Considering that the definitions of right and left fluctuate so much depending on time and place...

Considering that the definitions of right and left fluctuate so much depending on time and place, is there anything universal about them?

My idea is this:
>right wing = idealising the past
>left wing = idealising the future

>is there anything universal about them?
No. Were the Nazis left or right? How about Pol Pot and his idea of communism by regressing the country to a society based on farmers instead of industries?

I idealise a future where the streets of Paris and London no longer look like the streets of Algiers and Karachi.

Checkmate atheists.

>Humanities

>that pic
>implying being too retarded to have a stance is smart

Where did this meme come from? Not everything works best as a compromise, in fact many things don't work that way at all. The best choice between investing space colonization vs. investing in shit eating isn't to split the money 50/50 for both.

Right wing master morality vs left wing slave morality

I don't think being a centrist is equivalent to not having an opinion. For example, you could be liberal in your views towards economic policy, like Keynesian spending, for example, and conservative in your views to social policy, e.g. being pro-life and seeing sexual deviations as mental issues. That would leave you in the middle, but that doesn't mean that you simply try to compromise the shit out of everything.

Left: horizontalist
Right: hierarchical

Broadly speaking, left politics have an optimistic view of human nature and the future whereas right politics takes a more cynical stance. This is more obvious with extremist ideologies, like how communism promises liberation of he individual and a glorious worldwide revolution while fascism promises absolute control and a return to old glories.

Centrism doesn't equate to not having a stance on anything or being ineffectual (contrary to what the lenenists and redpill faggots at my uni claim). It's about being able to objectively evaluate ideas regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. Being able to strike a balance between two extremes and maintain a nuanced perspective is very important, especially considering how horribly sectarian and emotion-driven politics are in my country.

>a balance between two extremes

Why do you believe "extremes" are bad in the first place? Surgery's pretty extreme, but you'd be an idiot to leave a big operable tumor on a cancer patient's body.

Right and left is just a meme, you're talking about conservatives and progressives

What does it matter if you use one set of labels for it or another?

that's not an argument

...

>no third way
>missing the point of the thread
Checkmate checkmate-memers

Why do you think that extremists are incapable of thinking out their views? Sometimes the extremist view might actually be the better one. And don't try to fool anyone for a second that most "centrists" aren't just sheep idolizing the liberal status quo of Western Civilization that they've been taught in the schools to idolize. You are a centrist because you are happy with the stability of the status quo. "Extremists" are as such because they are dissatisfied with the status quo, that's all; this has nothing to do with weighing the options. In fact, many extremists do in fact consider compromises, simply because they reject the compromise after consideration doesn't mean they never considered it to begin with

I for one think everyone in our movement should wear alpha-male t-shirts like pic related.

I think user's point is that a centrist can hold extremist or moderate views on subjects on a case-by-case basis rather than buying into the entire package of any particular group or ideology. A centrist is not satisfied or dissatisfied with the status quo as a monolith but instead can recognize certain features that do need to change and others that don't.

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kek

>traditional
>pragmatism
what did he mean by this

There's nothing more pragmatic and self-sustaining than traditional wisdom. You don't need to fix what is working, so don't think about it and just do as your ancestors have done before you. That's why extremely traditional, isolated societies such as the amish are thriving and growing traditions and will remain so for a long time as long as you leave it alone while western liberal democracies seem to be under permanent existential crisis and need to reinvent themselves every couple of generations even though they are extremely powerful and influential.

Probably referring to the modern right-wings tendency towards realism as opposed to the modern left-wings tendency towards idealism.

>Leftist: as much state as possible
>Rightist: as little state as possible

Thats not always the case though
French revolution is fought between right wing supreme monarchist and leftist democratic liberals

That's a rather modern view of left-right and a socialist one at that. The term came about during the french revolution, where the left were heavily represented of what would now be called burgeois market-liberals while the right was composed of monarchists who were often refered to as "realists".

The modern definition seems to exclude anyone who isn't a a marxist from the left and anyone who isn't a "neoliberal" or libertarian type from the right, unless you're a member of the very vaguely defined "far right" which is allowed to be left leaning economically as long as they are seen as nationalistic and racist enough, like the french FN with Le Pen.

