Wikipedia illustrates O'Sullivan's Law.

[Mark Spahn]

Aficianados of self-referential irony will enjoy
looking up "O'Sullivan's Law" in Wikipedia.
-- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)

[Matthew Schlecht]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Mark Spahn <mark...@verizon.net> wrote:

Aficianados of self-referential irony will enjoy looking up "O'Sullivan's Law" in Wikipedia.

     It's pretty clear that Conservatives evolved this "O'Sullivan's Law".  If Abbie Hoffman had made up a law, it would be quite similar in structure but predict the opposite outcome.

     I'm thinking of formulating Schlecht's First Law, although it encapsulates a rather trivial observation and I might wish to reserve my name for something with a bit more import.

Schlecht's First Law: wherever one happens to be on the ideological spectrum, the more distant along that spectrum someone else's position is, the easier it is to demonize them, impugn their motives and disparage their wisdom, and the more likely one feels that the other ideology will be the downfall of civilization as we know it.
     Works for left, right, and in the middle.

     As an example, look at tea-partiers vs. occupiers.  The former look to Capitalism to save them from the State, while the latter look to the State to save them from Capitalism.  Both tea-partiers and occupiers are mad-as-hell-an-ain't-gonna-take-it-no-more, and they share a great many fundamental grass-roots aspects in common save for being pretty far apart on the ideological spectrum.  Hence, the two groups demonize each other.

Matthew Schlecht, PhD
Word Alchemy
Newark, DE, USA
wordalchemytranslation.com

[Mark Spahn]

     It's pretty clear that Conservatives evolved this "O'Sullivan's Law".  If Abbie Hoffman had made up a law, it would be quite similar in structure but predict the opposite outcome.

*** Well, these purported laws can be tested.

O'Sullivan's Law:  Any organization that does not start as explicitly right-wing eventually becomes left-wing.

Hoffman's (putative) Law:  Any organization that does not start as explicitly left-wing eventually becomes right-wing.

These two laws cannot both be true, and they can both be false.  And "eventually" leaves a lot of wiggle-room.  How long do you have to wait for disproof of one of these laws?  A hundred years?

The one piece of evidence that comes to mind as evidence of O'Sullivan's Law is the Ford Foundation.  It used to be apolitical, but now it funds left-wing projects.  Offhand, I cannot think of a single piece of evidence in support of Hoffman's Law.  (Hey, is Abbie Hoffman still alive?)

Schlecht's First Law: wherever one happens to be on the ideological spectrum, the more distant along that spectrum someone else's position is, the easier it is to demonize them, impugn their motives and disparage their wisdom, and the more likely one feels that the other ideology will be the downfall of civilization as we know it.
     Works for left, right, and in the middle.

*** Well, that "works in the middle" claim provides a Corollary to Schlecht's First Law:  The disparagement of the extrema is less from the middle than from the other extremum, because the distance is less.  (Do ya like the mathematicality of this scientific legislation?)

But notice here that we are adopting the metaphor of thinking of various political views linearly, as if they are on a spectrum.  This is similar to the way in which optima in evolutionary theory are visualized as peaks (local maxima) in a three dimensional "space" of genetic possibilities.  In both cases, the metaphor is beguiling, and is a simplification, possibly an oversimplification.

-- Mark Sp.

[Matthew Schlecht]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Mark Spahn <mark...@verizon.net> wrote:

     It's pretty clear that Conservatives evolved this "O'Sullivan's Law".  If Abbie Hoffman had made up a law, it would be quite similar in structure but predict the opposite outcome.

*** Well, these purported laws can be tested.

O'Sullivan's Law:  Any organization that does not start as explicitly right-wing eventually becomes left-wing.

Hoffman's (putative) Law:  Any organization that does not start as explicitly left-wing eventually becomes right-wing.

These two laws cannot both be true, and they can both be false.  And "eventually" leaves a lot of wiggle-room.  How long do you have to wait for disproof of one of these laws?  A hundred years?

     I also believe that ideology is cyclical, not striving inexorably toward a single endpoint.  I think that climate is a similar problem.
     It's easier for me to relate this to ideology rather than specific organizations.
     Thus, in the absence of the absolute initial conditions (because we can't define when it "really" began), it is only realistic to look at arcs over defined periods of time.
 

The one piece of evidence that comes to mind as evidence of O'Sullivan's Law is the Ford Foundation.  It used to be apolitical, but now it funds left-wing projects.  Offhand, I cannot think of a single piece of evidence in support of Hoffman's Law.

     Greek society, an absolute democracy ~300 BCE, a right-wing dictatorship from 1967–1974 (after which it swung left again)
     The Supreme Court of the United States, from 1960s to 2000s.
     The Obama administration is heading inexorably Rightward, at least according to some.
     Even if you track the Republican Party from Eisenhower's 1950s to George Bush's 2000s, you see an organization that was more middle of the road heading ever rightward.

     However, I see a structural problem with tracking O'Sullivan's Law using the example of charitable foundations in that there is plenty of support out there for conservative causes, it just doesn't flow through charitable foundations as traditionally defined.  Since conservatives view any medium for sharing wealth (= charity) as akin to Communism, it's no mystery why they stay away from the traditional non-profits in droves.

     Public radio and public television are seen as heavily slanted in a liberal/left direction.  However, the privately held Rush Limbaugh organization, Glenn Beck organization, etc., etc., arguably serve analogous purposes on the right side, doing their best to infuse America media-space with the tenets of the Right.
 

(Hey, is Abbie Hoffman still alive?)

     No, after resurfacing from the underground on September 4, 1980, he died under mysterious circumstances (considered by most to be suicide by drug and alcohol overdose) in a converted turkey coop (his home) on Sugan Road in Solebury Township, near New Hope, Pennsylvania, on April 12, 1989.  For the record.
 

Schlecht's First Law: wherever one happens to be on the ideological spectrum, the more distant along that spectrum someone else's position is, the easier it is to demonize them, impugn their motives and disparage their wisdom, and the more likely one feels that the other ideology will be the downfall of civilization as we know it.
     Works for left, right, and in the middle.

*** Well, that "works in the middle" claim provides a Corollary to Schlecht's First Law:  The disparagement of the extrema is less from the middle than from the other extremum, because the distance is less.  (Do ya like the mathematicality of this scientific legislation?)

     Generally, I would agree that real middle-of-the-roaders disparage the two ends less than the two ends disparage each other.  However, you have the complication that even relatively extreme positions wish to define themselves as middle-of-the-road.  It's all relative.
     But (and you speak to this below) perhaps the spectrum isn't linear, i.e. isn't straight (and thus could fold back upon itself) and doesn't proceed monotonically (means A+B + B+C doesn't equal A+B+C).
     One of Einstein's paradoxes: if you have two bodies accelerating in opposite directions to the speed of light with respect to the original shared location, are these two bodies then traveling at twice the speed of light with respect to each other?  But...
 

But notice here that we are adopting the metaphor of thinking of various political views linearly, as if they are on a spectrum.  This is similar to the way in which optima in evolutionary theory are visualized as peaks (local maxima) in a three dimensional "space" of genetic possibilities.  In both cases, the metaphor is beguiling, and is a simplification, possibly an oversimplification.

     Indeed.  I think that O'Sullivan's Law is just a fallacy devised by tightie whitie righties to assuage their sneaking suspicions about themselves and conceal the vacuous nature of the views they hold.  If you codify it into a Law, it must be true, heh?