An Über-Libertarian (which I am NOT)

In musing on the issue of why people go off on political tangents, my mind wandered to a model that has proven to be helpful in many ways to me and many others: the model of human personality as developed by Jung, Myers, Briggs, Berens, Beebe and others. In particular, I got to thinking about the interactive or social styles model developed by Dr. Linda Berens of Interstrength Associates, which may be redefined as a model of broad leadership styles. Leadership style and political leaning surely have some correlation, even if one can’t predict consistently (so far as I know) what political party one will adopt on that basis.

According to Dr. Berens, people prefer to exercise one of four interactive styles, having the core drives behind that style as basic needs. Some prefer to be “in-charge” (or to follow someone who is). Some prefer to “chart-the-course”. Some prefer to work “behind-the-scenes”. Some prefer to “get-things-going”. (All these terms are registered trademarks of Dr. Berens.) The correlation between each of these four styles and the four outer regions of the chart to the left seems to be straightforward. “In-Charge” people naturally will prefer a “statist” or “authoritarian” approach to politics. People who prefer to “Get-Things-Going” – to inspire on the grassroots level, as it were – will prefer a “libertarian” approach. The other two pairings are a bit trickier to make, but I suggest that those who prefer to work “Behind-The-Scenes” tend to be “conservative” and those who prefer to “Chart-the-Course” tend to be “liberal” (both of those distinctions referring to economics, but by implication to ethical or moral choices).

Of course, this is a hypothesis, and one which can (and should) be tested in principle! Moreover, what one is naturally inclined to do and what one has learned to do as a matter of character are two different things, for character is what one does about one’s personality – and so that will affect where one’s position is on the above chart or on the Political Compass. I may be naturally inclined to a libertarian stance, but in terms of what I aim for in Christian character I am resolutely centrist – and so I consistently show up on the Political Compass (if anything, compared to the American voting populace I’m slightly authoritarian-left by the standards of the test, assuming the difference is statistically significant).

It follows from all this that for a society to be healthy, it must be politically centrist – for if it is not, the needs of most of its population, both among the leaders and among the followers, will not be met and problems will arise. And this says something about the lack of health of most if not all bodies politic (and of many other organizations of all types) in the world today, few of which are in the centrist range.

Blessings in Messiah (ברכות במשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

An Über-Libertarian (which I am NOT)

I never cease to be amazed at the tendency of people to go off on tangents. Consider the chart on the left, which appears to represent the uber-liberatarian political position of one Mr. Nolan, the author of an op-ed column somewhere on the Internet. (I really need to keep better track of my sources!) Just why, exactly, would someone want to be anywhere but in the dead center of such a graph? Why (on the social scale) would one want to be either libertarian or statist, or (on the economic scale) either liberal or conservative? On the other hand, why would one want to pretend (as some do) that there is no “wrong” position on such a chart as this? Doesn’t it make innate sense to have a balance between collective authority and individual freedom (statist/libertarian), and a balance between private property and public welfare (conservative/liberal)?

Perhaps a better-known graph is that put out by The Political Compass in the UK (see also the Wikipedia article). I like its terminology better, because “statist” limits itself to what happens within political states. “Authoritarian” can apply to any organization that emphasizes collective authority over individual freedom, whether it’s a body politic properly speaking or not. It can therefore be a useful way of looking at companies, religions, or any other human societies. Also it puts “authoritarian” more sensibly at the top of the graph, since that social emphasis underlines authority from the top down (whereas a libertarian approach emphasizes authority from the bottom up, in effect).

Either graph is certainly a vast improvement over the over-simplified and outmoded “left-right” line on which political issues are still too often placed. But I believe I have a better model yet. Why not use three axes instead of two? Since the economic axis (conservative/liberal) is such a good predictor of how people will react to other ethical issues, why not make the horizontal x-axis represent the biblical quality of justice? Likewise authority versus liberty matches well with the biblical quality of faith, which takes in both trustfulness and trustworthiness. Let that axis be the vertical z-axis. And to give the “missing dimension” that the various versions of the two-dimensional compass lack, let the other horizontal axis be the y-axis of mercy.

Justice, mercy and faith: these are “the weightier matters of the law” noted by Jesus. And at the very center, the place where everyone should strive to be, the place of tension in the midst of the pulls of the three axes, is love – the love of God above all, but also the love of man.

(Matthew 23:23 NKJV) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.

(Luke 11:42 NKJV) “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.

(Mark 12:28 NKJV) Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”
(Mark 12:29 NKJV) Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD, THE LORD IS ONE.
(Mark 12:30 NKJV) AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ This is the first commandment.
(Mark 12:31 NKJV) And the second, like it, is this: ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
(Mark 12:32 NKJV) So the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He.
(Mark 12:33 NKJV) And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
(Mark 12:34 NKJV) Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” But after that no one dared question Him.

Blessings in Messiah (ברכות במשיח),
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

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The Earth

Some of you my readers have been wondering about the ongoing status of my health. Here is a summary.

For most of my tenure in Houston, Texas, these past ten years, I’ve been treated for bipolar disorder, using an anti-convulsant drug called Depakote. It is less toxic than some other drugs used for treating such clinical mental problems (such as lithium), and from the blood tests on the one hand and my overall well-being on the other, my body seems to have adjusted to it just fine. In fact the original dosage has been lowered somewhat. (More medicine: bad. Less medicine: good.)

The one tradeoff for mental stability has been an increase in weight and in retention of fluids. Right after I started taking Depakote, my body weight started ballooning fifty pounds, with a lot of that going to belly fat. For some time it has stabilized at 238 pounds, and changes in diet and exercise haven’t budged my weight from that spot.

Now that kind of condition is serious enough without the apparent predisposition in my family to heart disease, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and other related conditions. Late last year I was diagnosed with something called “metabolic syndrome”, which as I understand it is kind of a hurricane watch for any and all of those things. Also my kidney and liver functions were becoming problematic according to blood tests. On the next test I was actually diagnosed with diabetes. I was given several medications for high BP, cholesterol, and blood sugar, in addition to recommendations on diet and exercise.

Once I figured out how to fill a long-standing void in my overall diet – getting enough vegetables – I went to a much simpler diet. There was much good about it already, but this improved the diet considerably. So did substituting coconut milk and almond milk for almost all dairy products (save yogurt). And son on my latest blood test, made on Monday, January 25, all the red-flagged areas save one (creatine, I believe) showed a return to normal levels. That means blood pressure, liver enzymes, both kinds of cholesterol, everything.

I’m not out of the woods yet by any means. So long as my neuropsychiactric treatment has to hold my thinking together with chemical baling wire, and so long as the side effects play into the hands of apparently inherited predispositions, I’m always going to have issues with overweight, swelling in my lower legs and elsewhere, and other problems. All else being equal, these issues will shorten my life. But perhaps more can be done to solve the underlying problems than I’ve yet discovered.

–  John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב)

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