GollumMar 14

The radical left

https://feddit.org/post/27090117

Show threadCanadaPlusMar 14

Now ask him if Christianity should play an official role in the German government. Or if he objects to people practicing cultures other than German in Germany. Both of those would be radically far-right in North America, but are pretty standard in Europe.

What’s going on here is that people tend to arrange themselves along a left-to-right line, but where exactly in the multidimensional space of viewpoints that line cuts through varies dramatically between times and places. It even inverts - your Prussian conservative would have taken a much dimmer view of free markets than a contemporary to their political left.

Show threadJubilantJaguarMar 14

My mental model of the right-left dichotomy:

  • “right” = cynical + evil
  • "left" = good + naive

Anything more complex and the labels hit their limits.

Show threadE_coli42

I think a better one is acceptance of change.

  • Right: Resistant to change
  • Left: Accepting of change

Sometimes change is good, sometimes the world is not ready. I think this aligns closely with “cynical” and “naïve” but just makes it more abstract.

Mar 14 at 9:11pmWeb
Show threadJubilantJaguarMar 14

Not bad but might apply more to liberalism IMO. I think the word “accepting” (of change) is doing a lot of work when you consider revolutionary communism, whose whole mission is to force change at any cost.

The left-right dichotomy is almost completely useless IMO. It’s more about identity than anything else. Football teams.

Show threadCanadaPlusMar 14

The trouble being that this possibly makes the Nazis left wing, which nobody contemporary with them saw them as.

In school this was taught to me as reactionary-conservative-progressive-radical and contrasted with left vs. right.

Show threadSamskaraMar 15
Some change is actually bad.
Show threadEndlessNightmareMar 15

Right seems more tribal

Left seems more accepting of outgroup, people who are different