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Left/Right dichotomy is fake

Started by Sal1981, April 13, 2018, 07:10:09 AM

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Baruch

Quote from: Sal1981 on April 13, 2018, 09:31:49 AM
The point is that the dichotomy left/right doesn't explain nuanced views.

Sendt fra min SM-G920F med Tapatalk

Cavebear's situationalism would agree with you, except for his web link paranoia ;-(
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Gilgamesh on April 13, 2018, 05:45:04 PM
Exactly.

Was hitler left or right?

Well, his economics were left - and socially he was right, and so this would land him in the center. Billy next door just has moderate views on prettymuch everything, and so he is center also. Hitler and Billy are both centrists, despite not having similar belief systems in the least. If the left-right spectrum cannot say with any accuracy what someones views are no matter where they fall on the spectrum, it no longer serves the purpose of its very existence. It's fallacious.

Left = French Revolution and all imitators, if it means anything at all.  It doesn't mean the American Revolution, or even Fabian British Socialism.  So just better to call them blood thirsty revolutionaries!
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Gilgamesh on April 13, 2018, 05:45:04 PM
Exactly.

Was hitler left or right?

Well, his economics were left - and socially he was right, and so this would land him in the center. Billy next door just has moderate views on prettymuch everything, and so he is center also. Hitler and Billy are both centrists, despite not having similar belief systems in the least. If the left-right spectrum cannot say with any accuracy what someones views are no matter where they fall on the spectrum, it no longer serves the purpose of its very existence. It's fallacious.

Hitler was probably neither left nor right.  He mostly went with whatever worked.  Very nice post.  Thank you.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on April 15, 2018, 03:23:44 AM
Hitler was probably neither left nor right.  He mostly went with whatever worked.  Very nice post.  Thank you.

Stalin was probably neither left nor right.  He mostly went with whatever worked (for him).  A corrected paraphrase.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: Sal1981 on April 13, 2018, 07:10:09 AM
I've used "the Left" to signify people on the social and progressive leaning political platform, while "the Right" have been the conservative and "family values", whatever that is supposed to mean. I don't find these to be contrasts, at least not anymore.

We have been lied to about these political spectrums, when it's really just collectivism versus individualism across the board. The people who identify with today's Left are for censorship, authoritarianism, and most of all; collectivism. While the Right has remained unchanged.
The right remains unchanged?  Unchanged from what?  It seems more vicious than I remember it in the past, and I hate to say this, but a bit more screwball.  It's also farther to the right, as is the Left, whatever new spectrum label that you choose to give it.  I agree that "Left" and "Right" are not nuanced.  They don't identify any specific values that are across the board.

But you know what?  Left and Right do describe something very important in our political division.  They are used by the Left and Right to describe their very selves.  There is a Left and Right side of the isle in the senate.  When a person says he is part of the Right (or Left), a general and immediate picture comes to mind.  It may not be accurate, but it is no less accurate than saying, I'm an individualist (or collectivist), which warrant's about the equivalent of "WTF?", and is no more descriptive than Left or Right.  How individualist is it to take away a woman's control over her body?  Or for that matter how collectivist is it to require you get a license to own a gun?  These are labels without particular meaning, and often inaccurate at that.

Left and Right mean something to people.  They mean something to politicians and the media who capitalize on the generalizations to divide and separate people into one of two groups.

Quote from: Sal1981 on April 13, 2018, 07:10:09 AM
So, do you think it serves a utility to offer up such sides? Or do you think, as I, that it should be about what values you identify with (and which values you reject for that matter)?
In and ideal world, it should be about values, but in reality it's about Left and Right, colloquial synonyms specifically meaning Democrat and Republican.  The two party system depends on this.  People identify themselves that way, and they defend their group with the enthusiasm of the self righteous.

Give these groups different labels, and eventually those labels will become meaningless and used to describe an equivalent emotional state just as they do today, just like the ideology labels like Nazi, Fascist, Socialist, Capitalist, Left or Right, rather than what those things actually are.  They will be divided into evil and good, no matter what they really accomplish.

I think what you are doing here is trying to describe a fucked up system, and then trying to unfuck it by changing some labels.

Baruch

People are fucked up ... no shit Capt Obvious ;-)  My dad used to comment about Medieval battle, where men didn't wear clear uniforms (other than personal heraldry) ... "how can you tell who to hit?".  Well .. is someone hits you, you hit them back, I suppose.  Politically, changes are proposed.  Either something new, or an attempt to modify or cancel something in the status quo.  One could say that the Left is the one striving for "something new" ... and that the opposite is clearly reactionary (from the POV of that Left ... hence Right).  So it was Left to introduce gay marriage, but Right to try to reverse gay marriage.  Yeah, I don't find that rhetoric to be very useful.

If the label "Left" doesn't suit a Leftist, they will likely deny that the Left-Right spectrum is real.  They are spreading scared squid ink.  Similar a Rightist who doesn't want to be called racist.  We only embrace labels as "us" because we see some benefit in doing so.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: Baruch on April 15, 2018, 09:45:40 AM
People are fucked up ... no shit Capt Obvious ;-)
I hate to be obvious.

