More Words About Taxis

In my previous post I suggested the location/velocity/acceleration model can explain contradictions in progressivism and conservatism. The model can also explain some features of political discourse.

In the previous post, I made the point that claims about the ideal location, velocity, or rate of acceleration of a variable usually underdetermine which positions a speaker is actually committed to. To understand which position a speaker is committed to, you need to know their underlying reasons for making the claim. Since people don't often state these reasons outright, their normative claims about variables are usually ambiguous.

I think this ambiguity is what explains the commonality and rhetorical effectiveness of calling conservatives reactionaries, and progressives accelerationists.

On the progressive side, if Alice is claiming that private schools should receive less funding, and funding for private schools is already declining, Bob can make her seem unreasonable by suggesting she wants the funding to keep declining indefinitely, or decline even faster. In either case, Bob charges Alice with wanting to end up with no private schools at all, or with wanting to abolish all private schools ASAP, regardless of the disruption it would cause. In both cases, the rhetorical trick is to interpret a more minimal claim about the ideal location of some basic variable, such as funding levels for private schools, as a claim about how quickly we should move or accelerate towards that location.

In brief, if you want to discredit a location progressive, call them a velocity progressive, and if you want to discredit a velocity progressive, call them an acceleration progressive, i.e., an accelerationist.

The same rhetorical move works in reverse with conservatives, if a conservative is just saying some development shouldn't be accelerating so quickly, you can make them seem less reasonable by accusing them of wanting to reduce the current velocity of the change, or even regress the location itself. For example, if a more moderate conservative was arguing that an accelerating year on year increase in our reliance on solar and wind was irresponsible given a slower rate of progress in battery tech, you could make this concern seem less reasonable by casting it as a concern with the mere increase in solar and wind dependence, and less reasonable still by casting it as a concern with the mere fact that n% of the grid is currently powered by solar and wind.

In other words, if you want to discredit an acceleration conservative, call them a velocity conservative, and if you want to discredit a velocity conservative, call them a location conservative, that is, a reactionary.