No, no, this has nothing to do with Anders Breivik murder campaigns. Nor is it even a reference to Mao Tse-Tung. No, the title simple refers to the spread out pattern of my political beliefs, much like the shot pattern generated by a shotgun being fired at a target, as the illustration gives example to.
As you can see from it, most of the shot (dots) are concentrated around the center but they do spread out in all directions, with rogue impacts appearing far left and far right, upwards and downwards. These represent individual topics or cases. There are 4 basic vectors here in this example but it can be as complex as you want it to be.
I know some people who would describe themselves as sitting inside one quarant of the circle, completely. From my interactions of these people, they show very ability for independent thought. They show no individuality, no free thinking, they must consult someone elses book of rules to know what to think (see: religious nuts and "thems holy Bible words"). They can even sometimes show strange paradoxes in their stance where they go against what they actually stand for (take for example, hardcore liberalists: "You have the right to choose; let no one to choose for you; you MUST choose yourself!").
Look at an example website many use to discover their political stance in life [http://www.politicalcompass.org/test] You'll see many of these on the internet. You are asked a bunch of questions and then the average all your answers and place your dot in a quadrant. Rubbish! I am not an averaged dot within a two dimensional plane! That's another dot on my shotgun blast of political beliefs: "am not a single dot person". Thanks.Some people who sit on one side of the fence often have a revelation and decide that because they don't agree with one thing in their political stance, they throw the baby out with the bath water, and jump sides completely, which is really only changing the flag on a ship that is always sinking. Whereas with a system like the one I've outlined, beliefs are always moving, always being challenged by internal opposing forces. The only problems arise are when two opposing views seem to garner equal value and a thought process can spiral off into dichotomy. For better or worse, this will never happen to "belt and braces" supporters of one side, because their "faith" in a political stance guides them blindly through all paradoxes. I would rather have a stance (or lack there of) where I am challanged to make up my own mind, rather than having it made up for me, by blind ignorant loyalty. And now, an animation of a NASA cat...
2 comments:
I have always been bewildered by people who attempt to frame their political beliefs, social values, etc. within neatly defined labels/descriptions. And I do get the sense that a lot of those people operate in a way similar to the way you have described, i.e., people assigning themselves political labels and then trying to conform to the right types of opinions that go along with the description, or 'right way of thinking' that they have adopted; they are always trying to make sure that they are thinking on the right side of a projected idealistic divide that they are desperate to maintain in a completely simplistic fashion, even in the face of many confusing contradictions, hypocrisies and double standards. So many of those people are firmly at home within prescribed sets of expected views, sets that are somehow meant to cover extensively a wide variety of topics and issues. Often the drive to maintain certain pre-ordained approaches to issues is as a result of these prescribed sets of views being attached to and influenced by social links, work obligations, religious guidance, etc. Arguably, more often it is as a result of the widespread unwillingness to expend the sufficient energy required to actually challenge and reassess positions on various issues, i.e., thinking for oneself.
"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind."
-William Blake
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