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[Sy Borg]

In the new McCarthyism, we have Nazis under the bed rather than Reds. Their Marxist heroes like Mao, Lenin, and Stalin are fine in their eyes, but Hitler is the epitome of evil. This is a product of Marxism's Long March Through Institutions, a planned campaign that has been in train for decades and bearing significant fruit. Now you have people claiming Musk and Matt Walsh are Nazis, which is insane. Or rather, these are inexcusable and cynical smears. Throw enough mud and some will stick.

Mao, Stalin, and Hitler, were each personally responsible for the deaths of millions, as Churchill was too. Millions of living breathing people were murdered on their orders. Such conduct is repulsive to all decent people, of the left, and the right too. Any and all whose behaviour even drifts in that direction should probably be opposed wherever possible.

If it is repulsive to decent people, why is Hitler constantly treated as the worst human ever, when there were worse, especially in the mainstream media? Why is there a deathly silence around Mao and Stalin in the MSM while they gleefully attack Hitler at every opportunity and use him as a yardstick of evil - yet he is most definitely not the worst.

The reason: because Marxists control the dialogue. The irony is that many who like to falsely call people their disagree with Nazis and compare them to Hitler are themselves raging anti-Semites.

[Count Lucanor]

Let’s revisit your main distinction between the left and the right: “The left over emphasise the importance of good intentions and under emphasise the importance of incentives. The right doing the opposite.” This is not a dichotomy, obviously, as “good intentions” does not oppose “incentives”, in fact, you can think of incentives as a well-intended motivation to achieve desired results. This cannot be what distinguishes the left from the right.

I never phrased it as any kind of binary distinction, or to suggest that people on the left never think about incentive structures or that those on the right don't think about intentions. So the rest of your post is basically taking down a straw man and I need not respond to it.

I never said you had phrased it in that instance as a dichotomy, in fact, I was highlighting that not being a dichotomy, it cannot address and explain the left/right dichotomy. Later in your post, however, you did phrase it as a dilemma:

Really it comes down to this: what do you believe shapes human behaviour more? The intent behind the institutions (and other social structures) in which they operate OR the incentive structures that they lead to.

If I may use a crazy example to illustrate my case: being asked what distinguishes a pacifist from a warmonger, a similar response to yours would be: “…really it comes down to this: pacifists emphasize the need to demonstrate in the streets, while warmongers care a lot about the optimal use of the defense budget”. Both anecdotical statements could be true sometimes, but not always. Even worse, they do not point to any identifiable, contrasting, essential attribute that would differentiate pacifists from warmongers.

The main thing I take away from the book "The Myth of Left and Right" is the problem of tribalism. If you believe in one thing that happens to be championed by one party or the other, there is no logical reason (necessarily) to believe anything else that party stands for because there is no single underlying philosophy that connects it's policy proposals.

That seems more like a critique of the party system, which we cannot assume is always rigidly divided in one party for the left and another for the right. Not only there are multiple parties and plenty of spaces of dissent among them, but there are factions in the parties themselves. As far as I know, they rarely present their initiatives in the name of leftism or rightism (perhaps just in the name of progressivism or conservatism); those labels are put afterwards by political analysts.

[Pattern-chaser]

I think it's fair to observe that, traditionally, left and right were revolutionary and reactionary, respectively. As the Count said. We can dispute the details, of course, but these were common understandings. Are they no longer so?

I think these common understands are common here in the west where the establishment has largely been (historically speaking) market driven and religious. So the anti-market activists and the secularists were seen as progressive. But in the Soviet Union, the pro market activists were the progressives, as were the religious (as the establishment was anti market and anti religion).

So I'm not sure you can say the left is always progressive/revolutionary and the right is always conservative/reactionary unless you define it that way. And if you do, the being left and right has nothing to do with policy or how you think society should be organised. It is just a matter of whether you want to broadly change or preserve the status quo (what ever that might happen to be).

Interesting that you offer religion and Capitalism ("market-driven") to explain left/right wing tendencies. And you introduce the progressive/conservative complementary pair into the mix, too.

Capitalism isn't, or shouldn't be, a surprise, as it is a political ideology of itself. But I wonder if religion belongs here too? I've always found religion to be political only in the little things, the ones that really matter in our lives. Like the price of a pint of beer.

Usually, if not quite always, religion and its ministers steer clear of politics. I think that's probably a good idea. If one is pro- or anti-religion, I think one can still be on the left wing or on the right. I don't think one influences the other? This seems to agree with your thesis that a certain position can be viewed differently depending on the viewer's perspective.

