justanyone's Journal: Reply to Washington Post "End of the Leftists"

Liberalism is philosophy of openness to change. It is hopeful. It serves broad needs.

The left/right split is artificial. Sociology has a school of thought called spiral dynamics theory, which posits that mindsets fall into several broad categories: nature-worship, authoritarian, oligarchic, consensus-seeking, etc.

These mindsets permeat political thought, and merely putting authoritarians into a rightist camp gives no perspective on their strengths and weaknesses (there are both!).

The left has traditionally been consensus building, but has some nature-worship elements. These conflict! Sprial dynamics (whose greatest success was methodologies for South Africa's peaceful ending of apartheid) can give names for these groups.

The groups have not changed in millenia. A spectrum of modes of thought will always exist.