Horizontal, vertical and diagonal are essential words rich in meaning, used in various and diverse fields of knowledge. In each of these fields, they acquire different connotations without ever losing their essence. Let us look at their use and application in some of these fields of knowledge.
Horizontal - Vertical - Diagonal in geometry
Horizontal, vertical, and diagonal refer to the direction or orientation of a line in space. A line is the visible trail created by a point that moves in space. In itself, it is one-dimensional and can vary in shape, width, length and direction. In shape, it can be straight or curved; in width, it can be thin or thick; in direction, it can be vertical, horizontal or diagonal.
Horizontal
A horizontal line runs from left to right. It comes from the word horizon, the imaginary line that our eyes trace when we look into the distance at a plain or a plateau. All horizontal lines are parallel to the horizon. Looking at the horizon is relaxing because it is suggestive of a feeling of repose. Unlike the other two lines, it does not suggest movement, neither for nor against the force of gravity.
Vertical
It is a line perpendicular to the earth or to a horizontal line and it extends upwards towards the sky. It implies an ascending or descending movement, depending on the point where we establish the beginning and the end of the line. In this sense, it communicates a sense of infinity beyond human reach. The vertical line suggests, therefore, spirituality, openness to the divine, self-overreaching, elevation from human condition.
Diagonal
It results from the combination of a horizontal and a vertical line. It is not perpendicular to the earth like the vertical, nor parallel to the horizon like the horizontal. Like the vertical, it can be ascending or descending. The combined vertical and horizontal lines form a 90 degree angle and forge structures that are stable and firm. In contrast, the diagonal line transmits a sense of instability, an unresolved tension in relation to the force of gravity. The angle it forms when meeting a vertical or horizontal line is not as stable as that between a vertical and a horizontal.
Triangle and more triangles
The union of the vertical line with the horizontal and the diagonal lines forms the simplest geometric figure - the triangle - and, in this case, a right triangle. Two triangles can form a rectangle, a square or a rhombus. A pentagon is formed by 5 triangles, a hexagon by six; a circle is formed by an indeterminate number of triangles from the center, like the spokes of a bicycle wheel.
Vertical - Horizontal - Diagonal in geography
Since time immemorial, man has always had a need to orient himself in time and space, to know where he is and where he is going. The very verb "to orient" comes from the word east, the place on the horizon where the sun rises or wakens (for this very reason, it can also be designated as Rising or East). At sunrise, the sun rises over the horizon, describing a circular line, an arc in the sky, from east to west, where at sunset, at its setting, it descends below the horizon line and is no longer seen.
As the sun rises over the horizon, depending on the degree of inclination it has in relation to the earth, it describes a horizontal line, when its rays are parallel to the horizon at the time of sunrise. This is followed by many diagonals until at its zenith, the moment when it describes a perpendicular line in relation to our planet, descending into the sunset in again diagonal lines, until it is placed again horizontally and in a position parallel to the earth at the moment it sets.
Today we know that the "movement of the sun" is illusory, that it is not the sun that moves, but the earth. However, for thousands of years, it was this alleged movement that provided the coordinates by which man oriented and placed himself, both in time (the sundials, the twelve hours of the day, the twelve months of the year), and in space (east and west).
Perhaps it is because of the oscillation of the earth's axis, that our planet has 68% of land in the northern hemisphere and only 32% in the southern, just as it has 68% of land in the east and only 32% in the west. So from a migratory point of view, when Homo sapiens left Africa through the Middle East, some went to the west, to Europe, and others to the east, to Asia and later, to America through the Bering Strait.
Similarly, from civilization point of view, the first culture emerged in the Fertile Crescent, developing later to the west until the time of the Roman Empire, and only afterwards to the north. The second culture emerged in Asia, India and China, and the third in Central America, with the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas. From the trade point of view, the first established trade route - the Silk Road - ran from the west to the Far East, India and China.
