Clark Kent told us about this "thought-provoking, artful schematic that explains the differences in basic political philosophy between progressives and conservatives."
It was created by David McCandless and Stefanie Posavec, and appears in The Visual Miscellaneum, which comes out on November 10.
I'm looking forward to the book. Below are some of the other infographics that are in it:
20th Century Death: What's Killed the Most? • 22 Stories • 30 Years Makes a Difference Alternative Medicine • Amphibian Extinction Rates • Articles of War: Most Edited Wikipedia Pages • Bee Limit Warning • Behind Every Great Man • Being Defensive • Better than Bacon • The Billion Dollar-o-Gram • Body by Insurance Value • The Book of You: Your Complete DNA • Books Everyone Should Read • Calories In, Calories Out • Carbon Aware The Carbon Dioxide Cycle • Celebrity Causes • Chatterboxes • Cocktails • Colors and Culture Cosmetic Ingredients • Creation Myths • The Creationism-Evolutionism Spectrum • Daily Diets • Dance Genreology • Dangers of Death • Enneagram • Fast Internet • Feeding Frenzy: the Organic Food Market • Food Coloring: Unpleasant Health Effects • The Future of Energy • The Future of Our Future • Global Media Scare Stories • The Global Warming Skeptics vs. the Scientific Consensus • Good News • Google Insights • The Great Firewall of China • Immortality • In 25 Words or Less • The "In" Colors • The "Interesting" Colors International Number Ones • Internet Virals • Kyoto Targets • Left vs. Right • Looking for Love Online • Low Resolution • Mainstream-o-Meter • Making the Book • Man's Humanity to Man • The Media Jungle • Microbes Most Dangerous • The Middle East • Moral Matrix Most Common Avatar Names • Most Popular Boys' Names • Most Popular Girls' Names Most Profitable Stories of All Time • Most Successful Rock Bands • Nature vs. Nurture The One Machine: Map of the Internet • Painkillers • Personal Computer Evolution Peter's Projection • Postmodernism • Red vs. Blue • Rising Sea Levels • Rock Genreology Salad Dressings • Selling Your Soul • Sex Education • Snake Oil? • Some Things You Can't Avoid • Stages of You • Stock Check: Nonrenewable Resources • Taste Buds • Things That'll Give You Cancer • Three's a Magic Number • Time-Travel Plots in TV and Film • Tons of Carbon • Types of Coffee • Types of Facial Hair • Types of Information Visualization Vacation Time by Country • Varieties of Romantic Relationships • Vintage Years • Virtual Kingdoms • Water Towers • We Broke Up Because ... • What Are the Chances?: Survival Rates • What Is Consciousness? • When Condiments Go Bad • Which Fish Are Okay to Eat? Who Clever Are You? • Who Owns the Top 100 Websites? • Who Reads the Most? • Who Runs the World? • Who Really Runs the World? • World Religions • X Is the New Black
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Interesting that they chose to reverse the traditional use of "blue" and "red" here.
Good thing there aren't people who are economically conservative and socially liberal to make this chart a false dichotomy.
Red=left, blue=right is the traditional European way around.
Actually, it is contemporary US usage that reverses the traditional use of colours for the political spectrum. Blue is the colour of the conservative parties in Canda, UK, etc.
Blue for Left and Red for right has a deep tradition in the US that goes all the way back to 2000AD
They haven't reversed the traditional use of "blue" and "red" here.
red is traditionally the colour of the left, not sure why it's been reversed in the USA.....
@ Robb & joncrow,
Ah, that makes sense. I saw that building and immediately thought "US Capitol," even though I know there are similarly shaped government buildings around the world. Cultural biases can catch us off guard so easily.
It used to be that networks agreed to use all the same color for election night projections, but they used to swap every other election -- Reagan's landslide was in Red, but so was Clinton in 1992 and 1996. With the Bush v. Gore election, it was Red v Blue, but with so much navel gazing in the post-election wrangling, the terms stuck, so I think it's now Red (GOP) Dem (Blue) forever.
I seem to recall Kevin Dunn had a big piece on this when he was still a solo blogger.
Ah, but the poster designers anticipate us here in the boingboing comments gallery!