As for your final sentence, isn't it just a restatement of what I said? Where "broadly change" is "revolutionary", and "preserve the status quo" is "reactionary". There are so many of these pairs of complements that all seem to usefully apply here. I wonder if that says something, perhaps about the central relevance to human politics that all of these basic divisions offer?

For example, if you favour structuring the rules of society around Islamic teachings (sharia law), are you a progressive or conservative? If you believe that in a theocratic country such as Iran, you are a conservative. If you believe that in the UK, you are a progressive. So does that mean that the advocates for sharia law are left or right wing?

[To your final question,] I would say neither. Adherence to the law, religious or secular, is compatible with "left" and "right" wing political thinking, or it can be, IMO. That is what I think I see, as I look out into our real world. Am I mistaken? So I don't think a preference for Sharia law makes one left or right, progressive or conservative, revolutionary or reactionary, etc. Do you?

[Pattern-chaser]

If it is repulsive to decent people, why is Hitler constantly treated as the worst human ever, when there were worse, especially in the mainstream media? Why is there a deathly silence around Mao and Stalin in the MSM while they gleefully attack Hitler at every opportunity and use him as a yardstick of evil - yet he is most definitely not the worst.

Hitler won the publicity lottery. Just as, years ago, VHS video cassettes triumphed over Betamax, even though the latter was technically superior. Chance, based on sales and marketing, and on public opinion (as influenced/dictated by the billionaire MSM, of course). Hitler stands as a synecdoche for evil tyrants in general. So when we say Hitler, we are really meaning them all, and Adolf's name is just shorthand for that.

BTW, when talking of monsters like these, I see little point in comparison, or on seeing one as "the worst". How do you compare 4 million deaths with, say, 9 million? A numerical comparison seems disrespectful, as you can't reduce these horrors to a numerical figure-of-merit. IMO. So there is no "worst".

The reason: because Marxists control the dialogue. The irony is that many who like to falsely call people their disagree with Nazis and compare them to Hitler are themselves raging anti-Semites.

I disagree. There is no connection whatever between Marxism and anti-Semitism.

The latter term, as you know well, is used to spread misinformation, by equating criticism of the political nation state of modern Israel with (support for! ) the Holocaust. Such propaganda is great evil of itself, and deserves to be ignored, starved of the "oxygen of publicity".

Hitler just won (or lost?) the marketing lottery.

[Fried Egg]

As for your final sentence, isn't it just a restatement of what I said? Where "broadly change" is "revolutionary", and "preserve the status quo" is "reactionary".

No, my point is that there is nothing inherently left or right wing about being revolutionary/progressive as opposed to being reactionary/conservative (unless you define it that way).

For example, if you favour structuring the rules of society around Islamic teachings (sharia law), are you a progressive or conservative? If you believe that in a theocratic country such as Iran, you are a conservative. If you believe that in the UK, you are a progressive. So does that mean that the advocates for sharia law are left or right wing?

[To your final question,] I would say neither. Adherence to the law, religious or secular, is compatible with "left" and "right" wing political thinking, or it can be, IMO.

No, you misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm talking about if you're an activist trying to change the law in the UK to adopt Sharia law, but if you are trying to maintain the law in Iran, you are a conservative. You believe the same thing but the context in which you express these views can make you a progressive or conservative.

[Sy Borg]

If it is repulsive to decent people, why is Hitler constantly treated as the worst human ever, when there were worse, especially in the mainstream media? Why is there a deathly silence around Mao and Stalin in the MSM while they gleefully attack Hitler at every opportunity and use him as a yardstick of evil - yet he is most definitely not the worst.

Hitler won the publicity lottery. Just as, years ago, VHS video cassettes triumphed over Betamax, even though the latter was technically superior. Chance, based on sales and marketing, and on public opinion (as influenced/dictated by the billionaire MSM, of course). Hitler stands as a synecdoche for evil tyrants in general. So when we say Hitler, we are really meaning them all, and Adolf's name is just shorthand for that.

BTW, when talking of monsters like these, I see little point in comparison, or on seeing one as "the worst". How do you compare 4 million deaths with, say, 9 million? A numerical comparison seems disrespectful, as you can't reduce these horrors to a numerical figure-of-merit. IMO. So there is no "worst".

Nine million deaths is worse than four million. The five million who were spared the Reaper might agree.

