It's not a perfect fit, but your division fits well with the Magic: the Gathering colour pie. The Social Conservative is White, The Libertarian is Black, The Traditionalist is Green, The Free Marketeer is Blue, and The Nativist is Red.
Social Conservative, Libertarian and Traditionalist are clearly W, B and G respectively. Free markets are a bit hard to pin down in MtG terms and could be any of W, U, B or R. Nativism I think would most naturally be W or WB, but R does somewhat fit.
This was so interesting! I loved that colour wheel piece - I'm not that familiar with MtG lore, so at first I wasn't seeing a lot of the equivalences but now I do more.
Agree White and Green are very clear. Blue for Free Marketer is a little more strained but made a lot of sense in terms of the emphasis on efficiency, meritocracy and optimisation.
When I first read the piece, R (freedom) seemed a much stronger fit for Libertarianism than B, but when I got on to the conflicts and alliances, I can see where you're all coming from with B. But R for Nativism feels very strained, so I can see a case for switching the two.
I think that you missed one, which I will call the Pragmatist.
The Pragmatist recognises that any made by the government or by society will disadvantage some people, but that choices have to be made anyway, since doing nothing is itself a choice which will disadvantage some people (and for politicians or organisations "doing nothing" might involve procrastinating, or attempting to fix problems through "comms" (i.e. lies or censorship), or pretending there isn't a problem). The Pragmatist also recognises that there are multiple competing value systems, not just one.
I do think this is much more of a right-wing worldview than a left-wing one. From my point of view left-wingers are less likely to accept policies that create losers (unless the losers are seen as privileged), more likely to have a simple-minded ideological world-view, and more likely to try to ignore or explain away any problems created by their preferred policies. Of course, such attitudes exist on the right too (there are some people on the right who remind me of the woke left, just with opposite views).
I consider myself to be on the right, although I'm not a member of the Conservative Party or Reform UK. I'd describe myself as a liberal nationalist and give my personal scores as follows:
Pragmatist: 10
Nativist: 9
Libertarian: 8
Free Marketer: 7
Social Conservative: 5
Traditionalist: 5
I want to RETVRN, but my nostalgia is for the less diverse and less nannyish "Cool Britannia" Britain of 1995-2004, not the insular 99% white Christian Britain of 1945-1954.
I agree with the need to add Pragmatist. One of the characteristics of the Conservative Party in the UK has been its willingness to accept policies from its political opponents when it sees that these advantage it. Examples are Robert Peel in the 19th Century with the repeal of the Corn Laws, always a Liberal desire but one which had been opposed by the land-owning classes, and Butskellism after WW2 with the acceptance of the NHS in particular. Perhaps the model should be Inside Out 2 with its additional characters that come with the arrival of puberty.
I see 'pragmatic/idealistic' as a spectrum that could describe how someone acted towards any of these (or, indeed, to philosophies on the left) rather than its own homunculus - but I can see where you are coming from.
I'd be interested in where inherited wealth or position (not necessarily a la Rausing or Windsor but more the common upper-middle-class substantial leg up) fits in with these homunculi.
Yes. that sense that too much social mobility is disruptive, perhaps.
I was thinking that I recognise your homunculi but, in my head, the fundamental left-right spectrum is about how much you believe in redistribution of wealth. The further left you are the more you believe in redistribution. The further right you are the more you believe in keeping what you have for the benefit of those close to you. And yet, despite recognising your homunculi, my idea about left-right isn't a particularly strong feature. I'm pondering why that is.
Really interesting summary. Though Libertarians on the right these days seem to be only Libertarian on economic issues and otherwise join the religious right on social issues
I think that is an example of what I described above: that libertarians and social conservatives are allies when progressives are on top, but then split when the right is in power; i.e. a lot of the people who pretend to be libertarians aren't, but just want their side not to suppressed (this is also true on the left).
There are though a small number of organisations, such as FIRE in the US, which have pivoted seamlessly from defending people against woke cancellations to defending people against Trump's attacks on academia, who are genuinely libertarians/pro-free speech.
Put the chart at the top? BLUF, then analyse/explain?
I had to google BLUF...and first result was "Breeches and Leather Uniform Fanclub" NSFW
"BLUF (communication)" may be a better search tho even there "Begin with the bottom line" is cognitively challenging to me :-)
I've always heard it as "BLOT", "Bottom line on top", which is more memorable for being more seemingly contradictory.
