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)