Near the equator, the stars all rise in the east and set in the west. The stars that are perpendicular to the earth's axis, among them, the Pole Star, oscillate very little at night, and for this reason, they neither rise nor set. The Pole Star, relatively fixed in relation to the earth, was designated as the celestial north and it was in this way that the other orientation coordinate in the terrestrial space came about, the south being its opposite along a vertical line.
Celestial North – The location of the Pole Star or star Polaris, in the constellation of Ursa Minor, is today our North Star. Since the axis of the earth has a movement similar to a spinning top, in the year 7500, the North Star will be Alpha Cephei in the constellation of Cepheus; in the year 11500, the star pointing north will be Delta Cygni in the constellation of Cygnus; in the year 14000, it will be the star Vega in the constellation of Lyra; in the year 23000, it will be the star Thuban in the constellation of Drago; finally, in the year 26000, the star Polaris will again be our North Star.
The Polar or Geographical North - or North Pole is the place on our planet where all the longitudinal lines converge to the north, the South Pole being the place where these same lines converge to the south. North Pole is the center of the northern hemisphere, just as the South Pole is the center of the southern hemisphere. From space above the North Pole, Earth moves counterclockwise; viewed from the equator, it moves from west to east, i.e. from left to right. The earth's rotational movement causes it to be flattened at the poles and bulged out at the equator.
The Magnetic North – For a long time it was thought that the geographic north and the magnetic north were one and the same. In 1831, however, the English explorer James Ross discovered that they actually did not coincide. While the geographic north results from the earth's rotational movement, as we have seen in an earlier article, the magnetic north is a magnetic field formed by liquid iron beneath the earth's surface; the compass needle points to this molten iron mass that is 22 degrees from the geographic North Pole. Since the celestial north changes, so too does the magnetic north, because it consists of molten iron; currently, the magnetic North Pole is moving from northern Canada towards Siberia at a rate of about 55 kilometers per year since 2019.
North - South - East - West
The north-south vertical line with the east-west horizontal line form the cross of the four cardinal points by which we orient ourselves on our planet. The meeting point of the two lines defines the precise place where we are, whether it is at the top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea.
Every location on our planet is identified by the meeting point of a north-south vertical line and an east-west horizontal line; in other words, by the degrees of latitude of how far north (+) or south (-) from the equator (0 degree), and by the degrees of longitude east (+) or west (-) from the prime meridian (0 degree) in Greenwich, England. The equator is real because it corresponds to the center of the earth; in contrast, the prime meridian is an arbitrary reference line.
To the four cardinal points, in the so-called Wind Rose, there are four other intermediate points (between the cardinal points), also called collaterals, which are formed by two diagonal lines: Northeast-Southwest, Northwest-Southeast.
GPS - Global Positioning System
This system which makes our life so much easier, for us who travel in the city or even in the countryside, was not invented for the purpose to spontaneously guide us from one place to another, but rather to guide missiles and drones to the place where they should activate. Man has always been more inventive to create artifacts of war or for business to accumulate wealth than to create artifacts of peace, for health and harmony among peoples. Like the GPS, the atomic energy was invented to make bombs and not to produce electricity, as it is used today.
The U.S. Department of Defense created and has been maintaining the GPS system since 1978, although it was declared fully operational only in 1995. The GPS first went into action in battlefields during the Gulf War (1990-1991).
The functioning of the GPS follows our refrain of three-dimensionality; it works by a process called trilateration. In other words, in order to work, our GPS device needs to pick up signals from three satellites. With these signals, the GPS receiver calculates its distance from each of the satellites by multiplying the speed of light with the time interval between the local instant and the instant the signal was sent; the place where the device or receiver is on Earth corresponds to the intersection of these three signals.
In order for the receiver’s position to be continuously updated, since we are constantly moving as when traveling in a car, the sending of these signals occurs continuously at a speed of about 300,000 kilometers per second (that is, the speed of light in a vacuum). Once our location is found, it is easy to calculate the road and the journey time to the destination from a map that works inside the GPS device.
