Nikki Haley-What was the cause of the Civil War

[CJD]

(01-16-2024, 11:20 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Pretty much. We use it as shorthand because everyone is familiar with it, but in political science it is almost universally dismissed.

To make it even more interesting, I read a paper one time thanks to a Wikipedia rabbit hole that looked at the political typologies in former Soviet Bloc countries. What was of note was that while we in western democracies have our view of right v. left, where left-wing economic views coincide with liberalism, in the former U.S.S.R. those with left-wing economic positions tend to be more of the nationalistic sort. So think of that and how it may related to the Soviet Union of old. We know from history that while they espoused the economic side of Marxism, their adherence to the liberal ideals of democracy (something Marx was a fan of) was severely lacking. It is because of this that trying to project our understanding of right v. left onto the U.S.S.R. is flawed form the start.

The left vs right debate is one that almost always lacks context. What is left or right is almost always based on a person's own biases.

A libertarian will argue that "personal freedom" is a right wing concept, but a socialist will argue that "personal freedom" is left wing. Their definitions are not similar though. A libertarian thinks "personal freedom" means doing whatever they want, whenever they want without any government institution trying to control them. 

A socialist thinks "personal freedom" means freedom from the exploitation that power hierarchies create, such that each person has exactly as much freedom of will to pursue their ambitions as any other person. This second definition basically requires some sort of government intervention, as it would be extremely difficult to prevent hierarchical structures from oppressing people otherwise.

Others view leftist vs rightist as strictly a economic conversation.


The one thing about left vs right that I find fascinating is that political parties/governments will frequently masquerade as left wing governments ("The National Socialist Party," "The People's Republic of China," "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea," etc), but will NEVER masquerade as right wing governments. You'll never see a political party call themselves, "The Fascistic Party of Cambodia."

I don't know what that says about the left vs right debate or what these words actually mean, but I still find it interesting.