Lit Jedi. . . with a Political Compass?!

Initially I considered trying something like this in the JCC, but for now, I thought it would be interesting to see how it works out here instead, based around a fictional environment.

In order to make any sense out of this, let me take a minute to provide a little background, particularly for those who may not have been around as long as some of us (although I'm sure wild_karrde or some pre-2000 nutter is still willing to call me a newb ). During my time in Lit I've seen a fair amount of quirky or wonkish discussion threads. We've had theories about the identity of characters who have died, like The Ludicrous Proposal, or may die, as in the case of Han Dying in TUF. Some are more of a philosophical, ethical, or spiritual nature, like Magnum Opus, Stand Firm, Dead Horse and Charles' Essay on the Force. In the realm of foreign affairs, economics, and military might, Brett_Bass raised some interesting questions and, in my opinion, one of the more interesting theories in the Thrawn-Palpatine Connection. Others were formulated around an unusually quirky topic that was considered by some to be a necessary discussion meta discussion (or at least it felt that way at the time), but were intentionally derailed by an upstanding and notable member of the community. . . . There are also those that it's probably best that we simply forget in their entirety.

There have also been a large number of threads devoted to contrasting the views and actions of the various martial, political, and economic powers in the SW EU--too many to list. As I recall though, these threads tended to focus on the macro: contrasting and arguing the merits of political factions and spiritual groups, or various governments. When you analyze the individuals, however, we see a wide range of variation in philosophical, spiritual, or political views, often irrespective of their current allegiance or affiliation (e.g. Jedi, Sith, Empire, Republic, etc.)

For those unfamiliar with the Political Compass or Political Spectrum, the basic concept is that the traditional left-right framework too often used (particularly in the United States) to categorize political views is too narrow of a scope. The idea is that a four-quadrant graph can help better illustrate one's political and economic views by more clearly separating social issues from economic issues. Usually around election season I'll often go and retake these quizzes to get a rough idea of how much my political views have changed over time, or just go look at the old Political Compass thread from the JCC, where Jello was only like two points away from Hitler on the authoritarian axis and have a good laugh.

As a way to visualize contrasting interpretations of certain characters and to potentially jump start new discussions, I thought it be would be interesting to make use of the Political Spectrum Quiz as a means to quantitatively depict our views. The basic concept boils down to this: take the quiz as if you were representing one of the Star Wars character's political and economic views and post the graph you're given at the end of the quiz.

I think part of the reason I came up with this is that I happened to see one of the deleted scenes from ANH where Biggs and Luke were talking about how the Empire had nationalized industries in the core worlds, or something to that effect. Then I began to wonder, how much do we know about economics and social issues in SW? Basic questions such as, "Was there minimum wage in the Empire?" "What kind of restrictions on speech and expression were there?" "What kind of system of taxation is there?" and so on . . .

I realize that there are some questions on the quiz that may not necessarily be appropriate for the GFFA, or there are those in which we don't have enough information to properly attempt at an answer, but the reason I chose to use the Political Spectrum as opposed to the Political Compass usually seen over in the JCC is that the Political Spectrum allows one to simply skip over entire questions if they don't like the wording or aren't applicable. At the end the day, this isn't supposed to be a perfect representation of course--just something that could be fun. As a favor, please note which questions you skipped if you can remember them.

I'll start us off with HIM, Emperor Palpatine:



Questions skipped: Anything to do with Abortion and Gay Rights. The questions dealing with Unions were essentially answered with an educated guess but not given a high weighting.

 

We actually do know there were unions in the Empire (at least the late Empire) as one of the Crimson Empire councilors was a leader of alien organized labor.

Also from TFU we know that there is both the term "fascism" in the SW galaxy, and that it's associated with Palpatine and the Empire. Would be really interested to see the in-universe background on that...

Anyway, this is a really cool topic, and kudos for it!

 

I can't help but doubt any system that places the immortal emperor of all existence that close to the center. Though Jello two points away from Hitler sounds about right.

