{"id":8795,"date":"2018-06-28T05:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T09:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justrightmedia.org\/blog\/?p=8795"},"modified":"2018-11-25T21:26:58","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T02:26:58","slug":"562-still-getting-it-wrong-about-left-and-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/archives\/8795","title":{"rendered":"562 – Still getting it wrong about Left and Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Munk

If any proof is still needed that the popular notions of the political ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ are completely erroneous, one need only hear those attempting to use those incorrect frames of reference in a political debate or discussion. If not so tragic, it would be humorous. The conversation will invariably disintegrate into a subjective morass of contradictory and meaningless labels that define nothing and resolve nothing.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what happened at the May 18th Munk Debate<\/strong>, featuring participants Jordan Peterson, Stephen Fry, Michael Dyson<\/strong> and Michelle Goldberg<\/strong> on a resolution about \u2018political correctness.\u2019 It also happened at the May 5th Society of Academic Freedom and Scholarship\u2019s (SAFS) event featuring speakers David Haskell, Lindsay Shepherd<\/strong>, and Frances Widdowson<\/strong> during their discussion of free speech on campus.<\/p>\n

The confusion arises in failing to recognize that the terms \u2018Left\u2019 and \u2018Right,\u2019 objectively defined, represent polar opposites, just like \u2018north\u2019 and \u2018south.\u2019<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the popular and accepted scale of Left and Right place \u2018communism\u2019 on the Left and \u2018fascism\u2019 on the Right, even though both communism and fascism are not opposites and explicitly sit on the Left<\/strong>. Nowhere on this scale is there a place for individual freedom or capitalism, despite beliefs that they exist on some imaginary \u2018center.\u2019 That scale looks like this:<\/p>\n

LEFT ——————————————————————————– RIGHT
\n Radical —- Liberal —- Centrist —- Conservative —- Reactionary
\nCommunism ———————————————————————– Fascism<\/p>\n

To correct the popular scale in terms of how these terms work both in theory and in practice, one need only replace the word \u2018Right\u2019 with the word \u2018Left,\u2019 thusly:<\/p>\n

LEFT ———————————————————————————- LEFT
\n Radical —- Liberal —- Centrist —- Conservative —- Reactionary
\nCommunism ————————————————————————- Fascism<\/p>\n

Only then will the scale make sense, even though freedom <\/strong>and capitalism <\/strong>still do not appear anywhere. It is a \u2018spectrum\u2019 of the Left only. In this case, a \u2018centrist,\u2019 for example, would be someone who supports an \u2018equal\u2019 mix of both communism and fascism.<\/strong> A \u2018radical\u2019 would be predominantly communist, while a \u2018reactionary\u2019 would be predominantly fascist.<\/p>\n

To correct this untenable situation, here\u2019s a very simple and workable distinction between Left and Right, in ideological and political terms \u2013 that includes freedom on the scale:<\/p>\n

LEFT ——————————————————————————- RIGHT
\nTyranny —————————————————————————- Freedom<\/p>\n

It is important to note that in this case the \u2018line\u2019 between each pole does not represent a \u2018center,\u2019 merely space or distance. There is no \u2018center\u2019 when presented with binary options.<\/p>\n

Other examples of the Left\/Right binary might include:<\/p>\n

collectivism ——————————————————— individualism
\nsocialism\/communism\/fascism ———————————capitalism
\ncensorship ———————————————————–freedom of speech
\nrestricted\/prohibited trade —————————————free trade
\ngroup \u2018rights\u2019 ——————————————————- individual rights
\nmysticism \/ subjectivism —————————————– reason
\ncoercion ————————————————————–consent
\naltruism ————————————————————– rational self interest
\nautocracy ———————————————————– democracy<\/p>\n

\u2026and of course there are many more.<\/p>\n

While many of these concepts can validly be discussed in varying contexts (i.e, modernism, post-modernism), in terms of Left and Right, the options become very narrow and precise.<\/p>\n

Until this reality is recognized, no debate can possibly be resolved until both Left and Right are seen in a light that is Just Right.<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If any proof is still needed that the popular notions of the political ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ are completely erroneous, one need only hear those attempting to use those incorrect frames of reference in a political debate or discussion. If not so tragic, it would be humorous. The conversation will invariably disintegrate into a subjective morass [Continue Reading]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,25,69,28,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-capitalism-politics","category-economics","category-latest","category-politics","issues-left","issues-left-wing","issues-munk-debate","issues-political-spectrum","issues-right","issues-right-wing","personalities-david-haskell","personalities-frances-widdowson","personalities-jordan-peterson","personalities-lindsay-shepherd","personalities-michael-dyson","personalities-michelle-goldberg","personalities-stephen-fry","category-12-id","category-25-id","category-69-id","category-28-id","category-6-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8795"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8816,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8795\/revisions\/8816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}