Personality defines political viewpoints ...

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I believe that personality defines political viewpoints. I have this uncanny ability to determine someone's political leanings due to the way they present themselves. I can't do this through online posts, but I can do it when I get to know someone for a bit. There are just certain tendencies that predispose an individual to the left or right of the political spectrum. And I can understand why so many aspies tend to portray themselves as libertarians, whether on the left or right, because of some of the facets of their own condition.

Most right-wing people tend to be angry, self-centered, egocentric, if not narcissistic, likely paranoid, and quite hateful to others whom they see as different. That's why, after all, many right-wingers have a tendency to be racist, fascist and classist. They tend to despise the poor, are inherently capitalist and have a strong-armed view of freedom in its utmost literal sense, and believe that most laws are defined for the sole purpose of social control. There is an exception to their view on laws, however. These types are more or less paranoid, meaning they are greatly influenced by impressions of crime and fear. In many ways, they are quite afraid themselves, even fearful of the future, and have a tendency to blame everyone else for their problems, despite the fact that they tend to see themselves as inherently capable of surviving in a competitive world. Many of these types are highly competitive, even prone to jealousy, and possibly quite rigid. People who have trouble surviving are seen as a nemesis to them. Some right-wingers express some differences in this, but for the most part ... they tend to be quite selfish and a bit paranoid. Right-wingers tend to be quite organized, prone to angry outbursts and very controlling of others. Right-wingers follow a strict moral code, for the most part, which tends to be based on some sort of religiosity and has little to do with rational perception. This moral code provides the system in which helps to reduce the paranoia they live with on an almost daily basis. They are quite irrational, for the most part. The extremes of right-wing ideologies can be found in nazi, neo-nazi and ultra-religious groupings.

Most left-wing people tend to be compassionate, possibly self-absorbed but not entirely self-centered, less paranoid and accepting of others whom they see as different. They do not have a tendency to be racist, fascist or classist. They can be, however, just as controlling as some of their right-wing counterparts, primarily if they think their techniques of control can be used to condition our society to a better place. Their techniques of control have little to do with jealousy, egocentricity or paranoid ideations, but rather has more to do with an incessant desire to help and protect others out of an inherent need for moral semblance. This moral code differs from that of the right-wing, for it has less to do with religiosity and more to do with protection and understanding. Marxists and many authoritarian communists fit this profile, for they simply wanted a society free of competition and class, possibly taken to an irrational level. Left-wing people are a bit less organized than their right-wing counterparts, and because of their high moral values in terms of caring for others, they tend to be more visual thinkers. It may even be stated that some left-wing people may actually have learning disabilities, problems with emotional connections and possibly take things much more serious than many of their right-wing counterparts.

It should be noted that there is a high possibility that the hemispheres of the brain, left and right, may work in opposition with the political aspirations of a person. A left-winger has more of a possibility to be more of a visual thinker and quite disorganized, and that would mean that he is right-brained. A right-winger, on the other hand, tends to be less of a visual thinker and a tendency for better organization, therefore he is left-brained.

- Ray M -

I can't quite put my finger on it. But that whole spiel strikes me as a load of crap.

You could determine a person's political leanings by how they feel about who should take care of whom.

Right wingers feel that everyone should take care of themselves. The extreme expression of this is a dictatorship with one person at the top, using everybody else to take care of him.

Left wingers feel that everybody is responsible for looking after themselves. The extreme expression of this is communism. Which looks a hell of a lot like a dictatorship, ie if you go all the way round to the right and a little bit more you have communism, or all the way round to the left and a bit more you have a dictatorship.

This is possibly (haven't thought this through properly), linked to the attempt to suppress all opposition to the government. Each government will argue that this is done because they know best how to look after everyone and anyone who opposes that must prefer anarchy to the status quo (this feels frighteningly familiar).

Anyway Robert Mugabe - extreme right wing, is ruling badly over extreme chaos in Zimbabwe.

And China - extreme(ish) left wing (before they went semi capitalist) seems to be extremely ordered. And Unions - for something a little less left wing, also seem quite well organised. Is this because they are run by right wing dictators? I don't think so.

George Bush (extremish right wing) seems extremely disorganised - just look at the mess in Iraq. Or the 30 million+ poor people in the USA. Or the huge foreign debt ie money owed to the extremely well organised Chinese.

While political idealogies do stem from personality and one's moral compass... thing is they are dependent on the state of ones environment. The reason they both "don't work", is based on the fact that they could only function in theoretically perfect environments, i.e. all people, technologies are intelligent/efficient enough to fill all roles, etc.

The reason capitalism functions is simply because they have a monopoly on force, mindshare and propaganda in the school systems. There are plenty of people, especially the poor, who could get together and overthrow the system, hence police, spies, and other propaganda measures are needed and used in the media at large to keep people thinking "capitalism or society, is A. OK!", notice on the american news it's always about "the economy", like the bloody thing is NEVER fixed, and unemployment always exists. That is a serious defect of capitalism, lack of full utilization. I'd rather pay the unemployed to go back to school then to keep collecting UE, or force them into minmum wage jobs for X industry.

Most people are not fit to run their societies, modern societies have become so complicated that you need years to train specialists to maintain, produce, invent, research, and keep society running. It's my firm belief that augmented humans or technology will one day totally run societies of the future since decisions and enormous amounts of data will become so enormous that new types of intelligences and methods will be needed to analyze and process it.

