It’s a Ring Not a Cruller

 

shutterstock_195681302This may be old hash but something I often think about is that the purported spectrum of political sensibilities doesn’t seem to be a linear gradient but rather a circular construct. This would place absolutists and the like, let’s say, from about 170 to 190 degrees on a compass, with the calm, reasonable, and flexible types sitting on the opposite bearings.

A ring has so many more practical applications when describing the infinite variations of thought the human race enjoys. It has the benefit of being infinitely divisible in that say a one-degree arc describing libertarianism also has built in a 360-degree cross arc that can explicate all the flavors of that one particular mindset. A bar, stick, or straight line could also be divided infinitely of course but lacks the critical nexus where absolutists on the The Left and The Right meet and commingle and make psychotic terrorist babies.

Our minds process our universe in at least four dimensions if we include time even though we physically live linearly. The political spectrum is a mental construct and so should not be described as a straight line.

Visualizations are important and a ring allows more mental visualization waggle room. How would you picture in your mind a person who favors strong central banking and a robust military but can’t stand the thought of some busybody on their block being able to invoke the power of  The State to pick on their neighbors? Can a stick or bar diagram cut it? 
If we use a Hula Hoop or even a Water Weiner (the offspring of a stick and a torus) rather than a plain old stick we can more easily visualize and thus categorize and quantify the range of human ideology.

With a ring The Left won’t be allowed to further conflate all conservatism with Nazism while simultaneously proclaiming that socialism or communism is somehow the opposite. They are not. The two are forms of absolutism that, on a more logical political spectrum diagram, would be kissin’ cousins, as they say. A ring as the political spectrum explains why The Left has no problem covering for and enabling certain religious extremists who would typically be described as being “Far Right.”

I’m sure there are other logical political diagrams in existence but I think the simple and practical step of using a ring and not a cruller in normal discourse would go a long way to clarifying in the minds of all those misinformed and maleducated souls exactly whose politics stand where and what effect those views have on the march of civilization.

The rhetorical trick of somehow separating the far Left from the far Right is juvenile and cruel. Shouldn’t that be done away with?

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  1. Vicryl Contessa Thatcher
    Vicryl Contessa
    @VicrylContessa

    Oh man…I thought this post was about donuts and I got all excited. Thanks for nuthin’, dude. ;-)

    • #1
  2. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    a)

    screenshot.44

    b) To an ant walking across a cable, there are only two dimensions – “length” and “around”, but when walking across a tasty doughnut, there is also “through”. Think about it.

    c) You dumb bastard. It’s not a schooner. It’s a sailboat.

    • #2
  3. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Or Nolan Chart.

    Or even any n-dimensional political space, though typically we’d like to choose the biggest principal components as the most important factors. Dimension reduction, even to just one dimension, is often a sensible-enough procedure, though you do lose information. Visualizing two, three, or perhaps four dimensions has the advantage of being more intuitive than higher dimensions.

    • #3
  4. The Pimpernel Inactive
    The Pimpernel
    @ThePimpernel

    Thank you for the Nolan Chart.

    I’m no statistician so visualizing complex data based on a gastronomical(or novelty toy) framework works for me.

    Plus it’s funny.

    Anyway, I find it hard to simply place any particular human notion as a two-dimensional data point given not only time but the typical irrationality of human thoughts and action/reactions To me this would necessitate a “live” Nolan chart, constantly shifting.

    I guess that would look like a typical stock market ticker.

    • #4
  5. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    The Pimpernel: I’m no statistician so visualizing complex data based on a gastronomical (or novelty toy) framework works for me.

    What I found interesting on the gastronomical side of things is apparently there are areas of the country where crullers are bar-shaped rather than ring-shaped! I had only ever seen ring-shaped crullers until I did a Google image search.

    • #5
  6. The Pimpernel Inactive
    The Pimpernel
    @ThePimpernel

    Wwwwow, I must be provincial. I was always under the impression that a cruller is and always was a stick. Fascinating. I guess it shows how people who were alive pre and post-internet revolution rely on their “common knowledge” first rather than allowing first for the greater possibilities that The Google can provide. I guess I backslid on the learning curve of the modern age.

