Political Spectrum
left vs right
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When it comes to politics, perhaps most people think in terms of left vs right. This is sometimes called the political spectrum (by Britannica, Harvard and Khan Academy for examples) and at times called the ideological spectrum (by Stanford University and Pew Research Center for examples). There are varying versions of the political spectrum as we will see.
We recommend that you read this section of the Culture War Encyclopedia along with the the other ways of mapping political standings that we list at the bottom.
The political spectrum / ideological spectrum has been referred to as
the old-fashioned left-right linear model
and that, as we’ll see, starting in at least the mid 1900’s, some have found it more useful to map political opinions on more than one dimension. For example, in a book printed in 1954, the following 1 dimensional models are used as part of a suggestion that such models are inadequate and that 2 dimensional models (like the political compass) are more useful.
We will return to that below. Before we move on, enjoy this meme from @SwipeWright...
William James’ Spectrum - Tender-Minded (Introvert) to Tough-Minded (Extrovert)
William James (1842-1910) was an American psychologist, philosopher, founder of functionalism in psychology, leader of pragmatism in philosophy (according to Britannica), author of The Principles of Psychology with Henry Holt (1890), The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and many other works (according to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
William James’ Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking was published in 1907. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
James classifies philosophers according to their temperaments: in this case “tough-minded” or “tender-minded.” The pragmatist is the mediator between these extremes, someone, like James himself, with “scientific loyalty to facts,” but also “the old confidence in human values and the resultant spontaneity, whether of the religious or romantic type” (P 17).
Under Lecture I of his book, he writes of 2 different kinds of “mental make-up” each with their own set of traits. He writes,
I will write these traits down in two columns. I think you will practically recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean if I head the columns by the titles 'tender-minded' and 'tough-minded' respectively.
THE TENDER-MINDED
Rationalistic (going by 'principles'), Intellectualistic, Idealistic, Optimistic, Religious, Free-willist, Monistic, Dogmatical.
THE TOUGH-MINDED
Empiricist (going by 'facts'), Sensationalistic, Materialistic, Pessimistic, Irreligious, Fatalistic, Pluralistic, Sceptical.
Later, we will see psychologist Hans Eysenck suggest that James’ tender-minded person would be an introvert and his tough-minded person would be an extrovert if we were to use the introvert/extrovert spectrum.
A bit further on, W. James writes,
Each of you probably knows some well-marked example of each type, and you know what each example thinks of the example on the other side of the line. They have a low opinion of each other. Their antagonism, whenever as individuals their temperaments have been intense, has formed in all ages a part of the philosophic atmosphere of the time. It forms a part of the philosophic atmosphere to-day. The tough think of the tender as sentimentalists and soft-heads. The tender feel the tough to be unrefined, callous, or brutal.
Of course, William James’ model is about psychology not politics. However, Hans Eysenck brings it into his Psychology of Politics (1954) as we’ll see.
We recommend that you also see the following sections of the
horseshoe theory (coming soon)
political compass (coming soon)
double horseshoe (figure 8) (coming soon)
political triangle (coming soon)
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