Contemplatives or Combatants:
Culture Wars Across the U.S. Political Compass
Definitions
A contemplative may or may not be persuadable, but they are willing to consider other perspectives and understand alternative values, to try to find a compromise or a win-win resolution.
A combatant (militant) knows they are correct and cannot be moved by logic nor pathos. They are looking to win, convinced they are in a win-lose scenario.
Examples of Contemplative & Combative Stances
Rather than discussing the same topic for comparison across each quadrant, a topic that is among the top concerns of the quadrant is used to compare the contemplatives and combatants within the quadrant.
Contemplatives Versus Combatants in the Green Quadrant
Pew’s Political Typology Quiz put me in the outsider left. I believe that each of us, if we’re making critiques, gains credibility if we first acknowledge shortcomings of ourselves and our own tribe. In addition, we might all be more qualified and effective in speaking to those with whom we share some basic assumptions. The following quotes note the limitations of the combatant strategy for greens. As a court-rostered mediator for five years, I favor the contemplative approach, having seen that curiosity rather than digging in our heels is what helps us toward workable resolutions.
Heer (2017) wrote that the dirtbag left is "doomed to fail” because "derision is useful for one half of politics—defeating the opposing party—but has nothing to say to the crucial other half of forming alliances that can govern effectively for the people” (para. 13).
Extinction Rebellion (XR) found that their militancy seemed to be alienating potential joiners and was not having the desired effect of changing policy. A CNN report stated the following:
Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion is best known for its attention-grabbing tactics. Activists have blocked roads and bridges, glued themselves to trains, smashed bank windows and sprayed fake blood over buildings….the group signaled a radical change….it will focus on trying to build its numbers and become a more inclusive organization, including trying to attract people who may have felt alienated by its previous tactics. (para. 1-3)
Respect and Negotiation
Combatants often seem to be saying, “We’re not perfect, but the other side is downright evil.” A combatant attitude includes blaming, exaggerating, and refusing to acknowledge nuance.
A contemplative attitude isn’t simply about advocating for less extreme positions. It is about transcending the argument. Sometimes the truth is in the middle, but sometimes both sides have valid concerns that can’t be accommodated by the other. It may be useless to debate the particulars of which side is worse, in the court of public opinion. Transcending the argument would be getting both sides together to discuss what can we do for a win-win resolution, a compromise, or agree to disagree with separate solutions according to different state mandates.
Thanks for reading. Here’s a related post titled Info Wars Versus Nuanced Respectful Debate, which focuses on individual content creators within some of these movements. For content with a similar theme, see Daniel Schmachtenberger in a 5-minute video on why we are at an evolutionary choice point where we either will destroy ourselves or adopt a stance of non-rivalry. My take is, probably some of both.
Repeat of Quadrants Text
This next section repeats the text in the quadrants, accessible for any who have difficulty reading in that visual format. The next section also expands on the quadrants text by including links to external sources. Groups are presented in order of political party size.
Auth-Left Quadrant
Contemplative
Protection: mainstream Dems typically agree that police bodycams are needed to keep police accountable and that vulnerable groups should be protected from violence as well as should take responsibility to avoid dangerous situations as much as possible
Combative
Protection: repeatedly emphasizing only the most extreme examples of harm, dismissing intentions to protect if efforts fail, refusing to acknowledge structural challenges
Auth-Right Quadrant
Contemplative
International conflict: there is still potential for U.S. to support and even insist on negotiations
Combative
International conflict: Several high-ranking military officials and long-term foreign journalists have faulted the U.S. for failing to support diplomatic talks that could have prevented war. Some blame the U.S. for intending to use the conflict to weaken Russia at the cost of Ukrainian losses of people and infrastructure. Some blame the U.S. for NATO treaty violation.
Lib-Right Quadrant
Contemplative
Men’s rights: Groups to advocate for fathers’ rights to ensure their custody and visitation is not unfairly limited
Illegal immigration: creating realistic and humane plans to increase legal means and seal the border to stop cartels and human traffickers from abusing &financially exploiting immigrants
Combative
Manosphere: pick-up artists, misogyny
Illegal immigration: Dems continue writing compassionate but ineffectual legislation. GOP blames Dems for adding non-relevant mandates to the immigration reform bills, so GOP refuses to pass the bills. Then Democrats blame Republicans for wanting immigration to continue as an unresolved issue to create anger to get Trump back into office.
Lib-left (Green) Quadrant
Contemplative
Ecology: creating ecovillages as a peaceful proactive solution to ecological concerns
Social justice: creating residential intentional communities with resource sharing as a way to ameliorate economic precarity and create grassroots social safety nets
Combative
Ecology: climate activist groups (a) Extinction Rebellion’s pre-2023 tactics (now disavowed) of blocking bridges, gluing themselves to trains, smashing bank windows; (b) the group Just Stop Oil gluing themselves to roads and flinging tomato soup over famous art
Social justice: cancellations with exaggerated or false accusations, threats of violence, vandalism & riots