What, exactly, is the difference between ‘left’ and ‘right’ when it comes to politics? What are they left and right of? Is there a ‘center’? And why are ‘leftist views’ on the left of whatever they are on the left of (I hesitate to call it a spectrum, since I’ve never heard of any gradient in the scheme; one seems to be either ‘left’ or ‘right’)? Why aren’t those views on the other side (which would make them ‘the right’, of course)?
And do I make any sense here at all?
No.
Previous thread: Where did the origin of term RIGHT-WING come from
In contemporary political conversation, the left-right dichotomy serves mostly to reduce the messy and complicated world of actual policies and ideologies to a simple one-dimensional graph. Of course, nothing is quite that simple, but (to use the USA as an example) the Republicans cluster to the right of center and the Democrats to the left. So it is a useful tool. Oddballs like the Libertarians (who are mostly right-wing, except when they’re extremely not) complicate the picture.
Of course, it’s completely unscientific. It sounds like it would work like the pH scale, as in “Congressman Jones comes in at 9.7 on the Lefty Scale,” but it’s not that clearly definable. Various advocacy groups on either side (or on some of the many sides, depending on how you look at it) score candidates on their own scales, so you may see something like “Voters for Less Nasal Hair rank Senator Bupkiss at 78% and his opponent, Larry Ugulant, at 23%.” Since the groups don’t have a coherent set of criteria (even taking some as the inverse of others), it doesn’t all add up to anything.
It’s most useful for rhetorical reasons, so that Senator Bupkiss can get up on the stump and denounce Uglant as a right-wing tool of the International Hirsuite Nostril Conspiracy. But, all in all, it is a convenient shorthand, especially when combined with an adjective to provide some clue as to where on the spectrum an individual fits, from radical left-wing to reactionary right.
The left believes all decisions should be made by the group.
The right believes all decisions should be made by the individual.
The left thinks it is most important that people be safe.
The right thinks it is most important that people be free.
Except, of course, where it comes to matters of morality, whereupon you inverse Shodan’s statement.
The terms ‘right’ and ‘left’, much like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’, are unfortunately vague, misleading, and signifying nothing. Generally one can state left=liberal=Democrat and right=conservative=Republican, but that’s only in the broadest, most general sense. Start looking at specific Democrats or Republicans or at specific issues, and it all goes to hell.
For example, Republicans favor free trade and Democrats favor protectionism. Except that Pat Buchanan, considered on the extreme right-wing, favors protectionism, and Al Gore, who is the Democrat’s candidate, favors free trade.
In other words, there’s no ‘real’ answer to what ‘left’ and ‘right’ mean in terms of the political discussion. It all depends upon the specific issue and upon the assumptions carried into that issue.
Simple… if you consider yourself right wing or left wing, then any cause you don’t like will be coined with the opposite wing affiliation.
Terms like “left-wing” and “right-wing”, “liberal” and “conserative”, etc are supposed to be shorthand words to give you a general impression of the person’s opinions/views. However, I find they usually are more confusing than elucidating, and end up getting wrapped up in people’s preconceptions. So really they function more as slur words than actual content providers. “That right-wing reactionary conservative fundy Pat Buchanon would have us all goose-stepping and wearing pins certifying our official status as pro-life death penalty advocates.” “That left-wing radical liberal communist Jesse Jackson would demand we hand over our salaries and get doled out quotas of cash based on some convoluted government formula involving size of family, race, and shoe-size.”
At least Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, Socialist, etc have some accepted criteria for definition - even if those criteria are irrational and self-contradictory.
Picking a nit here, but that’s actually a two-dimensional graph.
But yeah, the terms originally refer to where the republican and monarchist factions sat in the National Assembly after the French Revolution.
Perhaps a more apt terminology would be “left wing” and “wrong wing,” but that would probably make it even tougher for people with speech impediments. Try saying “wrong wing” ten times fast.
Thanks all. The explanations make sense…mostly (apparently, moreso than my questions, anyway).
So, I have another question regarding the origin of the terms: why / how did a term originating from the French monarchy make it into U.S. political jargon? Especially since we didn’t seem to be too happy with the whole monarchy (granted, we broke away from the British monarchy, but a king is a king is a king, yes?) thing in the first place!
Do other countries use this ‘left’-‘right’ dichotomy? If so, do they trace the origin back to the practices of the French National Assembly as well?
The left-right dichotomy didn’t come from the French monarchy. It came from the National Assembly. It appears that throughout the nineteenth century the terms “left”, “right”, and “center” in a political sense were increasingly applied throughout Europe to mean the same thing as in France, and eventually the terms were applied to the U.S. It wasn’t as though Americans made a decision to use the words. In fact, most Americans even now use liberal/conservative rather than left/right.
OK, then: what’s the second dimension?
Left and right are two directions on the same single dimension (visualize a line). A two-dimensional graph would be a flat field (perhaps crossing liberal-conservative with statist-individual liberty).
Oh, and, just to pick a nit myself, the word is ignoramus. But that was probably just a typo.
Ignormaus sounds like a German mouse who’s very happy in his preconceptions, or perhaps a great lost Mozart opera.
You want a 2D graph that’s better than the old left-right line? Check this out:
http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html
Actually, a point in space is 1D. It has neither length nor width nor height. A line, or a flat geometrical shape, is 2D. A volume is 3D. It has all three.
Of course, I smoked a lot of pot in junior high, so I could be wrong.
Nope. Too much dope.
A point has ZERO dimensions.
A line has ONE dimension.
A plane (you missed that in your list) has TWO dimensions.
A volume has THREE.
Hence the political spectrum is one dimension (let’s call it radicality or something), much like the temperature scale is one dimension. Now, temperature charted over the course of several days would have two dimensions–temperature and time.
Etc.