Philosophical criteria to define leftism and rightism

...

>libertarian left
user, I...

So? Most are like the dude here and a mix. There is no orthodox left or right. Take two right wing groups. You can have people who want a strong government and want a theocracy, all the way to libertarians who want limited to no government interference.

There is too much variation to even bother qualifying shit as right or left. Like anarchism wants no government and is technically right wing, but it's always tied and allied to the left. There is no orthodoxy of values and ideas hence the wide variety of groups on the right and the left. You are better off assessing the groups or philosophies themselves. And even then you would get a lot of variation.

what...what is it?

In general, the right supports the state, the left seeks to change it.

>highest authority: transcendence

This doesn't mean anything. Define your terms.

Also, this image conflates rightism with conservatism.

>transcendence
Its a way of saying "God, the Divine, Brahmin" ect.

*Brahman, not Brahmin.

No. That is one branch of right wing values. Take the founding fathers who supported the liberty of the man over the state. They wanted limited government that would stay away from the lives of people and interfere as little as possible. That is also based on right wing ideals. Except rather than support the state they supported the individual.

You get these mixtures of values in almost every philosophy. There will be left wingers who want that as well, albeit along with a lot of different things.

In a more specific way, here is how I would define it:

Left-wing: main goal is human equality and fairness
Right-wing: main goal is human greatness and achievement of some higher ideal

this is obviously bias and neither side follows their proclaimed ideologies perfectly.

But fascists and anarcho-capitalists have a surprising amount in common: they believe that humans are very unequal in terms of ability, and they think that life's main goal should not be equality, but about some higher form of achievement that speaks to humanity's greatness and ambition. Fascists think the state is needed to harness this energy, while an-caps think the state gets in the way. But in both cases they deeply believe in the inherent inequality of human beings and that equality is not a goal to be strived for.

>this is obviously bias
Where is the bias?

That was one state replacing another.

You can describe the attitude of those in either state as left or right, depending on whether they think the state is worth changing or worth keeping.

The last item on the list seems a bit biased against the left. I don't think most leftists would say they're against the freedom to act on rational desires, as a rule.

Leftism and rightism are spooks arbitrarily grouping idealogies together because of historical relationships

I think the point that the chart is trying to make is that isleftist feel you should have the freedom to act on what you think is best (Drugs, sex, transgenderism) while rightest feel freedoms should be rational (you shouldn't take drugs if they will harm your family or society, ect.)

Identifying your group as the rational one and labeling the other one as intrinsically irrational is dishonest and unintelligent, and I say that as a traditionalist conservative. If you buy into this chart, you're blinded by ideology.

no such thing as evil, and the modern parties aren't split on all of these issues as clear cut as it implies. Not all right wing people are religious for instance, there are plenty of religious left wing people also, and politicians act based on outside forces rather than their own beliefs anyway, they have to suppress some of their feelings in order to gain allies. furthermore these categories have changed over time quite significantly so saying things like "the left is opinionated and the right follows wisdom" is too generalized to be taken seriously in any respect.

>and the modern parties
This is about philosophical tenets spanning history over the modern democratic and republican parties or whatever the ruling class in Europe is. I don't think anyone could deny that modern Democrats and Republicans are two strains of neoliberalism.

Oh wow an mutalist. That is rare

>But in both cases they deeply believe in the inherent inequality of human beings and that equality is not a goal to be strived for.
Those similarities are only on how they should structure society, hence that is what makes them right wing

I mean Christian socialists and anarchists usually disagree on whether there is a god, but they considered left wing coz ...

>The right strives for a higher ideal
What the fuck kind of universe are you living in, the right is fixated in the present and the idea that tradition is almighty. They don't give two flying fucks about greatness. You think all those Byzantine kings who pushed iconoclasm were thinking "I'm striving for the ultimate ideals of humanity and the peak of achievement"

How fucking stupid are you, and the idea that you think that Equality and Fairness and Greatness and Achievement of a higher ideal are opposed to one an other opens a whole other can of ideological worms.

these categories have shifted over time and not just in one singular way but in a branch. it is more meaningful to categorize more specifically and focus on actual groups seeking action, as people are only grouped nominally by ideology and mostly by self interest. The parties for instance have changed significantly over time, certain parties have lived and died out, it's foolish to look at a party as some static thing that follows one static ideology you can trace back. Certain regimes for their time would be considered leftist throughout history but this list categorizes the right as virtually every single nation before the French Revolution, and that doesn't do justice to ideologies that are thousands of years old and really span back not just to the enlightenment but to the ancients.

