Talk:Political spectrum

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This Politics related article has been assessed as SIGNIFICANTLY PROBLEMATIC in one or more ways. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

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This article requires attention for the following reason(s):
  • Contains many disputed claims not backed up with sources. Tagged since September 2021

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The spectrum[edit]

  • Red - Communism/Labour (UK)/Republican (US)
  • Orange - Bowler Hats of Northern Ireland and Scotland
  • Yellow Orange - LibDem (UK)
  • Yellow - ongoing protest movement in France
  • Green - self-descriptive
  • Blue - Conservative (UK)/Democrat (US)

Any takers for other parts of the spectrum? Anna Livia (talk) 17:23, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Ultraviolet: high programmers. The computer is your friend. You can trust the computer 18:05, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
Where do they figure on the political spectrum?
Here are the Hatted Ones. Anna Livia (talk) 17:30, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Why are you asking so many questions? What's your clearance, citizen? The computer is your friend. You can trust the computer 19:31, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Because I can - and the more one knows the spectrum, the better one can define positions. Anna Livia (talk) 19:38, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Okay, I'm gonna stop the charade, it's just a reference to an old satirical pen and paper role playing system called "paranoia". Security clearances and social rank (which are the same thing in universe) are assigned on a spectrum from infrared(regular citizen) to ultraviolet(high programmer, nearly unlimited permission to do as they please). ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 23:45, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Eventually most 'up and coming political ideas (and games)' vanish out of the collective memory.
There #is# probably a loose connection between security clearance and social rank in Real Life. Anna Livia (talk) 23:55, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
I don't know that paranoia vanished from the collective memory so much as was a niche product that remains a niche product. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 04:59, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Why I am a centrist[edit]

I really hate narrow minded thinkers and see both sides as being played by the same masters. Even George Carlin, who fits more on the left, admitted how important it is not to give a shit. Anyone who believes there were just two sides is a slave to the system. Neither lefties nor right-wingers can trigger me. 2003:C3:3741:1600:28FF:9C33:7266:20FB (talk) 23:21, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Split this article?[edit]

I think this article needs to be split up, one dealing with the political spectrum and its advantages and disadvantages as a way of mapping political positions and other articles on political philosophies,i.e I think conservatism needs its own page.--John stetson (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Proposed Overhaul[edit]

This article is marked as problematic. I think since we have some reasonable articles on Liberalism, Conservativism, Libertarianism, Socialism etc it would be wise to cut the fat from this name-space and refocus it on political spectrums. Possible structure:

  1. Left-Right 1D Spectrums
  2. Left-Right Libertarian/Authoritarian 2D Spectrums
  3. Horse-shoe theory

The specifics of each political position/tendency is better covered in its own article which we can link to from here. The only loss would be our stuff on Centrism which could just be moved to its own namespace. I'm finishing up one or two articles of my own on so it may be a little while before I get round to actioning this but I thought I'd throw this plan out to see how people feel. Let the bitchy slap-fight discussion begin... Tikitime2 (talk) 10:32, 9 September 2023 (UTC)


Probably going to remove the collectivism stuff[edit]

Respectfully, it's a bit crap. There's simply no way to meaningfully position objectivists as "collectivists", The whole section seems to spuriously conflate having a serious collectivist ethic or political ontology with any reference to groups or sub-divisions within society. Is there a good defence of this or alternative, because I'm not really convinved of its value atm and it seems more confused and wrong than it is illuminating or helpful. Tikitime2 (talk) 22:59, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I mean, a lot of individualists still collectivize, even if unwittingly and unconventionally. Racists and self-proclaimed "Western chauvinists" claim that Western values include a push towards individualism, but then go onto collectivize themselves by skin tone and ancestry. Carthage (talk) 23:07, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
I think this just further proves that the way collectivism is being used in that section is incorrect/unhelpful. The collectivism of socialists is very different qualitatively to the collectivism of identity politics and the collectivism of "secular humanists". It's genuinely just treating any identification of an in or out group as a sign of collectivism which is so broad that it encompasses almost all political ideologies.
Economic collectivism is different to ethnic collectivism is different to humanism. If we are going to cover this topic we need to offer a much more thorough treatment than this. Tikitime2 (talk) 23:53, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
I have no disagreements about that. That said, the "colloquial" definition of collectivism is very different from the "polsci" one. Carthage (talk) 23:57, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
Seconding the removal about collectivism. It's basically complete nonsense that doesn't reflect any reality concerning political spectra. Axe it. Monochroma (talk) 19:50, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
I actually initiated an AfD about this a while back. Apparently people thought that we should just move all the low-quality garbage to the political spectrum article. Is this article a wastebasket? Carthage (talk) 19:52, 12 December 2023 (UTC)