The issue is that the Hitler focus has lead us to falsely believe that Europeans' historical misbehaviour was especially heinous, as if it was somehow worse than what Middle Eastern powers did, or what China has done to its own, what Lenin and Stalin did to Russians and eastern Europeans (and parts of the ME), or what the Japanese did to the Chinese, or what Africans have been doing to themselves since the Dawn of Man.

Yes, Hitler has become a synecdoche for evil and it's resulted in unfair hatred of, and self-hatred in, light brown people. It feels like there is a new McCarthyism at play, only Reds have been replaced with Nazis/"Far Right".

The reason: because Marxists control the dialogue. The irony is that many who like to falsely call people their disagree with Nazis and compare them to Hitler are themselves raging anti-Semites.

I disagree. There is no connection whatever between Marxism and anti-Semitism.

Might be best to do a little research before opining ...

From a Marx essay:

Thus we find every tyrant backed by a Jew, as is every pope by a Jesuit. In truth, the cravings of oppressors would be hopeless, and the practicability of war out of the question, if there were not an army of Jesuits to smother thought and a handful of Jews to ransack pockets.

… the real work is done by the Jews, and can only be done by them, as they monopolize the machinery of the loanmongering mysteries by concentrating their energies upon the barter trade in securities… Here and there and everywhere that a little capital courts investment, there is ever one of these little Jews ready to make a little suggestion or place a little bit of a loan. The smartest highwayman in the Abruzzi is not better posted up about the locale of the hard cash in a traveler’s valise or pocket than those Jews about any loose capital in the hands of a trader… The language spoken smells strongly of Babel, and the perfume which otherwise pervades the place is by no means of a choice kind.

… Thus do these loans, which are a curse to the people, a ruin to the holders, and a danger to the governments, become a blessing to the houses of the children of Judah. This Jew organization of loan-mongers is as dangerous to the people as the aristocratic organization of landowners… The fortunes amassed by these loan-mongers are immense, but the wrongs and sufferings thus entailed on the people and the encouragement thus afforded to their oppressors still remain to be told.

… The fact that 1855 years ago Christ drove the Jewish moneychangers out of the temple, and that the moneychangers of our age enlisted on the side of tyranny happen again chiefly to be Jews, is perhaps no more than a historical coincidence. The loan-mongering Jews of Europe do only on a larger and more obnoxious scale what many others do on one smaller and less significant. But it is only because the Jews are so strong that it is timely and expedient to expose and stigmatize their organization.

https://philosophersmag.com/karl-marx-s ... isemitism/

[Good_Egg]

But can you think of any position that has always been associated with the left or right? Is there really no coherent philosophy that underlies either the left or right?

In general, leftism encompasses all progressive tendencies, advocating for social change to improve society as a whole, addressing inequalities and injustice with a spirit of solidarity. It generally emphasizes the collective well-being as a means to achieve individual progress. It therefore criticizes capitalism and its social and economical hierarchies, favoring the marginalized groups over the privileged ones. OTOH, right-wingers tend to preserve the status quo as established by the ruling class and emphasize individualism as the means to achieve collective progress, minimizing the role of solidarity and regarding inequality and injustice as the result of individual failure and the work of nature.

This seems the best attempt so far at sketching a coherent philosophy of left/right. I'll try to improve on it...

Seems to me that leftism is a thing. And its foundational premise is that those groups who have least deserve more. So it is fundamentally about redistribution, about remedying inequality. By collective action.

(And this can be applied both economically to those groups with the least material wealth or socially to those with the least status).

But there is no such thing as "rightism" - those described as right-leaning are merely those who don't hold leftist ideas, in the way that darkness is the absence of light.

So there are many rights - those who primarily value religion or tradition or liberty or impartiality or anything else - but only one left.

Under this conception, leftism is inherently egalitarian and collective. Leftists are not fired-up about ways that individuals can climb out of poverty or pass as someone with more social status. They want the group to prosper as a group.

For example, Marxist-influenced feminist groups typically hate individually-successful women.

Leftism is inherently progressive, in the sense of favouring change towards an envisaged better society.

But not exclusively so - Thatcher favoured radical change towards an envisaged "enterprise culture" of widespread share-ownership.

And where leftist institutions become established, leftists can be conservative in wanting to retain them. Trade unionists who believe in "this glorious movement of ours" can be very conservative.

And, as Fried suggests, leftism is inherently not about incentive-structures. Both because incentives encourage individuals rather than bettering the situation of groups. And because any institutional measure to help the worse-off risks creating perverse incentives. (E.g. Blow all your money and make yourself poor, then the leftist state will help you. Taking the money to do so from those who had the same but saved it and used it wisely).

