If you haven't read Part 1 and voted in Parts 2-7, please do. Okay. That's it. There are certainly some flaws, but my hope is that we are at a place now that allows for a discussion of ideology on a level: a. based on core beliefs rather than policy b. in a more rational rather than reflexive nature (due to the rearrangement of terms and ideas) I'm also hoping this will lead to the outing of more areas of debate within familiar ideological circles, more shared values between familiar groups, and more complex nuances that usually don't come to the surface. Thanks for participating, all who did. Here's the thread for the bulk of discussion.
My results: Soft Adaptationalist Soft Universalist Soft Egalitarian Soft Obstructionist Soft Pragmatist Hard Humanist And, as most of you knw, I consider myself a liberal... more or less center-left with a slight left-libertarian streak tempered by a consequentialist mentality. The most difficult one for me to choose was between obstructionism and activism... Though I tend to attack obstructionism a lot due to America's particualrly obstructionist system, I also am a Michigander and see the insanity of rampant populism through ballot initiatives. Either extreme, on further thought, leads to lack of accountability.
My results are: Soft Relativist Hard Univesalist Soft Egalitarian Soft Activist Soft Pragmatist Hard Humanist I also consider myself a 'liberal', though a 'liberal' as the word is understood in the UK (or non-US) context in the modern era. I also had a harder time with obstructionism and activism, since I see merits in elements of both. What swing it for me was my own strong support for 'localism' in government, which I felt meant that the majority should be able to hold the 'government' (at whatever level) accountable, and be more influentail over changing things (although at a local level). The interpretation is obviously a bit subjective, though. The other one which troubled me slightly was on prosperity, since I view opportunity rather than resources as the primary consideration, and therefore kind of fall between the two slightly. Generally speaking I seem to be pretty 'soft' in my choices, because I don't see alot of the ideas as being mutually exclusive. For example, I am always a 'pragmatist' guided primarily by consequences, but I do see ideals as having a strong role to play in the general direction of political choices. Interesting idea, though - it'll be interesting to see what people come up with.
Hard Humanist Hard Idealist Hard Obstructionist N/A Hard Universalist Hard Fundamentalist I could have rejected all of these for some reason or another, being an Anarcho-Capitalist.
In order to increase the number of results and give us something to talk about, maybe I should make this easier by putting all the links in this thread: http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...tal-political-model-part-1-8-methodology.html http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...mental-political-model-part-2-8-rule-law.html http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...political-model-part-3-8-scope-principle.html http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...ntal-political-model-part-4-8-prosperity.html http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...litical-model-part-5-8-government-agency.html http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...itical-model-part-6-8-political-behavior.html http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...political-movement-part-7-8-greater-good.html I probably should have thought this structure out better.
This sounds fascinating. I've seen none of it. Do you have a link? EDIT: Oops, so you do. Never mind, thanks.
Soft Fundamentalist Soft Sectarionist Soft Egalitarian Hard Activist Soft Pragmatist Hard Humanist I consider myself to be generally left of center. I am in favor of government involvement, so long as it is devolved as much as possible, is held wholly accountable, and there are demonstrable gains from it. Just sitting around and musing that the government has a mandate to solve every societal ill or that free enterprise is self-sufficient is silly, in my view. Such idealism, while obviously nice in theory, tends to flounder in any quarters other than the most basic (such as the guarantee of sufficient nourishment, adequate health benefits, a say in your government, etc). Moderation is what I feel is best, and duties should be divvied up between the government and free enterprise in the most practicable manner possible. In general, I despise most modern day institutions in their present form. Civil religion, the church, the Congress, etc; in short, anything that espouses dogma. Institutions that encourage inquiry and rational thought I am totally in favor of, however few such entities exist in reality. More often than not these institutions are tools for formulating policies and manipulating sentiments (like the Catholic Church, for example). Finally, I don't necessarily believe in universal values. In fact, I hardly believe in them at all. Values are inherently subjective; values become universal when a power emerges that is powerful enough to project its worldview and proclaim universality. Now, I fully believe that there are rights that someone should be entitled to, even if he or she wasn't raised to believe in them. Freedom of speech, the freedom from having a religion, or atheism, imposed upon you (but not necessarily the right to practice any religion), writs of habeus corpus, and so on.
Soft Fundamentalist Hard Universalist Soft Egalitarian Soft Activist Soft Pragmatist Soft Institutionalist I'm a left center liberal. I base my principles primarily on what can work in practice, not on paper. However, I also beleive in policy innovation, which requires some idealism. Economically, I'm a centrist or independent capitalist. On social matters, I'm a completely liberal, but acknowledge pragmatic aspects. I'm more concerned with substance of real legislation rather than rhetoric. As a result, I'm a brain trust liberal. I consider government and most institutions inherently self-interested and evil, but accept this reality as ever-present.