"There are two versions with different colours: a US and a World version. This is because the US and Switzerland are the only countries in the world where red = right wing and blue = left wing. Grrr!"
they have the "world" version and the "u.s." version, where the colors are switched. unfortunately the large view of the u.s. version isn't working so i don't know if there are any other changes.
this is a good introductory chart for someone who may not understand the differences between the two parties. of course, this does not include every possible combination between the two sides, but it is a nice clear demonstration of the "typical" ideals.
Ah, but it's not really a US version if it uses "colours" instead of "colors."
Direct links to the now defunct site:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-right-world/ [non-US]
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-right-us/ [US]
This graphic is just a terrible mishmash of false dichotomies, false equivalences, and weird assumptions based on stereotypes.
Oh, the right doesn't interfere with society and social lives? Libertarians are on the left in the liberal camp? NEWS TO ME
Communists are Doves? Tell that to the 300+ million they have killed so far........
David McCandless? The guy that used to write for Zero Magazine?
It looks to me like it represents the views of a teenager who is steeped in stereotypes. This is isn't an infographic - it is propaganda-graphic.
"Economically conservative and socially liberal?" While there are people (including myself) who truly combine items from both menus, in my experience just about every person who has used that specific phrasing has been the sort of libertarian who just wants to smoke pot while they support in all other ways a corrupt political/big-business complex inimical both to individuals and smaller free enterprise. Here in reality, true social liberalism is unachievable without challenging that complex, and that's impossible to reconcile with economic conservatism.
The right as "not interfering in social lives" is kind of out and out false
I take it you've never visited Delaware, which has been described as socially liberal and fiscally conservative since, oh, about WWI or thereabouts.
@Obdurodon - Social liberalism is achievable without supporting the concept of big government or opposing free markets. I think you underestimate the number of people that support a whole host of socially liberal causes (gay rights, abortion,anti war, religious freedom, freedom from religion etc.) while still believing the government does a poor job of spending other peoples money. Your experience strikes me as quite limited based on your comment. Mine is much different. I'm actually puzzled why a better candidate hasn't emerged that represents socially liberal economically conservative people.
Can someone pretty please provide a link to a scalable copy, preferably one screen sized? The present links cut off half of the graphic, and the one on BB makes my eyes hurt from squinting.
The very notion that there IS a political "left" and "right" requires certain generalizations and stereotypes, so as far as that goes this chart seems pretty accurate. It only becomes problematic if you think that people should all fit neatly into one side or the other, which of course most of us don't.
Don't really get the percentages in the support section. Presumably those are the results of some survey of self-identifying Left- or Right- wingers.
As noted above, people don't fit neatly into one category. Since this chart is all about stereotypes (and, to my mind, is written in non-neutral language, clearly presenting the 'right' as bad and 'left' as good), it should have gone the whole hog and said the stereotypical right-wing view was to be anti-gay rights, abortion, pro-war etc. Surely it isn't a trait of a left-winger to be 34% in favour of war?
I had a page of text written about those of us who consider ourselves social liberals and fiscal conservatives, but Axe7540 summed it up much better then I did. So I will put the rant away....you know for a rainy day.
It's pretty bad, IMO. There are conservative atheists, left wing hawks (I remember petitions asking to bomb the taliban out of power several years before 2001 because of their treatment of women), right wing isolationists and a host of other combinations. I actually made a Venn's diagram once showing whether different concepts fell on the left or the right, but the intersection was very overcrowded.
In my current cynical view of the world, both sides positions are just justifications of fear. On the left: fear of corporations. On the right: fear of the government.
Both positions, while not completely unjustified, are stupid.
In fact, the whole taking sides thing is dumb. The second you pick a side and choose a "team", you start to be against the other team. The whole tribe psychology comes into play and even if your own team's idea is stupid as all get out, you still agree with it because you've self-identified with the group.
As far as I can tell, the only thing to do (assuming you're not in politics) is to not join a team, try to ignore the labels best you can and vote on issues. If only there was a website that let me vote without showing me the names of people or their party...
The chart is over-simplistic and relies on stereotypes, so what use is it really?