[Pattern-chaser]

There is no connection whatever between Marxism and anti-Semitism.

Might be best to do a little research before opining ...

From a Marx essay:

...

My mistake. Apologies.

[Count Lucanor]

But can you think of any position that has always been associated with the left or right? Is there really no coherent philosophy that underlies either the left or right?

In general, leftism encompasses all progressive tendencies, advocating for social change to improve society as a whole, addressing inequalities and injustice with a spirit of solidarity. It generally emphasizes the collective well-being as a means to achieve individual progress. It therefore criticizes capitalism and its social and economical hierarchies, favoring the marginalized groups over the privileged ones. OTOH, right-wingers tend to preserve the status quo as established by the ruling class and emphasize individualism as the means to achieve collective progress, minimizing the role of solidarity and regarding inequality and injustice as the result of individual failure and the work of nature.

This seems the best attempt so far at sketching a coherent philosophy of left/right. I'll try to improve on it...

Seems to me that leftism is a thing. And its foundational premise is that those groups who have least deserve more. So it is fundamentally about redistribution, about remedying inequality. By collective action.

(And this can be applied both economically to those groups with the least material wealth or socially to those with the least status).

To make things simple, you can call refer to this as the Old Left, which encompassed Marxism, anarchism and perhaps even social democracy. The focus is on economics, social class and a state project, based on principles of liberalism as they emerged from the French Revolution and the Enlightenment project, from which stems the idea of progress, thus progressivism. It difers from the New Left, also labeled as the Cultural Left or the Undefined Left, which has other modern roots, more or less opposed to the Enlightenment project. Its focus is on identity markers different from the concept of class (sex, race, etc.), although applied in social theory with a similar historical framework. It doesn’t have a state project, but uses the state to advance political agendas.

But there is no such thing as "rightism" - those described as right-leaning are merely those who don't hold leftist ideas, in the way that darkness is the absence of light.

I differ, and may I say, that is a typical claim from right-wingers or at least centre-right adherents. Supposedly, they are neutral, avoiding ideology and you know, minding their own business, when they just happen to be bothered by politicians. Rightism has its ideologues, old and modern, connected by basic principles of individualism and values compatible with the advancement of the capitalist project, independently of having to take positions in defense of the system and thus defining their political agenda in terms of the challenges presented by the left.

So there are many rights - those who primarily value religion or tradition or liberty or impartiality or anything else - but only one left.

Actually, no. There is the Old Left, itself divided in many different and even incompatible views. There’s the New Left, mostly incompatible with the old, actually holding reactionary and conservative positions. Late Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno further divides this New Left in the Extravagant Left, Digressive Left and Fundamentalist (multiculturalist) Left. That’s why it is sometimes claimed that a united left is an oxymoron. Although the right looks less complex and diverse, it still encompasses several views that make it into political factions.

Under this conception, leftism is inherently egalitarian and collective. Leftists are not fired-up about ways that individuals can climb out of poverty or pass as someone with more social status. They want the group to prosper as a group.

Not necessarily dismissing individuality, just framing it within a social project, at least in the Old Left.

For example, Marxist-influenced feminist groups typically hate individually-successful women.

Marxism informed the views of 1st wave feminism, mostly concerned with labor and civil rights. All the rest of feminist waves were influenced by French social theory, psychoanalysis and other views incompatible with Marxism. Surely, for little more than the first half of the 20th century. Marxism was an obligated point of reference because, as Sartre had said, it was “the unsurpassable philosophy of our times”, but if you read Shulamith Firestone, the radical feminist, she starts her famous book saying something like “Marx was cool and he got some things right, but he fell short of a valid theory of society and the human condition, so we should leave him behind and proceed this other way…” and then goes on to express views that move away from Historical Materialism. Let’s be reminded that this was the tone set since the Francfort School’s Dialectics of Enlightenment, which actually borrowed more from Nietzsche and Freud, and practically all leftists that followed succumbed to the tempations of poststructuralism. The New Left is nothing but Foucault’s left, sometimes spiced with Lacan and other French theorists, which is what right-wingers love to call Cultural Marxism.

[Fried Egg]

To those that see individualism vs collectivism correlating broadly with right vs left (respectively), I would have to disagree. That is because historically you would have to slice that on economic vs social terms. In that theft right has tended to favour individualism more in the economic realm as opposed to the left favours it more in the social realm. i.e. the left is far more concerned with individual freedom when it comes to how people can live their lives and their freedom to live non conventional life styles. The right tending to be more in favour of strong social norms and upholding moral standards on the right way to live.