 

That probably has more to do with my lack of knowledge on the Empire. I moderated a few answers on social issues and had to skip three or four questions that weren't relevant, which may have helped skew things a little bit more.

 

Somehow Palpatine ends up slightly on the left?

 

Palpatine is a classical fascist with the Empire built on combining military and corporate power.

Jedi seem to be largely apolitical as a monastic order but for their support of Democacy and Civil Liberties.

 

I'm not that surprised about Palpatine there. He wasn't exactly a man of political convictions. Did the Empire have all that many convictions other than "Aliens and ladyfolk suck" and "Do what we say or we kill you"?

 

Nationalizing industries isn't exactly right-wing . . .

 

Nationalizing industries that answer only to him isn't exactly left-wing.

 

The big issue is that modern day "Right and Left" are kind of ambiguous. Republicans in the USA started as the Anti-Slavery Party, founded the EPA under Nixon, and changed under Reagan. Left and Right also mean something quite different in Europe and Australia.

Palpatine's politics match something born from Nixon, Hitler, and Caesar Augustus according to George. It's not something that exists on a normal spectrum.

 

Interesting idea. Cooper, the thing with the graph is that it is skewed to the middle. As a politician, Palpatine HAD to keep some of his designs more to the middle, or the Senate would have recognized his extreme ideology and not gone along with it. He needed the Senate in the beginning to legitimize his role as Emperor.

 

That's an excellent point. Keep in mind my interpretation only turned out to be a tad left of center. It's not like I'm saying he's Nelson Mandela.

Give it a shot yourself, if you don't mind. I'd like to see what we could make of this.

Charles:

Admittedly, the United States' political parlance in particular is pretty confusing to the rest of the world.

EDIT: Oh. . . one other thing to everyone: I probably should have made this explicitly clear in the opening post, but the Political Spectrum Quiz's left-right axis is, by their definition capitalism vs socialism. The extreme left is supposed to be pure socialism. The extreme right is supposed to be unfettered capitalism.

 

Yeah, but it's the parties that swapped, not the idea of left or right.
You notice on the graph, that nationalizing the industried is what shift him left. Socialism as it's defined to us is a left tendency.

 

Palpatine's nationalization of industries is also done sporadically, though, as he also gave massive political incentives to corporations including anarcho-capitalist states.

 

That seems to be an appropriate position for Mothma.

 

While we're focusing on the economic aspects, does anyone know what the go-to-guide for economics, law, and political science is?

 

Yes, socialism is in fact a lefty notion. But we're talking about an evil wizard who was basically a solipsist. He was a psychotic too. He nationalized industry because capitalism was a challenge to him and his personal empire. Yet he's still technically a lefty?

 

Here's the thing, don't confuse being a tyrant with being a socialist, there's a reason that the graph has two axes. (axis? What's the plural of axis?) Lenin and Stalin were both about as far left on the board as you can get, with wanting the State to own EVERYTHING. You can be both a Leftist AND a tyrant. Going back to Lenin, he had some very 'left' ideas: equal rights for women, universal sufferage, mandatory schooling, etc. Just don't confuse that with individual freedom. Women had, in theory, the same rights as men; it's just that those rights did NOT include free speech, the right to assemble, or right of habeas corpus.

 

I'm inclined to think Palpatine was a little to the right and at the top of the authoritarian axis. Mostly because of the CSA.

 

CSA?

 

Corporate Sector Authority, I assume.

 

Corporate Sector Authority.

 

I get the argument. I get the mechanics of the quiz. I just don't see Sith Lord Palpatine on the left side when someone...(wait for it) like Paul Ryan would be on the right side.

 

What kind of information do we have on which industries the Empire nationalized and which it left alone? Was there any kind of criteria used when it came to nationalization? It's been a long time since I read any of the books, but I remember something about the HoloNet being tightly controlled. Was that nationalized or just heavily regulated? I'll have to dig through the WEG library to see if I can find anything on economics, transportation, and communications.

 

The HoloNet, as I recall, was mostly dismantled and used only for high-priority military transmissions and the like.