First, please look at the following diagram. It was the result of investigation of the "semantics of political terms" when I was studying linguistics at university years ago and had no particular interest in the enneagram, and had not heard of the Celtic Enneagram. I came up with five "basic political terms" that people used to think about political systems and found that they could be arranged in conceptual space as below. (The sixth term, "anarchism", was added because I am myself an Anarchist. Naturally I was interested and challenged to find that not only was Anarchism not a basic political term but that it did not even seem to fit on the circle !)
For more explanation click on the image. Anyway, when I came to look at the Celtic Enneagram I saw that my New Model of Political Space could be seen as an example of the Celtic Enenagram, and this led to further thoughts. Below is the post in which I rather breathlessly announced my insights at the time.....with a Celtic Enneagram interpolated for clarity....
The background to this is my political interests, if anyone checks out my
"New Tolpuddle Anarchist" page they'll see I propose a "New Model of
Political Space".(I know most people likely to read this are not greatly
interested in politics, but bear with me, its just that the example happens
to be political.) Based on empirical work of mine from 15 years or so ago I
attempt to model the semantic system underlying political terms in english.
I found the basic terms used by my educated english-speaking sample to be:
Fascism(or equivalently "Dictatorship"), Communism, Socialism, Democracy,
Capitalism." (Political scientists might wince at this, but that is
irrelevant for us descriptive linguists)
These terms can be modelled on a compass with Socialism at North and Fascism
at South, Communism at East and Capitalism at West. Democracy is at
North-West. I called the Communism/Capitalism axis "freedom" (in the liberal
sense) and the Socialism/Fascism axis "equality". So democracy (for those
who know their trigonometry) is at the optimum "freedom and equality" point.
Anyway, check out my "New Tolpuddle" page [now click on image above ]for more discussion
Now....what I figured is maybe the this model could be considered as a
Celtic Enneagram. If this could be done then a major breakthrough in
understanding the enneagram might be at hand. This is because the New Model
is explicable in terms of two axes, if it was also an (incomplete,
obviously) enneagram then, because of the generally analogical character of
the enneagram it would suggest that other enneagrams could be analysed into
two axes if they were put in Celtic Enneagram form.
Well, last weekend this fell into place for me. If we consider the
development of the State (as distinct from society!) in terms analogical to
the lifespan enneagram then different political systems can be regarded as
"fixations" on different stages of the developmnet of the State, analogously
to the "personality enneagram". So if we think of the origins of the State
(again, _not_ society, the State) as in the hunting band (or equivalent)
developing into a war band and so
on, a credible Enneagram of the State analogous to the Enneagram of
Personality can be created. The paucity of political terms in english means
that some of the terms I use below are neologisms,or used rather loosely,
but I hope context clarifies them.
Freedom and Equality are of course loaded terms, the Freedom axis should
properly be something like a Freedom/Order axis, the equality access
something like Degree/Equality.
Using the Personality Types as analogies:
Type 1...."Socialism" (max equality, North)
Type 2...."Democracy" (optimum freedom and equality, North-west)
Type 3...."Capitalism" (max freedom, West)
Type 4...."Conservatism" (optimum degree and freedom, South-west)
Type 5...."Mandarinism" (optimum equality and order, North-east)
Type 6...."(Bureacratic) Communism" (max order, East)
Type 7...."Nazism" (optimum degree and order, South-east)
Type 8...."Fascism" (max degree, South)
Type 9, at the centre of the Celtic Enneagram/Compass refers to a State in
stagnation, concerned only with doing food etc until tomorrow, without
organising values.
Just quickly to break into this old post...here, remember, is the Celtic Enneagram. If we call point 8 "re" and point 7 "mi", etc, then the numbers on the enneagram as shown correspond to the type numbers. Hoping this is all clear (!).... if not it will become clear as soon as you work with the concepts yourself just a little.
Now the interesting thing is that if you treat the inner lines as in the
Personality Enneagram, a very credible theory of State behaviour emerges.
For example, when a Capitalist state is secure it will develop monopolies
and start to take on the characteristics of bureacratic Communism, and
contrariwise when a Communist State stresses out it takes on the
characteristics of laissez-faire Capitalism . If you do go for politics
you'll be interested to have a play. (As an Anarchist, myself, I regard all
forms of the State as mere collective False Personality, natch!).
Anyway, this means that if you put the Personality Enneagram in Compass form
(I think I'll stop saying "Celtic", "Compass" is more self-explanatory) then
it should be possible to analyse it into two axes. And it seems clear to me
that this is in fact the case. I'll leave people who are interested to have
a play with this, too.
I have not investigated, but suspect, that if the Compass form is
manipulated so that the three type is in the middle then a different pair of
axes will merge, and likewise the six. There is a lot here I think.
Gotta go, please have a look at this and get back to me....
-Jeremy
Links to other sites on the Web
"Political Space" diagram from New Tolpuddle site.
Get your own Free Home Page