    • #6
  7. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    The Pimpernel:Wwwwow, I must be provincial. I was always under the impression that a cruller is and always was a stick. Fascinating. I guess it shows how people who were alive pre and post-internet revolution rely on their “common knowledge” first rather than allowing first for the greater possibilities that The Google can provide…

    My husband grew up in a neighborhood where they called any log-shaped pastry a, well, log.  What others might call eclairs, or long-johns… logs!

    So at first I’d hear from his family stuff like, “I can’t wait to visit! They have the most delicious logs!” and I’d think, “You a beaver or something?”

    • #7
  8. Vicryl Contessa Thatcher
    Vicryl Contessa
    @VicrylContessa

    Now I want donuts. ?

    • #8
  9. GLDIII Reagan
    GLDIII
    @GLDIII

    Vicryl Contessa:Now I want donuts. ?

    Dear,

    The scale does not lie, nor judge. You may wish to reconsider your relationship with donuts and the like.  You really don’t want to go down the re-plumbing road if you can resist.  Which becomes harder with the years…something about entropy I think.

    • #9
  10. Vicryl Contessa Thatcher
    Vicryl Contessa
    @VicrylContessa

    GLDIII:

    Vicryl Contessa:Now I want donuts. ?

    Dear,

    The scale does not lie, nor judge. You may wish to reconsider your relationship with donuts and the like. You really don’t want to go down the re-plumbing road if you can resist. Which becomes harder with the years…something about entropy I think.

    Just because I want them doesn’t mean I’m going to get them… I have a salad and baked salmon with some strawberries for dessert waiting for me at home.

    • #10
  11. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Vicryl Contessa:Now I want donuts. ?

    • #11
  12. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: What I found interesting on the gastronomical side of things is apparently there are areas of the country where crullers are bar-shaped rather than ring-shaped! I had only ever seen ring-shaped crullers until I did a Google image search.

    The ring-shaped are French crullers.

    • #12
  13. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Arahant:

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: What I found interesting on the gastronomical side of things is apparently there are areas of the country where crullers are bar-shaped rather than ring-shaped! I had only ever seen ring-shaped crullers until I did a Google image search.

    The ring-shaped are French crullers.

    So, what’s the nationality on the bar-shaped ones?

    • #13
  14. Vicryl Contessa Thatcher
    Vicryl Contessa
    @VicrylContessa

    Now there’s a picture of donuts at the top of the post just to torment me!

    • #14
  15. AliGhan Member
    AliGhan
    @AliGhan

    Shapes of crullers aside, this discussion reminds me a bit of the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa (15th century), and his concept of coincidentia oppositorum (the “coincidence of opposites”). Nicholas meant it in a theological context, involving a mystical reflection on the nature of God, but there are secular applications of the concept as well. The idea that left and right political systems begin to resemble each other as they become more extreme (e.g., becoming more authoritarian  and militaristic) would seem to be an example of this: the “opposites coincide.”

    • #15
  16. GLDIII Reagan
    GLDIII
    @GLDIII

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    Arahant:

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: What I found interesting on the gastronomical side of things is apparently there are areas of the country where crullers are bar-shaped rather than ring-shaped! I had only ever seen ring-shaped crullers until I did a Google image search.

    The ring-shaped are French crullers.

    So, what’s the nationality on the bar-shaped ones?

    Churro’s ? thus Mexican

    • #16
  17. wilber forge Inactive
    wilber forge
    @wilberforge

    Then where is the Round(Circle) Hot Dog  ? No end to start with, now figure that one out –

    • #17
  18. Metalheaddoc Member
    Metalheaddoc
    @Metalheaddoc

    In the ring analogy, who belongs in the hole? (insert Bill Clinton joke here)

    • #18
  19. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: My husband grew up in a neighborhood where they called any log-shaped pastry a, well, log. What others might call eclairs, or long-johns… logs!

    Oh, now I know what y’all are talking about… maybe. But I thought “eclair” was a brand name. Plain ole donuts are my preference, but what you call “logs” might (with nuts) be what we call “bear claws” down here.

    In the donut of political philosophy, everyone’s afraid of getting stuck with the squishy middle.

    • #19
  20. Probable Cause Inactive
    Probable Cause
    @ProbableCause

    I refuse to order “French Crullers.”  I refer to them as “Tractor Tires.”

