Nolan’s Ideological Plane

Nolan’s Ideological Plane

Nolan’s Diagram is built upon two basic distinctions: economic freedom vs moral freedom (termed ‘civil liberties’ below), and individualism vs collectivism. The first distinction creates the basis for the ideological space, and the second its orientation.

The bipolarity between individual freedom and collective freedom was discussed by Rousseau. It is at the centrepiece of every ideological debate, be it in the realms of economic or moral liberties.

Once the basis is in place, it is pretty clear where to put the cardinal points:

This completes the diagram. What goes inside it is a mere application. It may be applied to schools of political thought, to politicians, cartoon characters, colours… anything. It is – and this where the Political Compass gets it right – a compass. It may be used to orient any map (with greater or lesser success). Here is how it may be applied to ideological currents:

Note: Liberal here denotes the original English sense of the word. The Political Compass, being American, uses the term Libertarian, though that is a very particular sort of Liberalism. It is a 19th century reinterpretation of the original 18th century Liberalism, which, as part of the Enlightenment, opposed theocentrism, favouring anthropocentrism, and thus defendeding the unshackling of individual freedoms from the order of tradition and lineage (i.e. aristocracy).

One way to read the diagram above is first to note that the currents at the top and at the bottom of the diagram clearly side with either individualism and collectivism on everything, with no distinction. That is interesting, because it shows that there is no such thing as a left-wing or a right-wing authoritarian regime. Dictators may rise to power with political discourses from either side, but once they’re there, they are indistinguishable. Indeed, how different were Hitler and Mussolini from Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot? Not much.

The same applies to Liberalism. Again, we use the original, historically consistent, sense of the word. One may be tempted to brand the utopian liberalism (i.e. libertarianism) of the Austrian School of Economics, or even the neoliberalism of Friedman and the Chicago School, as right-wing. If we only look at the economic liberty vector, since they mostly speak about Economics, we may indeed get that impression. However, if we then look at their stance on drug legalization, for instance, that view gets murky. This is what is confused in the Political Compass.

Nolan’s diagram makes the distinction between Right and Left ideologies crystal clear: Right is economic individualism with moral collectivism, and Left is moral individualism with economic collectivism.

One may be tempted to also label Capitalism and Socialism as Right and Left respectively. That is only half true, and exemplifies the currents on the sides of the square, in distinction to the more clearly identifiable ones on the corners. Capitalism and Socialism are primarily forms of economic organisation: the first works from individual ownership of means of production, the second from their collective ownership. Capitalists and socialists may be ambivalent, or side inconsistently in the realm of moral freedoms.

In actual fact, Nolan’s diagram is a spherical surface (though he would probably not agree with it). The replacement of the state for the market breeds a totalitarian beaurocracy that creates its own plutocracy, and the replacement of the market for the state breeds a plutocracy that creates its own totalitarian bureaucracy. Too far East is already West. It’s like looking at the Earth sideways (there is no reason why the North Pole ought to be on the top, and the South on the bottom). By looking at the diagram this way, it becomes clear that anarchism and totalitarianism are not the pursuit of an end state, but a direction. They are rather defined by walking away from something: anarchism walks away from state coercion, and totalitarianism from private coercion. It’s like walking with the sun on one’s back when going West in the morning.

The reason why Nolan’s diagram is so effective is because what is underneath it taps into very fundamental truths known to humankind for millennia. In one instance, the diagram correlates directly with Jung’s personality types, popularised by Isabel Myers and Brigitte Briggs in their Type Inventory (MBTI). One may indeed argue that ideological inclinations reflect personality types. Right-wingers stereotypically prize discipline and merit; left-wingers compassion and justice. While Jung’s includes 16 types, David Keirsey, Isabel Myers’ student, classes them into four, which he correctly correlates with a long tradition of temperament classifications, which has been handed down or rediscovered throughout the centuries ever since Plato and Galen. In Plato’s terms – Keirsey’s choice of terminology – the four temperaments are: Artisans, Guardians, Rationalists and Idealists, or SP, SJ, NT and NF respectively in Myers-Briggs taxonomy. There is plenty of literature out there on what these mean, so I won’t reiterate it. But, I will point out a key insight Keirsey makes: that the vectors that determine these quadrants are the use of tools and the use of language. And indeed, as he emphasises, these are the two aptitudes that have ensured the survival of the human species (he says they are unique to us, but now we know dolphins and whales are eloquent, and obviously apes are pretty good with tools).

Diagram in David Keirsey’s Please Understand Me II

On either of these two vectors – the use of tools and the use of language – Keirsey identifies a bipolarity: abstract and concrete use of language, cooperative and utilitarian use of tools. To utilitarians, tools are a piece of technology that helps them to accomplish a task. To cooperators, tools are a means of marshalling group effort towards achieving the same task. In other words, cooperators emphasise the collective use of tools, and indeed prefer those that require teamwork, while utilitarians emphasise their individual application. The correlation with the bipolarity in the economic liberty vector in Nolan’s diagram is now pretty clear: Idealists (NF) and Guardians (SJ) are economic collectivists, Rationalists (NT) and Artisans (SP) are economic individualists.

It remains to show on which side each temperament is of the civil liberty axis. Guardians (SJ) are stalwarts of order and good morals. On the other hand, they are averse to the State meddling in the affairs of their family. They are prototypical conservatives. Their preference for concrete language translates into very specific orders from that authority, who tells them, in no uncertain terms, what everyone ought to be doing. That is very different from the allegorical language that inspire Idealists (NF). Hence why they are on the individualist side of the civil liberties axis. Allegorical language, although shared by many, only makes sense once decoded internally by each individual.

Among economic individualists, the correlation between civil individualism and language preference, reverses. Artisans (SP), in spite of being artistic and apparently ethereal, work with very concrete languages: paint, wood, stone, voice, the body… It is the Rationalist (NT) who works with ideas, theories, strategic plans, architectural blueprints… How are then Idealists (NF) and Rationalists (NT), and Guardians (SJ) and Artisans (SP), diametrically opposed in the ideological space? While the Artisan’s language is concrete, her emphasis is on self-expression. The Rationalist, on the other hand, thinks and talks through ideas, concepts. Rather than these being self expression, they are all-encompassing constructs, plans, systems. They are therefore about creating collective order. Keirsey’s terms for Jung’s types under Plato’s Rationalists are: Architects, Engineers, Strategists, and Field Marshals. They are about organising society. They will do that, independently, in their own terms – thankyouverymuch – hence why they are economic individualists, but their intent still is to construct social order. This is why we quite often find Right-wing people to be disheartened and hard-headed. They are not inhumane; they just have their own way to go about it.

There is, however, a more fundamental reason why both Nolan’s diagram and Plato’s types work: they are a 2nd order representation of masculinity and femininity. The sexual dichotomy is the cornerstone of most, if not all, mystical traditions, be it yin and yang in taoism, cheved and gevurah in cabbala, Set and Ra, the waters from above and the waters from below. Feminine and masculine are the poles in each of the axis in Nolan’s diagram: feminine is collectivistic, masculine is individualistic. This is a 2nd order representation because it combines 2 dimensions: 2 x 2 = 4. Jung’s personality type theory has 4: 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16. The I Ching is of 6th order: 2 ^ 6 = 64. Leibniz was one of the first in Europe who had access to a translated version of the I Ching. He was absolutely astounded by for he immediately realised that this was a universal language, which he termed characteristica universalis. He thus created the binary system that we have grown so accustomed to see being used in computers.

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