We are spatial-temporal beings, that is, we occupy a specific space at a determined time that is continuously changing. Time and space use practically the same vocabulary. In time, we use hours, minutes, seconds; in space we use degrees, minutes and seconds. Right now is 17 hours, 16 minutes and 13 seconds, and the place where I am presently is at +43º44'34'' (north), -79º35'33'' (west), that is, in the city of Toronto, in the province of Ontario, in Canada.
North versus South
North and South are not only just two geographical coordinates, they are also two places that evoke an unequal economic development. The North is rich and the South is poor, the border between poor countries and rich countries is the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, where so many poor people drown fleeing famine, plague, and war. In North America, it is the border of United States with Mexico, where those crossing to the North can be shot like animals, be detained or end up being deported.
The North exploits the South in a thousand and one ways: it imports raw materials at low cost, and exports manufactured products at a high cost. It exploits labor, paying wages of misery, as was the case of Nike paying a dollar a month to children who worked clandestinely underground. Taking advantage of the lack of personal identification of the peoples of the South, the North mutilates and kills young people and adolescents to harvest their organs that are later transplanted in the North.
The gap between the rich and the poor today has reached abysmal and unthinkable proportions. One percent of the world's population has 54% of the world's wealth, while 99% of the world's population has only 46%. How is it possible that this gap exists in a globalized world, where the law or the principle of the communicating vessels should have been an inevitable reality?
In other words, if there are two tanks of water, one almost full and the other almost empty, when there is communication between the two, by the law of nature they should eventually reach the same level of water. Why doesn't this happen at the commercial and social level when rich and poor countries communicate with each other? It is because the communication is done through valves, that is, the movement is manipulated to go in only one direction. This is what the laws of the market achieve: to make the rich ever richer and the poor ever poorer.
Greenpeace claims that if the world's population were to live as the peoples of the North live, the earth could only support its children for a couple of months before it runs out of resources and end up so contaminated as to become unlivable. Since the rich are unwilling to give up their standard of living, nor are they interested in making the earth habitable, they do everything to keep the poor in their poverty, defending their wealth tooth and nail, and with whatever weapons they have.
Another problem that further aggravates the difference between the rich and the poor is racism: The North is white; the South is black or dark. The people of the North think they are smarter, harder working, more frugal or better saver, but in reality this is just a myth. In another text we have observed that the physiological characteristics of peoples, such as color of skin, eyes, hair, and height, type of hair, shape of the eyes, nose, etc. are due to at least 25,000 years of adaptation to the place in which each group lives.
Necessity sharpens inventiveness, however. In the South where the climate is milder and nature gives everything, man therefore does not need to work hard or save much, for nature is always producing abundant fruits. The North is cold, nature only produces once a year with man’s great effort in agricultural work, so it is necessary to save. In addition, life is more difficult and the challenge makes the intellect work to find solutions to many problems.
West versus East
Between the Far East and the West, we have the Middle East that is often in the news. The conflict between Israel and Palestine seems to have no solution because history has not been looked at or is totally ignored. Statements, such as those made by UNESCO that Israel has no historical affiliation to Jerusalem can only be issued by an ignorant and yet were made by this agency.
The fact is that the one who really has no historical affiliation to Jerusalem is the people of Palestine, the Muslims. The legend that Muhammad traveled from Mecca to Medina and from Medina to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Heaven and returned was not recognized even by the prophet's principal wife. It was nothing more than a dream.
All the territories that Israel occupies were part of that country during the reigns that followed David up until the times of the Roman Empire. The State of Palestine never existed outside the Gaza Strip; it was there that the Philistines who came from the island of Crete, present-day Cyprus, immigrated, and settled in the Gaza Strip. This strip of land has always been Palestine.
Taking advantage of the expulsion of the Jews by the Romans in the year 70 AD, the Palestinians occupied what had been the State of Israel, but they never constituted a political union, never formed a country. The Middle East was passed from hand to hand, until it fell into the hands of the British during World War II, and from there it passed to the State of Israel, constituted after the war.