One might even argue that a society with a strong moral framework is necessary foundation to ground economic liberty and an otherwise amoral market based economy.

Is capitalism vs socialism an essential left vs right divide? Perhaps to the extent that one favours taking more or less of the means of production out of the hands of private individuals and under governmental control. But there has never been an alternative to a market based economy. We see governments on the left and right meddling and interfering with the markets in different ways, trying to foster whatever outcomes they want to see. But attempts to completely dispense with markets altogether have always been deeply authoritarian, impoverishing for the populations suffering under it and have eventually collapsed due to their inability to perform economic calculation.

Most on the left, even those that call themselves "socialist", don't really want to completely dispense with markets altogether because they know there isn't really any alternative. Only those that accept the authoritarian implications of the idea, or have absurdly naive and idealistic notions of human nature will advocate for it.

[Pattern-chaser]

In "The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America" by Verlan Lewis & Hyrum Lewis, the authors ask what is the essential difference between these two ideological groups? The answer they conclude is: nothing.

Their thesis: Despite much pretense, neither “left” nor “right” are remotely coherent philosophies. There is no foundational leftist premise from which leftist conclusions flow, nor is there any foundational rightist premise from which rightist conclusions flow. Ideologies don’t just change mightily over the long-run; they change sharply even from one election to another. For intellectually irrelevant reasons.

I think I can see where they're coming from. I wonder, though, if their conclusions might be because "left" and "right" have become synecdoches for all the other complementary pairs of qualities that have already been mentioned. So that left and right, which perhaps had more fixed meanings in the past (?), become catch-all terms for all the other pairs.

Does that make sense to anyone?

[Pattern-chaser]

Most on the left, even those that call themselves "socialist", don't really want to completely dispense with markets altogether...

I think only the extremists do. And extremists of all sides are well worth avoiding and opposing, and then ignoring. They contribute nothing, neither do their political beliefs. I call myself a Socialist, but I see no good reason to oppose "markets", for example.

It's a shame that misleading and misguided extreme position are clouding our waters here, I think. I see no-one advocating for extreme positions here. Except, perhaps, for your mild (and maybe misperceived, by me?) implication that left-wingers are all about centralised and controlled economies where the individual is sought out and punished.

I think it would be hard to construct an argument for anything other than,

Society/Community organisation = Community + Individual

Without the contribution of both the group (community) and the individuals that comprise those groups, I believe a society would be lessened. I suspect most others do too?

[Fried Egg]

Most on the left, even those that call themselves "socialist", don't really want to completely dispense with markets altogether...

I think only the extremists do. And extremists of all sides are well worth avoiding and opposing, and then ignoring. They contribute nothing, neither do their political beliefs. I call myself a Socialist, but I see no good reason to oppose "markets", for example.

Well, I realise that language evolves and the meaning of words change over time but when I look at the Oxford dictionary's definition of "Socialism", I see this:

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

That doesn't seem to leave much room for markets to me. But I realise that when most people use the words "socialist" in a positive way, to describe themselves, they are merely envisaging a more moderated * market economy than is currently the case.

So a complete abolition of markets I would regard as an extreme position, but not an extreme interpretation of the term "socialism". Although I accept that the meaning in most people's minds has changed to coalesce around a less pure/extreme notion.

* By moderated I mean with more companies taken into publish ownership and stricter regulations governing the terms of market of transactions.

[Pattern-chaser]

Well, I realise that language evolves and the meaning of words change over time but when I look at the Oxford dictionary's definition of "Socialism", I see this:

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

That doesn't seem to leave much room for markets to me. But I realise that when most people use the words "socialist" in a positive way, to describe themselves, they are merely envisaging a more moderated * market economy than is currently the case.

I think it might be interpreted to say that it is the markets that are "regulated by the community", not just banned? Totally free markets are surely part of some right wing extremities?

[Fried Egg]

Well, I realise that language evolves and the meaning of words change over time but when I look at the Oxford dictionary's definition of "Socialism", I see this:

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

That doesn't seem to leave much room for markets to me. But I realise that when most people use the words "socialist" in a positive way, to describe themselves, they are merely envisaging a more moderated * market economy than is currently the case.

I think it might be interpreted to say that it is the markets that are "regulated by the community", not just banned? Totally free markets are surely part of some right wing extremities?

Well, there's quite a difference between "regulated" and "owned". If the government completely controls all the means of production, distribution and exchange - there are no markets.