Discovering Frameworks for Politics

This investigation has produced two dynamic frameworks in the form of THEE-Trees. The first deals with what determines political choice, and it generated a second framework which represents how political life is handled in a society. Other powerful comprehensive frameworks have been identified along the way. On a provisional basis, names have been assigned and significant properties have been specified

It was proposed that the origins of politics could be found in ethical choice which emerges from WILL, the Root of THEE. This webpage shows the inquiry-process that led to discovering the various frameworks.

Steps in the Discovery Process

STEP 1: A Spiral (PH'6-C) develops from an organization of the approaches to ethical choice (PH'6) in a Typology Essentials Table as shown below:

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Deriving the frameworks: from the Typology to the Spiral of maturation.

The ordering of the Ethical Approaches in the left-hand Table in the above diagram is changed in forming the Spiral of Political Modes. The re-ordering is shown underneath the Spiral diagram.

STEP 2. The new order could then be viewed as a holistic hierarchy i.e. Mode-1 to Mode-7 becomes Level-1 to Level-7; and a Tree was formed by applying the dynamic duality, social v private. The Tree is provisionally named: Determinants of Political Choice and it depicts the relations and influences between and amongst the people and the powerful in society.

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Deriving the frameworks: from the Spiral of maturation of political institutions to the Tree of determinants of political choice.

STEP 3. This Tree, being holistic, enables the development of a structural hierarchy by progressive combination of adjacent Levels in the hierarchy of political choice—as shown in the diagram below. You can see that the Monads contain the originating Tree. The names of the Monads are slightly altered to fit the new context.

The structural hierarchy of political life in society.

STEP 4. The structural hierarchy is itself holistic—each of its Groupings/Levels implies and progressively generates higher (or lower) Groupings/Levels. Nothing in political life exists prior to CG1 (CL1) and nothing is possible beyond CG7 (CL7).  It is therefore possible to create a Tree by applying the appropriate dynamic duality, which is: integrative v divisive.

In the diagram below, the structural hierarchy is turned on its side to show schematically how each Grouping becomes a hierarchical Level. (The Level spacings are distorted by the differing numbers of Groups in each Grouping, so they do not appear to align with the TreeLevels.) The Tree is a generalized image using S (Social) v P (Personal) as duality.

These are the frameworks for changing society through political participation i.e. legitimating politics. On the left is the framework containing relevant activities and institutions; and on the right is a dynamic representation of how change occurs in practice.

Diagram of the structural hierarchy of political life in society shown vertically.

Generalized picture of a structural hierarchy tree derived from a Spiral.

Originally posted: August-2009; Last updated: 15-Nov-2010. Amended 17-Nov-2023.