In addition to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the Middle East has been the cradle of Muslim terrorist organizations such as the Al-Qaida or the Islamic State. With the end of the Cold War and the antagonism between communism and capitalism, with the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, a war began between the West of Christian tradition and the East of Islamic tradition, a war with skirmishes in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and with terrorist attacks almost everywhere in the world.
The reason, in my opinion, may be linked to the defeat of the Muslims by the Christians, and the conquest of the world hegemony by the latter. Another reason may be the feeling of inferiority felt by the Muslims in relation to the West, which makes them aggressive; and still another reason may be the fear of losing faith in a religion that has not adapted to modern times or to human nature from the point of view of truth.
The Islam religion was left behind from the psychological, theological, philosophical and social point of view. The Age of Reason did not pass through it, as it happened with Christianity. Because of this, and because they do not make changes, they fear losing the faithful and therefore they become aggressive.
In terms of culture, the differences between the West and the East concern the countries of Europe, America and Australia in the West relative to the East composed of China, India, Japan and Korea. In general, the East is more contemplative, the West more active, the East more religious and spiritual, the West more technological, more materialistic and consumeristic. Reflecting on this, the lines or bands of the western flags are horizontal, land to land; those of the east are vertical. Medicine in the West is chemical, in the East is energetic. The western calendar is solar, the eastern calendar is lunar.
In terms of diet, the western diet is salty, while the oriental is more refined, more seasoned, sweeter and more bittersweet. In the East, food is prepared and properly cut in the kitchen, in the West it comes still coarse and bulky so one needs a fork and a knife to eat it; in the East there are no knives on the table at a meal.
The color of mourning in the West is black, in the East is white; the Orientals wear colorful clothes, of bright colors; in the West, the colors are darker, opaque, without beauty. The West writes from left to right, the East from right to left. The East continues with pictorial writing, the West uses alphabetic writing; eastern languages are spoken with guttural sounds, produced in the throat and nose; western languages are produced in the mouth with the tongue and lips.
Vertical - Horizontal - Diagonal in communication
The direction of the straight line, whether vertical, top-down or bottom-up, or horizontal, left-to-right, right-to-left, or diagonal line, i.e. crosswise from top to bottom or from bottom to top, is important to define the various types of communication that exist within organizations, associations, institutions or companies.
Vertical communication
Vertical communication is typical in pyramid structured organizations, such as the army and the Catholic Church. This type of communication assumes that some are at the top, in the upper echelons of command and others are in the lower echelons and hence must obey those at the top.
From private, corporal, sergeant, warrant officer, ensign, lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, general, to marshal, communication is never carried out horizontally from equal to equal, it is always vertical. Even when a group of captains meet, that is, people of the same rank, the communication between them is not horizontal, it remains vertical: with the captain who is the oldest having the most power. That is why it is said that "in the troop, age is a rank, because it is understood that older people have more experience, that is still, according to the saying, the mother of science. Corroborating this, another proverb says, “The devil knows more because he is old than because he is the devil".
In the Catholic Church, the same kind of communication happens as in the armed forces. Power comes from top down: Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, priest, deacon, and layperson. The Second Vatican Council was intended to democratize the Church more, which ultimately did not happen because Pope John Paul II took charge of archiving it and neutralizing it throughout his pontificate which was too long. Today, when we are already in need of a Third Vatican Council, we have yet to apply the Second.
Descending – from top to bottom
It is the communication that flows from a higher authority to the subordinates. However democratic an organization may be, there must be leaders, responsible people put in charge, and when this happens, vertical communication reflects the difference in positions and responsibilities among people. No organization could survive without vertical communication, because it would be a true anarchy. This communication comes in various oral and written forms, instructions, orders, letters, memos, speeches.
