Does This Political Category Exist?
A profile of the CEIS political personality type
Last month, Substack author N.S. Lyons published a piece entitled “A Better Model of Political Categories” at The Upheaval. The post is paywalled, so I’ll briefly summarize it here: Lyons argues that “cramming everything about our politics into Left vs. Right leads to some deep confusion about who is pursuing what ends and why.” He also rejects the standard political compass box chart, which reinforces the left-right dichotomy and the idea that economics can be cleanly separated from culture.
I couldn’t agree more with Lyons on the failure of these conventional models. The breakdown of inherited twentieth-century political categories has been a recurring theme on Handful of Earth, so his effort to propose a better model immediately piqued my interest. As an alternative to the easily meme-ified political chart, Lyons puts forth a more nuanced model with four distinct axes/spectrums. These are:
Progressive (P) vs. Conservative (C)
Egalitarian (E) vs. Hierarchical (H)
Individualist (I) vs. Communalist (M)
Materialist-Rationalist (R) vs. Spiritual-Intuitive (S)
These letters can be combined to form four-part political personality types similar to the acronyms popularized by the Myers-Briggs personality test. I’ll let you subscribe to Lyons’ Substack to read his full explanation of each axis. For the purposes of this post, I simply reproduce his examples so you can get a sense of what this model looks like in practice:
Communism: Progressive, Egalitarian, Communalist, Materialist-Rationalist (PEMR).
German Fascism (National Socialism): Progressive, Hierarchical, Communalist, Materialist-Rationalist (PHMR).
Italian Fascism: Progressive, Hierarchical, Individualist, Materialist-Rationalist (PHIR).
Classical Liberalism: Progressive, Egalitarian, Individualist, Materialist-Rationalist (PEIR).
Anglo-American Conservativism: Conservative, Hierarchical, Individualist, Spiritual-Intuitive (CHIS).
Post-Modern Progressivism: Progressive, Egalitarian, Individualist, Spiritual-Intuitive (PEIS)
Classical Reactionary: Conservative, Hierarchical, Communalist, Spiritual-Intuitive (CHMS).
Confucian Conservatism: Conservative, Hierarchical, Communalist, Materialist-Rationalist (CHMR).
Left-Conservatism: Conservative, Egalitarian, Communalist, Spiritual-Intuitive (CEMS).
Reality is undoubtedly more complex than this or any other model of political categories could ever account for on its own (a limitation which Lyons readily acknowledges). That said, Lyons’ model is an exciting heuristic to think about the contemporary political landscape in a fresh way. He notes that there “are of course more combinations, but I won’t try to categorize them all here” and encourages others “to do that yourself and let me know what you come up with.”
I’d like to take Lyons up on this invitation and think about one particular combination that was not mentioned in his original post: The Conservative, Egalitarian, Individualist, Spiritual-Intuitive (CEIS) political personality type.
This personality type shares three of its four traits with Anglo-American Conservatism (Hierarchical instead of Egalitarian), Post-Modern Progressivism (Progressive instead of Conservative), and Left-Conservatism (Communalist instead of Individualist). While the existence of these three other political personality types is undeniable, I am left wondering if CEIS even exists as a political category in the contemporary American (or global, for that matter) political landscape.
This strikes me as strange question to have. There is, prima facie, no logical reason why the CEIS political personality type wouldn’t exist. Given the fact that Anglo-American Conservatism and Post-Modern Progressivism are arguably two of the most prevalent political personality types in the United States, it seems odd for the CEIS type to be without representation. Moreover, it is interesting that, in Lyons’ model, CEIS is the negation of German Fascism (National Socialism). With all of the rhetoric about “anti-fascism” in today’s politics, you’d think that a political personality type that does not share any of its defining traits with the most famous form of historical fascism would garner more adherents.
