One of the most devastating indictments of the manner in which political "science" courses are taught in our colleges and universities today is the muck of contradictions that passes for the notion of a "political spectrum."
A "spectrum," according to Webster's, is defined as "a continuous range or entire extent." Observe that this definition does not designate the identity of the phenomenon, but only the manner in which it makes its nature manifest: a varying characteristic that forms a sequence of intermediate values between two opposing extremes.
Without those two opposing extremes the concept of a "spectrum" collapses into insensibility: one would never speak, for instance, of a rainbow with two red edges, or of a thermometer with a boiling point at each end.
In the area of the humanities, however - in ethics and in politics - such logical rigor and intellectual precision are completely disregarded: In my college political "science" class, I was taught that the political spectrum consists of intermediate levels of coercion between the two "opposing" extremes of: dictatorship - and dictatorship! According to the textbook used in my classes, the far-left position on the political spectrum is occupied by socialism and communism, while the far-right position is taken up by Nazism and fascism.
These so-called "opposing" extremes, though, are not opposites at all, but merely different ways of practicing the same thing - the Total State. All four of these systems share the same identical fundamental characteristics: a government-controlled economy and financial system; slave labor; political repression; a government-controlled press; and imperialistic foreign policies.
To teach, as our political "science" professors do, that such concepts cover a "continuous range or entire extent" of all possible political systems is absurd; they might as well claim that a rainbow can have two red edges. As Ellsworth Toohey of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead once remarked, however: "Do not bother to examine the nature of a folly; ask instead what it accomplishes."
What this particular folly accomplishes should be obvious: since there no longer exists any spot on the "political spectrum" that designates the political system of freedom, i.e., of laissez-faire capitalism, it is only a matter of time until the very concepts of freedom and capitalism become obliterated as well. By structuring the political spectrum around varying degrees and types of institutionalized coercion, collectivist political "scientists" thereby eliminate the question "Freedom or dictatorship?" and replace it with "What kind of dictatorship?"
Once this switch has been made, does it really make a difference whether one chooses a dictatorship of the "left" or one of the "right"? In coming to such a choice, one has already granted victory to the collectivists by rejecting or ignoring the only social system capable of stripping them of their power: capitalism.
The above is a good indication of the manner in which the humanities fail to apply the principles of reason and logic that have been so successful in the physical sciences. If this process were to begin, the result in terms of the political spectrum would be legitimately opposing extremes: i.e., coercive collectivism of all varieties on the left and voluntaristic individual freedom (capitalism) on the right.
In such a spectrum, it quickly becomes clear that both of America's major political parties occupy spots to the left of center: like the variances in the forms of the Total State, they merely differ in whether they would enforce "social" (Republican) or "economic" (Democrat) control. In reality, however, no distinction exists between "social" and "economic" freedom: Both are essential components of personal freedom, and control is control. Does it come as any surprise, therefore, that both parties are moving farther and farther to the left with each passing year?
If you wish to challenge this, it is first necessary to challenge the fallacious notions such control is based on: a political "spectrum" rooted in non-reality and a lack of respect for, or even a recognition of, the value of unforced human action. This is what the battle for freedom demands, and nothing less will do.
Bradley Harrington is a former United States Marine and a free-lance writer who lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