Ascending - from bottom to top
It is the opposite of the previous one, where communication flows in the opposite direction, from bottom up. It is used by employees or subordinates who express obedience to what has been asked of them; the more democratic an organization is, the more the suggestions, ideas and hunches of the subordinates are considered by the superiors. This communication takes the form of reports of what has or has not been done, the difficulties and problems encountered, proposals and suggestions. Advices from experts in different matters of government
Horizontal communication
It refers to the type of communication that takes place among people of same status and level, among peers. It is important for team work and when multiple branches, departments or sections of an institution depend on the same manager, and are interdependent of each other.
At the level of companies and organizations, we could say that vertical communication, from the top down, initiates the work, and from the bottom up, shows whether or not the work is done. In contrast, horizontal communication is what exists when a job, mission, or task is being performed. In other words, it is the communication that exists between the members of one team and other lateral and interdependent teams.
This type of communication takes the form of meetings, phone calls, teleconferences, discussions, consultations, between the members of one section of the company, as well as between the managers of interdependent sections, in the execution of a common project.
Diagonal, transverse or oblique communication
The first two channels of communication are formal, institutional; diagonal communication, on the other hand, is informal, non-institutional, and occurs on the sidelines of the other two and we could almost describe it as "illegal", "clandestine". They are the hallway conversations, while having a coffee or smoking a cigarette: people meet informally and as "the mouth speaks from the abundance of what’s going on in the heart", among friends they talk about the matter that at the moment occupies the mind and heart of everyone.
This conversation flow is not between colleagues, so it is not horizontal, nor is it between bosses and workers, so it is not vertical either. Like the diagonal, it is neither a vertical nor a horizontal conversation, but a synthesis of the two: the engine of this communication is friendship; therefore, it flows between colleagues, or between bosses and workers, if and only if they are friends.
This type of communication often takes the form of a rumor, a secret that is shared by many, "So and so said..." "I've heard said ..." and it has a devastating power within a company, although it can also be used positively.
It often happens that the "ad hoc" meetings that take place in the corridors, WhatsApp messages or in the parking lots after the formal meetings are more important than those taking place in the meeting room; and, often dishonestly, it is outside the formal meetings, and in their absence, that important decisions are made informally that have little or nothing to do with what was discussed at the formal meeting.
People are not cogwheels, where functional relationships remain strictly functional. The relationship between people within the same function or between different functions creates personal friction and also sympathy, friendship and enmity. Diagonal communication uses these channels. It is impossible to prevent diagonal or informal communication from taking place inside organizations and there are ways to take advantage of it positively.
Through this kind of communication, we know what people really think but do not dare to say during a meeting; we know the emotional state and the existence of personal and family problems, which are important for good or poor performance at work; as this type of communication is the most reliable in terms of feedback, managers can take advantage of the ideas circulating in these environments to make more democratic decisions.
Jesus used this kind of communication with his disciples when he asked them, "Who do men say that I am?" People did not dare to tell Jesus directly what they thought of him, but they told his disciples.
The one-dimensionality or horizontality of politics
Since the last century, left, centre and right have been the coordinates used to define the ideological nature and identity of each political party in relation to itself and its counterparts. Before we talk about political spectrum, we want to refer to other coordinates by which we understand physical space in general and which refer to vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines.
The political arena understood as left, center and right, is one-dimensional because it only happens along the horizontal line. If we were to talk about a monarchy or dictatorship, we would have to use the vertical line. However, since we are speaking of democracy, the horizontal line is enough for us, because in this political system, the sovereign is the people and the leaders who represent it are temporary delegates of this power that always resides and remains with the people. Within the horizontal line, the left is the place where it begins, the right the place where it ends, and the center the place equidistant between the beginning and the end of the line.
Last century political space
Whoever is not with me is against me… Matthew 12:30
For much of the last century, the world was polarized: countries belonged to one bloc or another. It is true that certain countries, such as Yugoslavia, were said not to be aligned, but fundamentally they followed the ideological directives of the Soviet Union, just as in the West, Switzerland, for example, has always declared itself to be a neutral country, but it is also ideologically aligned with the West.