Quote from: Baruch on April 15, 2018, 09:45:40 AM
If the label "Left" doesn't suit a Leftist, they will likely deny that the Left-Right spectrum is real.  They are spreading scared squid ink.  Similar a Rightist who doesn't want to be called racist.  We only embrace labels as "us" because we see some benefit in doing so.
Centrist seems to be a fashionable label for those that want to appear to be moderate because the original label has become politicized into an inflammatory attack, but it doesn't say much about what the person's values are.  He might be at the center of some wacky extreme and not even realize it.



Blackleaf

Yeah, my dad calls himself a "Centrist," but he is a Republican in every sense of the word. The only "Centrist" thing I've seen of him was when we were at this bar with some of our family friends. My throat was sore, so it was difficult to talk. The others started talking about conspiracies straight out of Fox News, and my dad was the only one who expressed any healthy specticism. He compared it to 9/11 truther claims, only for several of them to reveal they were 9/11 truthers as well. It was quite a weird experience. I'm not used to my dad being the most reasonable person in the room.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on April 15, 2018, 10:42:00 AM
I hate to be obvious.
Centrist seems to be a fashionable label for those that want to appear to be moderate because the original label has become politicized into an inflammatory attack, but it doesn't say much about what the person's values are.  He might be at the center of some wacky extreme and not even realize it.

Better than Capt Oblivious ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Blackleaf on April 15, 2018, 11:08:09 AM
Yeah, my dad calls himself a "Centrist," but he is a Republican in every sense of the word. The only "Centrist" thing I've seen of him was when we were at this bar with some of our family friends. My throat was sore, so it was difficult to talk. The others started talking about conspiracies straight out of Fox News, and my dad was the only one who expressed any healthy specticism. He compared it to 9/11 truther claims, only for several of them to reveal they were 9/11 truthers as well. It was quite a weird experience. I'm not used to my dad being the most reasonable person in the room.

My father was Republican too, but a centrist.  He wasn't in favor of unnecessary wars, or of Richard Nixon's criminality.  He wasn't in favor of out of control budgets or give aways to the rich.  He would probably not have supported gay marriage ... and didn't like Johnson's Great Society (buying votes of the weak).  I think he was pretty typical of the working man of his time.  Since then we have been brutalized again and again, particularly since 1981.  The New Republicans were S Democrats and John Birchers ... not something he supported.  My mother was the S Democrat, though she didn't hate American minorities, she did hate Japanese (WW II).

It is natural to oppose whatever your parents are for, particularly when you are still young.  I wasn't typical though.  The Powell memo, the PNAC and the Southern Strategy are anathema to me, though a bit before my time.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Blackleaf

Quote from: Baruch on April 15, 2018, 01:08:58 PMIt is natural to oppose whatever your parents are for, particularly when you are still young.  I wasn't typical though.  The Powell memo, the PNAC and the Southern Strategy are anathema to me, though a bit before my time.

Actually, people usually have similar world views as their parents. You grow up hearing their opinions so much, they become ingrained in your mind. Christians beget Christians, Republicans beget Republicans. Those who break the family trend are not the norm.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Mike Cl

The labels of 'left' and 'right' don't mean much--or they mean whatever the users want them to mean.  And the users don't usually tell you exactly what they mean.  They just use the words.  For me left means those fighting against the divine right of kings--or change from a more autocratic form of govt. to one less autocratic.  The right means those fighting to maintain the divine right of kinds--or for tradition and the way things were done in the past. 
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

SGOS

Quote from: Blackleaf on April 15, 2018, 01:19:59 PM
Actually, people usually have similar world views as their parents. You grow up hearing their opinions so much, they become ingrained in your mind. Christians beget Christians, Republicans beget Republicans. Those who break the family trend are not the norm.
I broke ranks with my parents who were Republicans, possibly because my grandparents were Republicans.  But politics played a small role in my parent's lives, and they didn't rail on about how bad the Democrats were.  I called myself a Republican, but I was really apolitical until I started paying attention and decided the Republicans were against my values.  But this was at a time before the political make up of our leadership had shifted so far to the right, and back then, Republicans and Democrats agreed with each other, or at least compromised on things.  Democrats today seem like the Republicans of my youth when acrimony didn't rule political decisions the way they do today.

Baruch

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 15, 2018, 01:47:16 PM
The labels of 'left' and 'right' don't mean much--or they mean whatever the users want them to mean.  And the users don't usually tell you exactly what they mean.  They just use the words.  For me left means those fighting against the divine right of kings--or change from a more autocratic form of govt. to one less autocratic.  The right means those fighting to maintain the divine right of kinds--or for tradition and the way things were done in the past.

Très français de toi.  And Jeffersonian.  You were born about 200+ years too late.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Baruch on April 15, 2018, 05:00:09 PM
Très français de toi.  And Jeffersonian.  You were born about 200+ years too late.
No, not really.  Those definitions still work.  I guess that makes me a traditional liberal.  :cool:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?