This shit is too generalized, these charts are always dumb.

>mutalist
Mutualist

>ou think all those Byzantine kings who pushed iconoclasm were thinking "I'm striving for the ultimate ideals of humanity and the peak of achievement"
Obvious they were.

>They don't give two flying fucks about greatness.

you are retarded, right-wing is clearly focused on an unacheiveable ideal of humanity. why do you think all their art is about humanity at its most perfect and divine? meanwhile left wingers feel very uncomfortable with the concept of human greatness and transcendence, hence why their art tends to be subversive and make fun of traditional institutions

Right wing art glorifies the state, left wing art criticizes it.

not the state, but humanity. even right-wing libertarians are focused on humanity's potential to achieve new technological heights. but left wingers think that energy should be focused on making humans equal

right wing: uses practical applications to fulfill spiritual ideals
left wing: uses theoretical applications to fulfill equality ideals

They call it humanity, but it's never humanity in general. And it's not about technology, it's about how much power their state can wield.

Are you saying communist regimes are right wing?

Of course its not humanity in general. its the idea of how much man can achieve. equality never plays into it. its about living up to the ideal, and in the right wing view most if not all humans fall very short of the ideal.

Left and right only really apply as relative positions in a liberal democracy.

But yes, as the state owns the people, the right wing dominate politics in any authoritarian regime. The left would be in opposition, if legal at all.

We may say that communist regimes are left-wing globally, since they oppose the capitalist world order.

But always through the power of the state, it's never about how much a human can achieve by themselves, or how much a human can achieve through cooperation, or how much humanity in general can achieve, but how service to the state IS the highest ideal.

No, its not service to the state, its service to the possible apex of human potential

>But yes, as the state owns the people, the right wing dominate politics in any authoritarian regime.

That's ridiculous, as equality can't exist without government authority. People are inherently unequal and only the state can balance it out

Which is inevitably intertwined with the state, because the state is inevitably what wields the most power in our modern world. The only thing that even comes close is international business.

left wing anarchists: the state is what causes inequality
left wing authoritarians: the state is needed to ensure equality

right wing anarchists: the state gets in the way of free market innovation and social darwinism
right wing authoritarians: the state is needed to ensure that society is free of degenerate behaviors are only the best traits are promoted

If the possible apex of human potential doesn't have crime why would you need a state?

>as equality can't exist without government authority
Owning the means of production niggas

>No, its not service to the state, its service to the possible apex of human potential

Right wing voters vote for mandatory service to the state, especially for the poor, they don't vote to invest in every human as much as possible.

>That's ridiculous, as equality can't exist without government authority. People are inherently unequal and only the state can balance it out

Leftists want the state to NOT favor the already wealthy, as it does in almost every single case. To people who benefit from the status quo, it sounds like a radical program of equalization.

They're trying to reach the apex, they don't embody it

>they don't vote to invest in every human as much as possible.

Why would they? Their interest is not in human equality but in the possible achievements of the individual human. Investing in every human would just produce a dysgenic effect. In right wing thought, only the best traits should be celebrated

Except right wing us monarchism and left wing us liberalism so...

>This doesn't mean anything. Define your terms.
/thread

Wouldn't that look something like Jesus? Why would two Jesus's hurt each other?

>Leftists want the state to NOT favor the already wealthy, as it does in almost every single case. To people who benefit from the status quo, it sounds like a radical program of equalization.

If the state treated everyone equally, there would still be inequality because people are inherently unequal in their abilities.

Having everyone be truly equal would require great authority from the state

>If the state treated everyone equally, there would still be inequality because people are inherently unequal in their abilities.

IF the state treated everyone equally. Leftists never win this one.

>Having everyone be truly equal would require great authority from the state

You actually think leftists want everyone to be the same height?

Or strike at what is empowering such massive inequality, private property.

That would not guarantee equality of outcome (which is something no one wants), but that is the best equality of opportunity you can get

real leftists aren't statist :^)

but moreover it omits a number of things like attitude toward violence that aren't really flattering toward this picture of a spiritual, philosophical right you paint.

