North-wing politics

Politically, "north-wing" describes a viewpoint based on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_compass">360' compass</a> rather than the traditional left-right scale. Simplistically, this viewpoint represents collective authority, and common social normality, and where the compass is used to descibe in the South-wing, a political viewpoint that is relativist, or post-modern, the north-wing of the compass is neo-modernist or re-modernist in approach. The north-wing, or 'northwing' position is the opposite of individual relativism in the south-wing and is this a counter to national, social and moral fragmentation brought about by libertarian relativism.

The history of the Political Compass

H. J. Eysenck was first to create a multi-axis political model in his 1964 book "Sense and Nonsense in Psychology", though other multi-axis models have been developed including that by American <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_chart">David Nolan in 1970</a>.

The framework used here is based on the <a href="http://www.politicalcompass.org/">Political Compass created by Pace News Limited</a>, which expands on the Eysenck model and is widely accepted. There is also a "<a href="http://www.grassrootsforamerica.us/fertilizer/New-Political-Compass-Intro.shtml#New_Political_Compass">New Political Compass TM</a>" created by Paul Ray, and whilst he usefully labels the North "the New Progressives", the model is less useful outside of the United States.

In the Political Compass the Left-Right line represents Economic attitude and retains some of its traditional political meaning in terms of State versus Personal control. The North-South line represents Social attitude and is respectively collective Authority in the North, and personal Liberty in the south.

J.C. Lester's analysis of multi-axis political models, but which uses opposite labelling for the North-South polar is also an interesting read and can be found <a href="http://www.la-articles.org.uk/pc.htm">here</a>.