Axe7540: challenging the status quo in no way implies support of big government and in fact often requires opposition to that government in its role as a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street. Similarly, since free markets are what we most notably lack right now, such a challenge does not oppose them. I don't want the government spending my money, but I don't for a moment believe that having Goldman Sachs or Pfizer spend it for me is any better. Supporting the status quo means supporting them, and is also the very definition of conservatism.
What you seem to be engaged in is the very same sort of stereotyping that a true "economically conservative, socially liberal" person would despise. The assumption that anyone who's not delighted with the current system of corrupt finance, broken intellectual-property laws, zoning and eminent-domain abuse, etc. etc. etc. must hate free markets and love big government is inaccurate, insulting, and useless. As others have pointed out, there is more than one position opposed to conservatism. The "typical liberal" response you've given is singularly inappropriate in this context.
Another vote for the non-existent socially liberal economically conservative party here.
I'd like truly open markets, low taxes, power localized in the states instead of federal, etc.
But it doesn't bother me if two people of the same sex want to get married or poor people want to come to my country and work hard for a better life.
Frankly I am distrustful of both the fundamentalist religion most associated with our far right and their avowed enemy, another fundamentalist religion.
Teller's Greater Oversimplification (uncharted)
American Left: The rich can afford to help the underdog.
American Right: Hey, stop taking my money.
Re: Tribalism, joining a team, and disregarding the other team's comments...
It's true that once you make the philosophical decision to join a team (political party), you are automatically against the other team. Therein lies the power of the parties. If you are "fiscally conservative and socially liberal," you really have no party unless you side with the libertarians -- which a lot of us do. However, if you are a member of one of the two major parties, you are shunned if you have dissenting viewpoints.
The disinformation that each party uses to knock "outliers" back into one of the two major parties is focused mainly at the free market and what each party wants them to believe. The conservatives provide disinformation by saying that the government hampers the free market by "regulating" the market, while the liberals provide disinformation by saying that the government is not regulating the market enough. The truth lies outside of both of these beliefs -- big business AND government lie in the same bed and create market laws that benefit both of them. These laws help big business because it allows them to squash smaller, better businesses under the guise of regulation, and the laws help government because they continue the belief that only the government can solve this artificial problem. Frankenstein and Dr. Frankenstein are deeply dependent on each other.
Teller FTW!
@Obdurodon - Sorry if I offended, it was not my intent. I was using the traditional definitions of conservative and liberal because we were discussing the infographic above. I took your comments which said in part "while they support in all other ways a corrupt political/big-business complex inimical both to individuals and smaller free enterprise." to mean supporting big government which is typically put on the liberal side of the page. I was saying I have many socially liberal friends (again borrowing from the traditional social) that do not, to put in your words, support "in all other ways a corrupt political/big-business complex inimical both to individuals and smaller free enterprise."
I think we are saying similar things just your experience leads you to believe there are not many like you out there where I believe our legions are much stronger.
For a similar (but more elegant and inclusive?) model, I prefer Ken Wilber's AQAL (ie, "Integral Politics").
Unlike many of the commenters, I don't think this chart represents a "false dichotomy," I think it represents a fraudulent narrative--one in which, for instance, conservatives are concerned with "freedom" while liberals are only interested in "equality." Also one in which the Right isn't interested in "interfering with" society or social life, while the Left is. Yeah, tell that one to these people. Against events like this, the assertion that "interfering with social life" is peculiar to the Left is an obscenity.
A useful, readable, and massively well-informed antidote to this mendacious storyline is economist Dean Baker's brilliant book The Conservative Nanny State, available for free online, which thoroughly documents the extent to which modern conservatism has nothing to do with rugged individualism, and everything to do with the ruthless exercise of state power to make the rich richer.
I'm in favor of a whole bunch of policies that most people would regard as "left wing." I'm in favor of them because I think they maximize human freedom. For instance, people who are terrified to leave their awful jobs because they're scared of losing their health insurance do not seem to me to be gloriously free.
CNN's Crossfire is back on the air and making info-graphics? Cool.
I like (if that's the word) the graph of left versus right support for "war", as if there are people who want to just send a million troops to kill everything that moves on general principles.