To the one bloc belonged the countries with communist or socialist orientation, with the Soviet Union at its head, and to the other bloc the countries with capitalist orientation, with the United States at its head. Europe, divided by the Berlin Wall (communist to the east and capitalist to the west) was a symbol and sign of a division that not only happened in the old continent, but all over the planet.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union only occurred at the end of the 20th century in 1991, we lived through the last century in a climate of cold war, in which each bloc sought to grow, extending its sphere of influence. This Cold War heated up from time to time in indirect clashes between the two blocs on extraterritorial battlefields. This explains the wars in Vietnam, Korea and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. With the same intention of extending the spaces of influence, in addition to these skirmishes, we had revolutions and coups in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
With the fall of Soviet communism, the world ceased to be ideologically divided into two blocs (capitalist and communist). During the first decade of this 21st century, we experienced radical Islamic-oriented terrorism against Christian-oriented countries. For some time it seemed that the ideological bilateralism communism/capitalism was going to be replaced by a religious bilateralism between the Christian world and the Islamic world. This was the objective of organizations like Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.
We do not know what the second decade of this century that has just started will hold. With the rise of "populism", both in traditionally communist countries like Poland and Romania, as well as in traditionally capitalist countries like the United States and England, it seems that the political coordinates of left, center and right no longer make sense since populist parties do not place themselves in any of these traditional political spaces: they claim to be with the people, against the political system in force. However, since as of now there is no other criterion by which political parties identify themselves and others, then left, center and right remain to be part of the political geography.
Left - Center - Right
The entire political arena is in a straight line that goes from the left to the right passing through the center. There are nuances on the left, the so-called far-left, and nuances on the right, the so-called far-right. And, since on our planet a continuous straight line turns into a curved line, there are those who say that in politics the extremes touch each other.
The words left and right applied to politics were born out of the French Revolution and are linked to the arrangement of seats for the parliamentarians in the Assembly of the Republic of France. Those who sat to the left of the President of the Assembly were supporters of the revolution, those who opposed the monarchy, defenders of democracy, the people’s government. The left side, in all countries, has always been associated with the struggles of workers organized in unions that sought greater social justice, less profits for employers, and fairer wages.
In contrast, those who sat to the right of the president supported the old monarchist regime. They wanted at all costs to maintain the social structure and status quo of old, so not to lose their privileges. Often or almost always, they relied on religion and its convincing power to gain popular vote; they were conservative in their ways of thinking about all social issues, and tended to live in the past and reject change.
Overcoming the dichotomy between medieval monarchy and democracy or republic, Karl Marx's economic and political philosophy came to give the words left and right the connotation they have today. The right is conservative, capitalist, and accentuates the value of economic freedom; the left is socialist, communist, and accentuates the value of economic equality. The star and insignia of the most liberal capitalism is the United States; the insignia of communism used to be the Soviet Union (present-day Russia), but today it is China, where the so-called state capitalism reigns.
The rest of the countries in the world alternate in their government between right-wing and left-wing parties. In general, Europe and the rest of the world fall somewhere in between China and the United States, with characteristics of both. The most successful and fair historical socialisms are those found in the Scandinavian countries.
The exact center is difficult to define in politics, so there is a centre-right and a centre-left, depending on whether the party in question leans more to the right or to the left, or makes a synthesis when using right-wing policies on one subject and left-wing policies on another. Politics in the British tradition is bipolar, the center does not exist. In the United States, the right are the Republicans, the left the Democrats. In the United Kingdom, the right are the Tories, the left the Labour. In Canada, the right are the Conservatives, the left Liberals, and in Australia, the right are the Liberals and left the Labour.
The Left
It argues that the state must regulate the economy to prevent that a few become very rich and the rest very poor. The state must ensure that everyone has access to essential goods, health, education and opportunities. To make this possible, it imposes taxes on the entire population: those who have more, pay more, and those who have less, pay less, even receiving if they are in a state of extreme poverty.
