Seven element political lens As this shit sling fest of the election ramps up to the final stretch and the majority of Americans have staked their claim for, against or just apathetic toward whatever candidate least offends them, I put some thought into the path leading us here. What makes someone a Democrat, Republican or neither? What is the fundamental belief structure that would inspire someone to lean one way or the other? Is it just cultural exposure or rebellion against one? What are the common threads that hold these seemingly disparate political parties together and apart? Lower taxes, de-regulating everything except freedom of the bedroom, guns for all, and razor thin definitions of what is truly an American versus endless social programs paid by heavy taxation supporting a nanny state saving an owl and off limits patches of land while letting babies perish. To unravel, simplify and understand more clearly I tried applying the same concepts I use in designing loudspeaker systems to the political parties and opinions. For sound system design my list is: Size Weight Max output Fidelity Aesthetics And cost How these factors are prioritized will define the final product and how well it performs for the desired applications. Each item somehow weighs against the rest in such a way as it is impossible to optimize all simultaneously. One must make sacrifices of one or more to realizes gains in others. For example, to make something loud it will get heavy, expensive and tend not to sound as good. To make it small sacrifices volume, cost, output and fidelity. Can political parties be defined purely by how they prioritize a simple list of priorities wherein each party strives for an optimization? How about the list: Shelter and Possessions Self Family Community Country Humanity Planet And now let’s put those in the opposite order as well: Planet Humanity Country Community Family Self Shelter and possessions Now of course all the things listed have importance and we are constantly faced with devoting energy, finances and concerns to these and often need to make decisions about which is more important. If you put the health of the planet high on the list and feel that making a sacrifice for humanity as a whole is important even if it diminishes your personal and family life and possibly increases dangers to yourself, perhaps that is a tendency is toward Democrat. From what I can tell, if you put possessions, self and family first and minimize sacrifice for the betterment of humanity as a whole and are dismissive of pollution impacting the health of the planet, the tendency is toward Republican. Following these concepts further out to their extremes, putting planet first crushes potentially huge profits to save seemingly useless critters. Putting humanity first requires taxing sacrifices of time and money to try and reduce the endless poverty disease and hunger. Putting ones own self and family first and foremost with planet and humanity down list, may inspire one to give little and instead focus on acquiring as much as possible along with methods to defend the stockpile. And it seems that what we see from both sides of our two main political parties are accusations and fears. Fear of big government taxing away hard earned monet to spend elsewhere and outlawing the guns needed to defend against enemies abound. While the other side fears a plummet into a dog eat dog world of ruthlessness lacking compassion for the planet and humanity as a whole. There are people that put an extreme amount of importance on a few items and disregard the remainder. Someone willing to risk a life to save a tree, someone who is willing to poison a river to increase profits, or to take their own and lives of others to attempt to empower a religious belief they believe with benefit their community of like minded people. Not unlike how one can look at a speaker system and analyze the priorities used in the design, one can look at a person or political party and analyze the priorities by their votes and positions A rotation of the list can offer some insight into other political belief systems as well: Country Community Family Self Shelter and possessions Planet Humanity In this prioritization with county first and humanity last the tendency would be towards world domination at the expense of the environment and outside individuals. That order can be mixed in differing ways: Country Humanity Planet Shelter and possessions Community Family Self And you end up with more of a socialist angle with a country dedicated towards improving humanity as a whole, looking after the planet, perhaps focusing on non wasteful shelter and possessions It is by knowing one’s own prioritization and using this or other list of priorities as a lens to view others that we are able to help guide wise decisions and understand others.
by Dave Rat
October 15, 2016 at 11:44AM
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