Artificial Divisions In The Political Spectrum

Leftwing, rightwing and centerist are symbolic terms used to artificially divide the continuous spectrum of political philosophy into manageable groupings. This averaging not only doesn't reflect the true nature of the political spectrum it also frames the discourse into a linear relationship when a circular one far more accurately symbolizes the body politic of all western countries.

Just as red, blue and yellow are used to simplify the continous spectrum of a color wheel into 3 'primary' colors when in reality no such divisions exist we try to label political philosphies into groupings that in reality exhibit no hard divisions. Instead a continous circle of political thought morphs from one position to the next to the next without any sharpe divisions.

In America the media uses terms like RINOs [Republicans in name only] and Blue Dogs [DINOs?], conservatives and liberals, libertarians and anarcists to divide the continuum into bite size chunks. The emergence of the TEA Party has begun to melt these arbitrary chunks of the spectrum. Are TEA Partiers Rebublicans? Libertarians? Blue Dogs? Conservatives? All of the above, a bit of each or none of the above? If we follow the linear logic of the left-center-right metaphor we'd probably put anrchists are the furthest 'left' next to them, heading toward the 'center', would be socialists then mainstream Democrats, then comes the DINOs and RINOs, the mainstream Republicans, the TEA Partiers and the liberatrians furthest to the 'right'.

The linear metaphor puts anarchists and libertarians as the two most apparently distant groups when, in my opinion, these two artificially labeled groupings are kissing cousins philosophically. Anarchists and libertarians are no more different in political philosophy than say RINOs and DINOs. The circular metaphor, in my opinion, much more accurately reflects the real relationship of America's, and all western country's, morphing political paradigms.

The circular metaphor offers an alternative to the political dead end of our current artificial divisions. With it libertarians who see big government as anethma realize they have cousins at both shoulders not just one. Anarchists, who equally despise big government, do too. Likewise issues like gun control and marijuana legalization can be understood as philosophical cousins. So too for any of the diverse and colorful combinations on the political wheel. Circular logic shows us we are all cousins because, seen through the circular metaphor, all people and their intricately woven individual paradigms are equally distant from the 'center'.