Karl Marx's principle "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is the inspiring principle from which all socialist and communist social policies are based. Financed by the taxes that everyone pays, in proportion to their income, the socialist state must guarantee all citizens equal education, health and social security, that is, pension at retirement.
The Right
The ideology of the right, on the other hand, is based on an ill-fated and pseudo mystical theorist named Adam Smith who said that when each person selfishly seeks their own interests, an invisible hand will seek the common interests. The invisible hand is so invisible that it doesn't even exist, it's a myth that has never been verified in reality.
We are by nature unequal and do not go to the market with the same amount of money in the pocket to spend. Even if we were the same in that aspect, we are different in personality and intelligence. A complete absence of regulation, as the capitalist world advocates, only serves to accentuate social and economic disparity.
It is none other than the law of the fittest, the law of the jungle applied to the economy. It was precisely this theory that led the world to the current global situation of humanity, where 1% has more wealth than the rest of the 99%. How long can we go on like this?
According to Smith, the state should not regulate the market or the economy because they regulate themselves.
The right advocates greater individual responsibility, autonomy and private initiative of people and businesses, with less taxes and regulation. The state is not responsible for anything, it does not care about the welfare of its citizens, as they themselves must look after and provide for their own healthcare, education and pension when they can no longer work. In such a state, the wealthy are safe in their money, those who live from "paycheck to paycheck" never raise their heads and live insecure in poverty.
Autocracy - democracy - anarchy
Democracy, like its political counterpart the republic, has its flaws, but it is preferable to monarchy or any form of autocracy or political dictatorship. Dura lex sed lex, the law is harsh, but it's the law, the arbitrariness of a tyrant would be far worse. In both autocracy and anarchy, the law of the strongest governs. In a rule of law, no one is above the law; therefore, as a Jesuit norm says, "keep the rule so the rule will keep you."
Vertical - Horizontal - Diagonal in religion
The three directions of a straight line – vertical, horizontal and diagonal – also have their expression or equivalence in the field of the Christian religion, both in the way we relate to God and to others, and in the way God relates to us.
In our relationship with God and others
The vertical line expresses loving God above all things, with all our mind and heart. In the Christian hierarchy of affections, God comes first: it is loving God above all things and all people that guarantees us our freedom from things and people. As long as God is first in our lives, we will be free. Without freedom there is no human life in the individual sense, no human person, and no human dignity.
The horizontal line manifests love due to one’s neighbour; the one who we must always consider equal to us, on an equal footing with him. Love has no social class because it is either born between equals or it makes people equal. If we are equal before God, then we are equal to each other, there are no statutes nor hierarchies. The other, as the word itself indicates, is an "alter-ego", that is, another ‘I’, so all that is due to me is due to the other. Love of neighbour is the guarantee of equality, the value of human life as social beings.
The junction of the vertical and the horizontal lines forms a cross which is the symbol of Christianity because the son of God died on a cross. And since the two loves are united in one, we cannot love God without loving our neighbor and vice versa. The two commandments presuppose each other. The diagonal line, as it is a synthesis of the vertical and the horizontal, can indicate that in loving our neighbour is already loving God and vice versa: if our love of God is genuine, it certainly takes into account our neighbour.
In God's relationship with us
The three divine persons communicate with us differently because each has a different relationship with us:
God the Father, who created everything and who also created us, communicates with us vertically;
God the Son, Emmanuel, is God with us, who has dwelt among us, is our older brother who said to his disciples "I no longer call you servants, but friends", communicates with us horizontally;
God the Holy Spirit is neither horizontal nor vertical, but transversal to every creature, for we are all temple of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit blows wherever he wants, so he guides and inspires the Pope as well as the last of the faithful: he is transversal to all, from the top of the hierarchy to the last believer.
Vertically, God loves me like a Father and I love Him like a son or daughter; horizontally, Christ the son of God loves us like brothers and sisters, and we love Him like an older brother; diagonally, the Holy Spirit is transversal to everyone, for he infuses everyone, from the greatest to the smallest, making us into a people.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