Full disclosure: I am writing this piece out of a sense of personal identification (or, as a “Spiritual-Intuitive,” shall I say “resonance”?) with the CEIS political personality type. Let me explain with reference to each axis/spectrum:
Progressive (P) vs. Conservative (C): While I have progressive roots, in recent years I have increasingly rejected the premises of progressivism, namely the promotion of progress for progress’ sake. Leo Tolstoy’s words from his 1882 Confession (which I discuss in “The Left’s Problem with Technology”) sum up my current position well. Tolstoy wrote that “to live according to progress” is to live like “a person being carried along in a boat by the waves and the wind; without really answering, such a person replies to the only important question—‘Where are we to steer?’—by saying, ‘We are being carried somewhere.’” My critique of progressivism also features prominently in “Telos or Transhumanism?,” “Ted Kaczynski and the Paradox of the Postwar Predicament,” and “The Era When Nothing Ever Ends,” on Handful of Earth.
Egalitarian (E) vs. Hierarchical (H): My political instincts have always inclined me toward an Egalitarian rather than Hierarchical perspective. While I read many authors who fall squarely on the other side of this spectrum (and often agree with their views on various political and philosophical issues), the defense of hierarchy as a political value has never appealed to me. Perhaps I can trace this instinct back to growing up in the United States and witnessing the realities of racism from a young age. Or maybe it has been my time living in India, where I have had the opportunity to observe the distinct social hierarchy of caste as an outsider. Whatever the case, my place on this spectrum has remained relatively consistent throughout my political development, and is implied in many of my writings on Handful of Earth, including “Populism, Political Realignment, and the Professional-Managerial Class” and “The World Is Built by Gratuitous Kindness.”
Individualist (I) vs. Communalist (M): This is admittedly the most difficult axis for me to “pick a side” on. I am certainly not a pure individualist, so Lyons’ reminder that “all of these axes” are “spectrum[s]” rather than “strict binar[ies]” is especially important to keep in mind here. That said, a combination of the covid pandemic response (in particular vaccine mandates) and attacks on free speech have moved me further to the individualist side of the spectrum than I was in the 2010s. At Handful of Earth, my position on this issue is most clearly articulated in “The Truth of the Anecdote,” where I argue for “the human being as the proper level at which ethics must operate.” I also touch on this topic in “Lift Every Voice” and “Why Free Speech?” (Part 1 and Part 2).
Materialist-Rationalist (R) vs. Spiritual-Intuitive (S): This final axis strikes me as one of the most important divides in contemporary global politics. Notably, according to Lyons’ model, this is the only substantive difference between Classical Liberalism and Post-Modern Progressivism, two political personality types that find themselves in stark public opposition. I have often found myself attracted to the tools of Materialist-Rationalist perspectives, but deeply dissatisfied with the edifices that they tend to build in the long run. I have also been a part of a political organization in the past that attempted to combine and reconcile a Materialist-Rationalist approach with a Spiritual-Intuitive one. This project miserably failed, often employing Spiritual-Intuitive language when convenient, only to revert to Materialist-Rationalism in organizational practice and with reference to substantive global political questions. My own version of the Spiritual-Intuitive approach can be found in “The World Is Built by Gratuitous Kindness,” “The Truth of the Anecdote,” and “Telos or Transhumanism?”
This is a brief attempt to provide a personal profile of the CEIS political category. I’m curious what all of you think. What label or title would you give to CEIS? Can you think of any individuals, organizations, or movements that could be accurately described in terms of the CEIS political personality type?
Seriously interesting question. It sounds to me like Paul Kingsnorth might be a CEIS: a Christian convert who sees spiritual forces at work in cultural and political life, writes extensively about tradition and rootedness, very wary of any merger of church and state, apt to draw inspiration from small-scale tribal or peasant societies which have little hierarchical structure and stay well clear of organized power. You might place him closer to the middle on E and I than on C and S.
The one gripe I have with political spectra is that they make it hard to see how different people can have fundamentally different first principles for thinking about the world. But then I talk to people who've come to much the same conclusions as me for slightly different reasons, wanting to say "well, yeah, but" an awful lot, and thinking that perhaps even first principles belong on a continuum.
Good post! I would classify wendell berry as CEIS