I'll go with Glenn Reynold's vision of an America full of happily married homosexual couples with assault rifles in their closets, which doesn't seem to be an option in the universe this dichotomy inhabits.
Fortunately, none of this applies to me, as I and my family live in a multi-room cabin suspended beneath a Hot Aire Balloon which sails 'round the earth upon the atmospheric currents.
s/'s/s's/ -- grr.
What a LOAD of it!
If you mix elephant and donkey dung its still a load of crap.
WHY WHY WHY can we have 137 different kinds of TOOTHPASTE and only TWO kinds of politicians???
Its a fallacy and this graph does nothing if not serve that lie, that there are only two kinds of politician and two mutually exclusive sets of political belief.
To bad I don't have the choice to retain BOTH my personal and economic liberties!
>>...as I and my family live in a multi-room cabin suspended beneath a Hot Aire Balloon which sails 'round the earth...
You live on Airlandis?
(One of the best cartoon theme songs ever, IMHO)
If you put on red/blue glasses you can see left & right in 3D.
You quote from the InformationIsBeautiful site:
Actually, McCandless is only partially right here. The SP in Switzerland is the farthest left of the parties, and uses the (internationally traditional) color red. Also liberal is the FDP, which uses blue as its color. The SVP, far right, uses dark green (although their propaganda posters are invariably, and disturbingly, red, black and white).So, yes, a liberal party in Switzerland uses blue, but there's another party using red to its left. Contrary to what the man said.
Grrr, indeed. I'm not sure I like the graphic, either.
seems weird that the left is identified with "communists" but the right is not identified with "fascists". Maybe that's what was meant by "nationalists", but that's a much gentler term. And if I was going to use gentler terms I'd identify the left with "socialists" instead.
Right-wingers are for economic freedom? Since when?
From the site:
"Of course, the political spectrum is not quite so polarised. Actually, it’s more of a diamond shape, apparently. But this is how it’s mostly presented via the media – left wing vs. right wing, liberal vs. conservative, Labour vs Tory. And perhaps in our minds too…"
It's about the contrast between two extremes and by basing it on how left vs right wing politics are portrayed by the media as opposed to reality it actually rings pretty true. So yeah, it presents a lot of stereotypes on either side but only because the media is responsible for promoting them.
So how many of you complaining about it being a false dichotomy are Americans? In other countries we have our pick of a number of parties from across the political spectrum, and being a citizen of one of those countries, I've never thought of politics as involving choosing only Red or only Blue. Our politics come in a delightful variety of purples.
Both sides are described with many right wing biased talking points.
... The Republican party—the party of industrial mega-capitalists, corporate financiers, power brokers, and the moneyed elite ...
Until we start a chart from this reality; charts like this are simply false and useless.
[ganked from here]
as a graphic designer i know it's very hard to make such diagrams.
i think the designers used the wrong form here -- there are so many other ways it can be done. the subject needs a more dimensional and dynamic interpretation, but it's a decent exercise and gets people thinking and correcting it. the designers seem well-intentioned at least.
i once asked edward tufte if diagrams can lie he said, "YES!".
the more i look at it it looks silly and tiresome. SIMPLER IS BETTER.
suggestion: draw a grid. list the issues down the left column. list parties and special interest groups in column headings across top. put a description of the group's stand on each issue in the corresponding grid box.
no colors, no capitol drawings, no clouds, no banners.
revise and datestamp each version and do it semi-annually.
Ha Ha! They revised the graphic.
They had originally labelled "Conservative" as "Traditional" and "Liberals" as "Libertarian", and almost all the comments on their blog not abusing them for the stereotypes of the left/right dichotomy (or caught up in the Blue/Red issue) focused on the "Libertarian" label for "Liberals," so they changed it to "Liberal" = "Progressive." And deleted some of the more critical posts on their blog.
Anyway...
Left / Right is an extremely unsophisticated duality. The terms "Left" and "Right" were coined by the seating arrangement of the 1789 French National Assembly and have little bearing on today's political landscape, especially in the U.S.
Any remotely sophisticated graphing of the modern political landscape mandates at least 2 axis:
Economic spectrum: Socialism vs Capitalism
Social spectrum: Authoritarianism vs Anarchism