal individual liberty at the other, the quality is right there in my description.
When you insist that there is a dimension that has tyranny at one end, and a Hobbesian state-of-nature at the other, I don’t see one defining quality. That doesn’t mean that there is no one quality, but I don’t see it and I didn’t hear you identify it.
Even if there is a dimension with tyranny at one end and chaos at the other, the existence of such a dimension is in no way a disproof of the existence of the dimension as such that Jim and I see. Rather, you might instead make a case that a mapping with a tyranny-anarchy dimension is more useful than one with a liberty-oppression dimension.
Related to this distinction between usefulness and existence, I think that your way of focussing how a group regards and treats insiders and outsiders is hugely useful, and plausibly far better for distinguishing and explaining the major division of political tribes than other descriptions. However, one could still meaningfully speak and write of, for example, a dimension characterized by whether one felt that material wealth should be divided equally or unequally.
As to the pervasiveness of con-jobs in politics, I think it’s important to note in discussion [1] that the most successful confidence rackets take advantage of the desire for unearned wealth; [2] that, as people find themselves losing ground as a consequence of falling for previous con jobs, many of them are loathe to admit fully or even partially what happened, desperate for recovery, and more susceptible to falling for a new iteration of one of the previous con jobs, or for some con job for which they have not previously fallen.
Perhaps that last point is illustrated by the results of recent political polls.