    • #20
  21. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    Oh, I get it.

    It’s a ring…

    ring

    …not a Kruller.

    Krull-Movie

    The one frosted buttery ring to rule us all / and in the darkness fatten us.

    • #21
  22. Dad Dog Member
    Dad Dog
    @DadDog

    The best rebuttal I’ve ever seen to the typical left v. right political spectrum/”Nazis are the opposite of socialists and communists” argument:

    • #22
  23. Lidens Cheng Member
    Lidens Cheng
    @LidensCheng

    Num Korng

    • #23
  24. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Lenin chose  to conflate the two  by calling Fascism the last stage of capitalism, and in spite of the fact that fascism grew out of the socialist international, it stuck because Soviet propaganda was effective and the West’s left as foolish and easily manipulated then as it is today.   See Weber, “Varieties of Fascism”, published in the early sixties.  It’s also useful to read Russel Kirk’s “the conservative mind”  There is a lot more to the issue than political organization, power and economics.  The philosophical roots of one’s world view are fundamental.

    • #24
  25. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Although the discussion of the various forms of fried dough is more fun, I do always remember that when I was involved in college student government (40 years ago), it was not unusual that I (the most “far right” member of the council) and the most “far left” member of the council would collaborate, or at least agree on something against the “middle.” Usually we were collaborating on getting different types of speakers on campus, or in trying to get answers to on-campus events that appeared to favor or disfavor certain group identities (then it was mostly race and sex). I did find it entertaining and enlightening that he and I found so many areas of common thought fighting against the “middle.”

    • #25
  26. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Full Size Tabby:Although the discussion of the various forms of fried dough is more fun, I do always remember that when I was involved in college student government (40 years ago), it was not unusual that I (the most “far right” member of the council) and the most “far left” member of the council would collaborate, or at least agree on something against the “middle.” Usually we were collaborating on getting different types of speakers on campus, or in trying to get answers to on-campus events that appeared to favor or disfavor certain group identities (then it was mostly race and sex). I did find it entertaining and enlightening that he and I found so many areas of common thought fighting against the “middle.”

    Up here inthe Great White North, the Conservatives and the NDP are finding lots of common ground fighting the dictatorial impulses of the Trudeaupians.

    Outliers tend to cooperate more when the middle is a tyrant.

    • #26
  27. The Pimpernel Inactive
    The Pimpernel
    @ThePimpernel

    Viva La Panadería…

    I see the form of government as a result of an absolutist or moderated mindset/personality. So, I personally place the hardliners who want total control over others, including anarchists, they want to abolish what is so they can come in and assert themselves, on one side of the chocolate frosted ring which we here in Tha Nort simply call a doughnut, and the more rational, flexible, and contemplative on The other side, sprinkles be damned. Whatever form of government arises arises naturally from the contemporaneous socio-political situation. Government can influence the direction of society of course to one side of the doughnut or the other in a reactionary fashion and vice versa but the people come first. It’s always the chicken and the egg…with a nice apple fritter/bear claw on the side.

    • #27
  28. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    The Pimpernel: I see the form of government as a result of an absolutist or moderated mindset/personality.

    Having observed that the two can coincide within the same person, I am less sure of this. It’s not impossible to be an absolutist and also fairly relaxed about it. It’s also not impossible to be rigidly moderate.

    Undoubtedly, there’s no shortage of people who have extreme ideologies because they also have rigid personalities. But having personally met both socialists with relaxed personalities and no great ambition to insist that others bend to their ideology as well as anarcho-capitalists who are the same way (in addition, of course, to other personalities who are extremely not relaxed about asserting either ideology), I no longer look upon “ideological extremism results from an immoderate desire to lord it over others” as a truism.

    • #28
  29. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    As our member Titus Techera might put it, abolishing others to assert yourself also requires contempt for the others. Extreme disagreement without contempt wouldn’t be enough. Now, contempt is a reason for strong disagreement, but not the only one.

    “I believe in a way radically different from your way” needn’t always include the implicit threat “and I also insist on my own way“.

    • #29
  30. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: “I believe in a way radically different from your way” needn’t always include the implicit threat “and I also insist on my own way“.

    Indeed. I think we ought to let people live by what they want for others. We could have parallel governments.

    • #30
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