SDCT0009: Authoritarianism and libertarianism, two kinds of far-right “tiny bubble” politics, are both antithetical to democracy. They both describe government that only accommodates to king-like individuals — a single central king in authoritarianism, or a multitude of lesser household “kings” in libertarianism. Democracy, in contrast, is a “big bubble” form of politics, where the majority as a group, not individual kings, rules the government. This episode describes an imaginary focus group held in Britain in 1776, where supporters of King George III discuss how to prevent the upcoming pro-democracy American Revolution. One suggestion is to “steal and flip” certain words (“patriot,” “freedom,” “independence,” and “the American people”) to undermine the colonists’ trust in the majority of themselves, and to increase their trust in the rule of individual kings. Another proposal is to promote hatred of all things “mainstream,” because mainstream means the same as “majority” but also implies “average” and “mediocre,” thus persuading the colonists to disdain rule by the majority of average citizens and accept rule by “exceptional” kings. Yet another recommendation is to exaggerate the threat of a tyrannical majority to such a degree that it blocks out awareness of the threat posed by tyrannical individuals. The colonists will wrongly assume that tyranny comes only from the majority, never from king-like individuals and powerful minorities.

SDCT0008: Bridging individual and social psychology, we discuss what it is that binds individuals together into social groups: shared circles of accommodation. Some groups have small circles of accommodation toward one individual, a “strict father” authoritarian-type person. That individual-sized circle could be visualized as a “tiny bubble”. In authoritarianism, an entire nation accommodates to a single tiny bubble occupied by a lone patriarch, or a slightly larger bubble occupied by a ruling class of elitists or oligarchs. This contrasts with libertarianism, which has not just one but a multitude of tiny bubbles, each containing a lone patriarch, one for every household of the nation. Where authoritarianism is one tiny bubble shared by an entire nation, libertarianism is soap suds. Neither allows the combination of both “unity” and “diversity” — authoritarianism provides national unity without diversity, libertarianism provides diversity without unity. The combination of the two can only be gained through big circle social accommodation. We also describe big circle politics combined with small circle economics (democracy plus capitalism), and small circle politics with big circle economics (authoritarianism plus communism). The United States has been trending toward small circles all around (authoritarianism plus capitalism), while the “happiest nations on earth” — mostly Nordic nations — are big circles all around (democracy plus socialism), where both politics and the economy work for the big circle majority of citizens.

SDCT0007: The small circle cognitive style, which focuses on “shards and swirls” — individual fragments of information not assembled into “the big picture” — is the starting place for the human species, as well as for individual members of our species, and for governments throughout the world. Our DNA baseline prefers this small circle style of focusing only on individuals, not on larger systems or groups. Thus, our default state is to recognize only the rights of individuals, individual roles in causing and solving problems, and disconnected fragments of a much larger whole. To understand how parts fit into a system, to grasp the importance of groups, to recognize the legitimacy of group rights and of defending a group called “the majority” from the tyranny of individuals, requires a big circle cognitive style that exists only above the DNA baseline. The political left operates at this higher level, and promotes the rights and interests of the majority of citizens. The political right, when taken too far, is stuck at the DNA baseline, and may promote the rights and interests of individuals who tyrannize a group called the majority of citizens.

SDCT0006: Democracy is a form of government that involves a big circle of social accommodation embracing the majority of a nation’s citizens. It upholds the will of the majority, unlike its right-wing counterpart, which counterbalances the majority by upholding the will of an elitist minority, or of powerful individuals, or a set of laws such as the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Big circles of cognitive accommodation, the “big circle cognitive style,” is seen more on the left side of the political spectrum, and focuses on systems of interconnected parts, whereas the small circle right side of the spectrum emphasizes individual parts working independently. This makes effective framing of political ideas more difficult on the left, and easier on the right: it takes fewer words to describe individual units of information than interconnected systems. This episode suggests that those on the political left should emphasize the moral values of “big hearts and big minds” exemplified by Jesus Christ and other big circle heroes and patriots. It also suggests promoting the historical significance of the color blue in the fight for democracy, and the color red in historical attacks against democracy, ranging from those of King George III to the former Soviet Union.

SDCT0005: This episode discusses the pure cognitive states of excess accommodation, excess extroverted assimilation, and excess introverted assimilation, and applies these concepts to politics. Minds that are too accommodative are gullible, too trusting of external information, failing to question what they hear with what they already know. Minds with excess extroverted assimilation are too distrusting of external information, failing to hear anything that doesn’t agree with what they already think they know. Minds with excess introverted assimilation are preoccupied with their own internal closed-system feedback loops: thoughts about thoughts, perceptions of perceptions, memories of memories. This discussion illustrates these ideas by looking at double standards between the Obama and Trump administrations, and at the risks of excess democracy, where there is too much governmental accommodation to the will of the majority of citizens.

SDCT0004: Discussing excesses in the human mind and in politics. Excess accommodation leads minds and political parties to become overly passive, too trusting of the RLS environment. Excess introverted and extroverted assimilation both result in disorder, and in wasted efforts that cause more harm than good. The left-right political spectrum is placed on a bell curve continuum where good is in the middle and bad is at both extremes. The extreme left of the bell curve denotes a big circle of excess accommodation to the will of the majority of citizens — excess democracy. The extreme right has small circles of accommodation with big zones of excess assimilation that lead citizens to distrust each other and to refuse to work together for the common good.

SDCT0003: Review of the 2×2 grid that describes cognitive adaptation, introverted assimilation, and extroverted assimilation (learning, thinking, and acting — or input, processing, and output). More discussion of a Venn diagram that resembles an eye, and exploration of what it means to have a small “pupil” or circle of accommodation that blocks out most of the Reality-Logic-Social environment. For it to block out a big zone of Reality means to be anti-fact, anti-science, delusional, and/or ignorant. For a small circle to block out a big zone of external Logic is to be anti-intellectual or anti-reason. For it to block out a big zone of Social considerations is to be anti-social, unsocialized, and possibly corrupt and dishonest, matching traditional Western folk definitions of “evil”.

SDCT0002: Understanding the cognitive psychological concepts of accommodation (“learning”), introverted assimilation (“thinking”), and extroverted assimilation (“acting”), and visualizing these terms using Venn diagrams that resemble the parts of an eye. The “pupil” is the circle of accommodation, the “iris” is the zone of extroverted assimilation, and the “white of the eye” is the zone of introverted assimilation.

Music in this episode: “Going Home” from Music For Podcasts by Lee Rosevere. Released: 2015. Track 14. Genre: Electronic.

SDCT0001: An introduction to Circles Theory, and how it describes the left-versus-right-wing political spectrum. I argue for applying science in a way that doesn’t sound scientific, but that uses populist language of good versus evil.

Music in these episodes: “Going Home” from Music For Podcasts by Lee Rosevere.