Political dispositions

Latest significant edit: November 21, 2015. Not really significant replacement of "progressual" with "perrective": July 5, 2023.

1. Reformism. 2. Perrec­tivism, "onward-ism."

3. Contemporism. 4. Conservatism, traditionalism.

The above are dispositions, not ideologies. That was why I previously used the word "progressualism." (avoiding from the start the word "progressivism" which seems just too tied to a particular family of ideologies. The word "perrective" comes from Latin pergo pergere perrexi perrectum, to continue, proceed, go on with). Moderatism seems to incline toward contemporism, but I hesitate to make the identification; the two dispositions don't seem quite the same, although some moderates seem to tend to contemporism, not to mention fashionabilism. The contemporist tends to like where things have now gotten to and, in particular, recent innovations. The difference between contemporism and conservativism is not exactly the difference between preferences for the status quo and the status quo ante, respectively. The contemporist thinks things are at an acme. The contemporist does not generally aim to preserve or conserve new things as a state or stasis; the contemporist instead is inclined to seize the day, embrace the new, rather than to reform it or develop it further or preserve it. The conservative doesn't necessarily favor reactionary reversion to an ancien régime or oppose tradition in the current state of its evolution, but does tend to prefer that which has been the established order, as opposed to novelties and changes that have not become deeply rooted and part of the established order.

How have I arrived at the four? In my previous post "Methods of learning" I outlined, among other things, a tetrachotomy of willful attitudes in inquiry. They in turn were extrapolated from other classifications. At this point I've revised both posts. The willful attitudes suggest political attitudes, excessive ones in particular.

(Scroll down to see table)

PARALLEL CORRELATIONS

	Causal principle, with dynamic/static character, as overall temporally oriented:	Willful attitude as method of inquiry (infallibilistic, or insufficiently fallibilistic) Not contrarian per se, but ignoring contrary evidence and views:	Excess in political disposition:	Political dispositionn:
1.	Agency, direct action, with forcefulness, into the almost now, the edge of the future.	Impetuousness of opinion. Forms a prejudice about what the evidence verges on showing. Overactive, over-PROactive, overreaching.	Radicalism (in the usual political sense). Too little disgust, too strong a stomach, for the harm to others that is poised rather feasibly to result. Derided as: beasts, barbarians.	Reformism.
2.	Patience, with endurance, stamina, into the further future.	Pertinacity of opinion. Keeps a prejudice about what the evidence will come to show. Too patient. (C. S. Peirce defined the method of tenacity as the policy of holding to one's first opinion and characterized it as leading to ignoring others' views and contrary evidence as if truth were intrinsically private, not public.)	Programmaticism. Too little fear, too much optimism vis-à-vis the harm to others that is likely going to result. Derided as: true believers.	Perrectivism, "onward-ism" progressivism).
3.	Affectedness, with vigor, from just now, the barely now, the edge of the past.	Smugness, imperturbability, of opinion. Forms a bias from what the evidence now shows.	"Smuggism". Too little pain or sorrow for the harm to others that is resulting. Derided as: pigs.	Contemporism.
4.	Borneness, balance, with stability, settledness, from the further past.	Hideboundness of opinion. Keeps a bias that came from what evidence showed. Too settled. It is like pertinacity but, while pertinacity suggests prejudice (pre-judgment) and tunnel vision in a pursuit, hideboundness suggests bias by old or partial evidence, in an adherence.	Hideboundism. Too little antipathy, resentment, or anger about the harm to others that has resulted. Derided as: oppressors, old mules, dinosaurs, fossils.	Conservatism, traditionalism.

Neither conservatism nor hideboundism is an ideology; the ideological content associated with conservatism varies considerably from country to country, varying with the respective pasts of the countries. Likewise, it would be mistaken to regard all perrectivism or "onward-ism" as having the ideology, somewhat variegated though it is, of the incrementalist version of that which currently could be called progressivism or, in the U.S.A., is called liberalism. Dauntless programmaticists may march society toward unmodifiable goals that many of us would consider regressive rather than progressive. Likewise, not all radicals are leftists.

- posted by The Tetrast, initially @ 4/13/2013 01:43:00 PM [top of post] [top of page] Copyright © BenjaminðA.ðUde11.