It's not a perfect fit, but your division fits well with the Magic: the Gathering colour pie. The Social Conservative is White, The Libertarian is Black, The Traditionalist is Green, The Free Marketeer is Blue, and The Nativist is Red.
I do like this way of looking at the world:
https://homosabiens.substack.com/p/the-mtg-color-wheel
That is pretty close, indeed!
Social Conservative, Libertarian and Traditionalist are clearly W, B and G respectively. Free markets are a bit hard to pin down in MtG terms and could be any of W, U, B or R. Nativism I think would most naturally be W or WB, but R does somewhat fit.
This was so interesting! I loved that colour wheel piece - I'm not that familiar with MtG lore, so at first I wasn't seeing a lot of the equivalences but now I do more.
Agree White and Green are very clear. Blue for Free Marketer is a little more strained but made a lot of sense in terms of the emphasis on efficiency, meritocracy and optimisation.
When I first read the piece, R (freedom) seemed a much stronger fit for Libertarianism than B, but when I got on to the conflicts and alliances, I can see where you're all coming from with B. But R for Nativism feels very strained, so I can see a case for switching the two.
I think that you missed one, which I will call the Pragmatist.
The Pragmatist recognises that any made by the government or by society will disadvantage some people, but that choices have to be made anyway, since doing nothing is itself a choice which will disadvantage some people (and for politicians or organisations "doing nothing" might involve procrastinating, or attempting to fix problems through "comms" (i.e. lies or censorship), or pretending there isn't a problem). The Pragmatist also recognises that there are multiple competing value systems, not just one.
I do think this is much more of a right-wing worldview than a left-wing one. From my point of view left-wingers are less likely to accept policies that create losers (unless the losers are seen as privileged), more likely to have a simple-minded ideological world-view, and more likely to try to ignore or explain away any problems created by their preferred policies. Of course, such attitudes exist on the right too (there are some people on the right who remind me of the woke left, just with opposite views).
I consider myself to be on the right, although I'm not a member of the Conservative Party or Reform UK. I'd describe myself as a liberal nationalist and give my personal scores as follows:
Pragmatist: 10
Nativist: 9
Libertarian: 8
Free Marketer: 7
Social Conservative: 5
Traditionalist: 5
I want to RETVRN, but my nostalgia is for the less diverse and less nannyish "Cool Britannia" Britain of 1995-2004, not the insular 99% white Christian Britain of 1945-1954.
I agree with the need to add Pragmatist. One of the characteristics of the Conservative Party in the UK has been its willingness to accept policies from its political opponents when it sees that these advantage it. Examples are Robert Peel in the 19th Century with the repeal of the Corn Laws, always a Liberal desire but one which had been opposed by the land-owning classes, and Butskellism after WW2 with the acceptance of the NHS in particular. Perhaps the model should be Inside Out 2 with its additional characters that come with the arrival of puberty.
I see 'pragmatic/idealistic' as a spectrum that could describe how someone acted towards any of these (or, indeed, to philosophies on the left) rather than its own homunculus - but I can see where you are coming from.
And yes, 1995 - 2004 was a good period!
Nice way of thinking about it.
I'd be interested in where inherited wealth or position (not necessarily a la Rausing or Windsor but more the common upper-middle-class substantial leg up) fits in with these homunculi.
Interesting - I guess people in that situation would often be drawn to the Traditionalist homunculus.
Yes. that sense that too much social mobility is disruptive, perhaps.
I was thinking that I recognise your homunculi but, in my head, the fundamental left-right spectrum is about how much you believe in redistribution of wealth. The further left you are the more you believe in redistribution. The further right you are the more you believe in keeping what you have for the benefit of those close to you. And yet, despite recognising your homunculi, my idea about left-right isn't a particularly strong feature. I'm pondering why that is.
Really interesting summary. Though Libertarians on the right these days seem to be only Libertarian on economic issues and otherwise join the religious right on social issues
I think that is an example of what I described above: that libertarians and social conservatives are allies when progressives are on top, but then split when the right is in power; i.e. a lot of the people who pretend to be libertarians aren't, but just want their side not to suppressed (this is also true on the left).
There are though a small number of organisations, such as FIRE in the US, which have pivoted seamlessly from defending people against woke cancellations to defending people against Trump's attacks on academia, who are genuinely libertarians/pro-free speech.