Capitalism works simply because it forces people into job slots to maintain society, if an alien ship showed up one day and promised all the poor and middle class people everything they could dream of on their ship, the rich would realize that their riches mean nothing without people .... money means nothing if you have no people to control support social infrastructure and your lavish lifestyle.

Fact is, the rich are just as dependent on the working class and poor as anyone, if you took those classes away and killed them off tomorrow, their would be division amongst the riches into new rich, middle and new poor classes.

Not true. Circumstance and environment largely determine political standings. In my part of Canada, people have long overwhelmingly voted conservative. Because we have such great economic growth, there is a huge influx of Canadians from liberal voting areas of Canada. In the last 20-30 years, has voting shifted to the left? The population has doubled... no.

In my area, people vote conservative, even when that goes against the bulk of Canadians, against the reigning government. Wouldnt it make sense to vote for the party that is going to win, so you can share in the kickbacks? Do people make radical personality shifts when they move 2000 miles? Probably not. But they certainly change how they vote.

I can generally determine ones political leanings by listening to the way they talk too. From what they post as well, but some people are rather complex and are hard to place.

And not only that, but they might vote for one particular party even if they don't agree with many of their positions. I mean, there is no (major at least) party that fits all my views. All too often things become far too over simplified. I don't buy into all this binary nonsense. Two (generally) radical positions that are mutually exclusive with each other, that cannot possibly coexist. The universe is a far too complicated place for me to buy into that. And human beings especially.

I am not so arrogant as to think that I am the only complicated person ever to have existed, or that only my side is the one with depth of understanding and wisdom.



I also think that you're thinking of the Neoconservatives. The extreme far right. I think in less twisted conservatives, if those traits are there at all, it is not to such extreme degrees. To the point at which it's not that much of a problem.

I don't like conservatism mind you, but I don't hate Conservatives.

Just the vicious ones.

Mind you the left is full of idiots too. Far too many of us don't give much thought as to where money actually comes from. Then again the right has a lot of this same problem too in a slightly different form (by paying smaller wages, less money is available to be spent.)

Many people are afraid to say anything that might offend someone, and still manage to be prejuidiced. There are ways to express thoughts that could potentially be considered bigoted without actually being condesended. If you really want to be open minded and tolerant? Figure out how to get that across.


I'm pretty angry, self centered, egocentric, narcissistic and paranoid too. But then again, I also do genuinely care about other people. I definatly don't have problems with empathy.

What are my political leanings then?

I would say in reaction to this it is why I personally have what I would call three differnt levels of politics within my brain. The lowest being what I will say in public debate and discussion and is the most what I perceieve to be practical and workable. The second is my ideological standing that perhaps i'll discuss with close friends and colleagues that are maybe off in day dream land in terms of achievment. my third is my deep personal believes, convictions, ethics and morality that are unique to myself that form the basis for the way I interpret the world outside.

That is not to say I hide my believes or that I am inheritantly dishonest in my politics it is the way you have to adapt in the body politic. If you are openly right you are a nationalist f**kwit if you are openly left your a socialist crack pot in the media spotlight at this moment in time in the UK. Just look at the flak ken livingston recieves, its very sad for a mass media to be so openly biased like that. I remember during the elections for him to become mayor he was openly accused of being a socialist i thought that was so pathetic

I considered the idea of left/right wing correlating to right/left brain a long time ago, but then I realized.. speaking in generalities, left wingers and right wingers are more or less equally emotional and (ir)rational, but in different ways.

Left wingers are emotional with their compassions, and rational with their not hating that which they are unfamiliar with. Right wingers are emotional with their fears and insecurities, and rational with their practical ideas of improving certain things in a strictly logical sense.
Just to say a few examples.




"If I don't survive, tell my wife, 'hello.'"
-one of the neutral guys from Futurama

Aeturnus, sounds more than a little slanted to me but whatever. I had a lengthy reply reposted on this for about 10 or 15 minutes, part of the conservative view (or at least my own, but its way too open to what I think would be blatent misunderstanding and hatemail. Just take it that we have good intentions, want a better world just like you do, and are mostly good people as well but we just have a different belief and understanding about the human condition and human nature overall. That kind of gap in understanding though is something I, when I really think about it, just can't be bridged.

I must take exception to this. I am all of these things (except hateful), and I consider myself a left-winger.

Here in Sweden there are extremist muslim immigrants who openly threat Sweden and the Western world. If you criticise them and say that they ought to go back where they came from and fight their "Jihad" there, you're seen upon as a right extremist...

I have to agree with techstep. Both sides of the political spectrum (yeah, it's a spectrum) want a better world and a better place for people to live. They just can't agree about how to get there and how that better place should look.

Also, Aeturnus, it seems like you're saying all this good stuff about left-wingers (which I beg to differ on, but it's fine with me if you want to say how good they are), but you never mentioned one good thing about right-wingers. It almost seems like you're inviting a flame war to start with your post and I'm almost surprised that one hasn't already.

Yeah, many conservatives can be a part of the "ultra-religious" groups, but they aren't as bad as people are led to believe. The media (at least in the US; I'm not sure about elsewhere in the world) is largely controlled by the liberals, so they get to report on everything and shove their ideas down everyone else's throats.

In my experience, far left liberals and far right conservatives only materially differ in one way... what they're trying to shove down everyone else's throat.

Hahahha, word....