Because forcibly removing or destroying the downtrodden is an offense to human dignity. We see regimes try to do this all the time, and it might increase their economic output or be an improvement in other measures of life quality for those who remain, but there will always be a lurking shame for the past, and it does nothing to stop more downtrodden from appearing because the systemic issues were never addressed.

US slavery. Nazi slaughters of the impaired. Israeli forced sterilization programs. Russian pogroms. Anti-Communist purges. Anti-capitalist purges. Latin American counter-revolutionary death squads. African revolutionary death squads. These were all obsessed with removing the unwanted in favor of the wanted (themselves).

If we had no government at all, two things would be immediately apparent: human beings are barbaric, and human beings are unequal. Right wingers want a state to eliminate the barbarity, while left wingers want a state to eliminate the inequality.

What inequality?

Leftist have always been violent and supported violence. The one exception in all of history is the hippie movement and even that was more of a lifestyle than a political philosophy.

>use forcibly removing or destroying the downtrodden is an offense to human dignity.

You feel that way because you are left-wing. Right-wingers would not agree, and thus left and right wingers have a profoundly different philosophy of the world.

you

I mean, what kind of inequality are you talking about?

Differing levels of physical and mental ability.

Who is Debs, read book pls.

And you have heard leftists say that they will give everyone equal levels of physical and mental ability?

post less and read more, dumbo

I was saying that without a state inequality would naturally occur. State authroity is needed for it to be otherwise. You are acting as if no state is needed and that without any laws, human beings would be all find and equal.

Without a state, humans would not be equal in resources or money or property. They would be unequal. Because some humans are better are seizing it than others.

Physical and mental inequality always occur. So will inequality of outcomes.

The state enforces hereditary inequalities, leftists want to stop that.

So if a man works all his life for something, he's not allowed to pass it onto his children?

If he works for it, sure.

"a chain is only as strong as its weakest link". left wingers want to make the weakest chain as strong as the others, so to do that they need to pull some strength from the stronger chains.

right wingers just want to get rid of the weak link entirely

>right wingers just want to get rid of the weak link entirely
Great, so will right wingers smash the people who do nothing and get all the reward with us?

You mean right wingers want to punish weak links in their chain in ways that make them weaker.

Only one of those scenarios results in a stronger chain.

wtf I love the right wing now

A better analogy would be that right wingers want to identify what is making the weak links weak, and try to stamp out those qualities. Meanwhile, the left wingers think the weak links are weak because the stronger links are taking too much of their strength.

I love this talk of these theoretical "leftists." Like there's just one united left that all agrees on one thing. If the last election taught us anything it's that the parties are incredibly divided and disconnected from any fixed ideology.

Here's my crack at it

Right-wing: people's faults come from their inner qualities
Left-wing: people's faults come from society

Get the fuck out

>implying one random writer changes leftist history of violence going back to the French and American revolutions
I read history books, mates.

What am I?

This isn't bad but it's looking at two categories in a very broad manner. It wouldn't be hard to find leftist thought that approaches some concerns of the right and vice versa.

What exectly did you mean?

A national Bolshevik

>1. There is no rightism or leftism.
Easily the most right wing thing I've read this morning

No, it's got a clear right-wing bias. The left holds the highest authority as the people. The state is only upheld with the caveat that it represents the collective will of its constituents.

Many left-wing philosophies are critical of the state or expressly anti-statist.

>The left holds the highest authority as the people.
Except when those people disagree with leftism, right?

Yes it is you faggo. Read Atlas Shrugged and tell me that it's about glorifying the state is or that it's not right wing.

Trying to apply left wing/right wing to politics after the French Revolution was such a fucking mistake. It has turned political discourse into garbage.

That's funny, because it's always left-wingers who say "its not left vs right, its top vs bottom"

It is accurate except for

>Basic societal unit
Left : Class
Rightwing : Individual

>Equality
There is no equality for the Right

>empowering the people means giving a shit about what everyone thinks

It's clearly written by an American: in the rest of the world, liberalism would be a middle category, distinct from right and left. Here, liberalism seeps into both sides (assuming leftists care about contractualism and individualsim; assuming the right cares about rationality and equality), the same way that liberals in the Democratic party leech of the left, and liberals in the Republican party leech of the right.

>assuming the right cares about rationality and equality
I don't see anything about equality but rationality in this case means "common sense decisions, usually for the greater good."

>both right and left contradict themselves
wew