Doesn't matter what you call the two groups of people, one wants to control everyone and get rich doing so, and the other wants to be left the fuck alone.

The useless people want to control everything for everybody, because they cannot survive on their own.

The people who can survive on their own want to be left the fuck alone.

The left/right dichotomy died when the Left became saturated with postmodernism, and stopped talking about class.

The real division now is between globalists and nationalists, particularly rich capitalist globalists and lower-class nationalists.

Take a look at any rich person; regardless of their party affiliation in any country, they support removing social safety nets, and they support increasing immigration. In the U.S rich Democrats and Republicans agree on both these things.

Found the murrican.

right = eugenic, long time preference, meritocratic, hierarchy, rule of law
left = dysgenic, short time preference, non-meritocratic, redistributive

Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.

In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell.

Yes it is.

"Would you rather be an idiot or an asshole?"

>space colonization vs. investing in shit eating

those are of equal value though

>and the third little piggy went to the pro-choice rally
What is this fairy tale shit about animals having political views? Have you stormies finally become infantile?

American: as miopic as possible.

>extremists do in fact consider compromises
No. The more willing to compromise a person is the less extreme and the more moderate that person is. It's like the difference between the ayatollah Khamenei and the president Rouhani, both from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The first is an harliner, meaning more extreme, the second is a moderate reformer that wants to open up his country to countries that are very different from his own.

Because extremism leads to ideological blinders.

Many rich people actually support both more social solidarity and more openness. For every Koch there is a Soros.

>"hurr durr muh librals do r-selection, conservatives practise superior k-selection"

The leftwing was originally about republicanism, freedom from the monarchy, freedom of private property, freedom freedom freedom, and democracy.

The rightwing has historically been about monarchy, tribalism, and nationalism.

It's really hard to categorize things as "Left" and "right", because though socialism would be historically more rightwing than leftwing (for example), it has a left leaning gravitational pull.

The right isn't really about "regress" (as the left is about progress); the historical right has always been about chronological regress, but technological progress.

The problem with the left-right dichotomy, is that it's vague. But if we decided on a left-right dichotomy that focused on the "gravitational pull", then there'd be very few things that are "truly" rightwing.

National socialism, for example, would be historically rightwing (a little left of monarchy), but would ultimately pull back to leftwing politics when the country became "great again".

Libertarianism would be historically leftwing, but the pull is more right-focused.

Going over other subjects, it's a hit/miss; very controversial topic.

i have never seen a t-shirt like this without a sweating neckbeard in it

but since you're usin terms like "alpha male" you clearly are one

>what is birth control

Nazis were extreme right-wing. Fascists. They used appeals to tradition and heritage/ethnic superiority, scapegoating specific groups of people (Jews, gays, Romani) to incite nationalist sentiment and secure power, and manipulated the economy completely using that power. Pretty easy to determine, and has much in common with other right-wing Fascist states.

Pol Pot was a totalitarian dictator, not a Communist. Just because he says he is a Communist does not make him one inherently, nor does saying your country is implementing Communism mean that you are actually implementing anything resembling it. Forcing a country and society to be farming-based instead of industrious is authoritarian dictatorship which, surprise, is classically defined as right-wing tendency.

National SOCIALIST Party

Holy shit nobody here knows anything.

Once again, a self-applied title does not change their definable actions carried out. They can call themselves whatever they want, their actions were undeniably Fascist.

What the fuck guys I just proposed a left-right typology with a shitty edgy meme
Plus, just because you envisage slightly a kind of political polarity doesn't mean that the voters or the people from your political wing are perfectly representative of your ideals. People in general are stupid cattle, never criticize ideologies themselves on their voters, that's basically an ad Hominem but twice as retarded because it's not even aimed at the arguer.

fascism is a merger of corporate and state power with a tip of the hat towards tradition

Pol pot was a communist whos goal was to destroy tradition and start the country at year 0

to say he advocated private property would also be extremely inaccurate

You were correct until you stated Pot was not a communist. He was able to enforce a big brother style government (literally call himself something along those lines IIRC), created a planned economy, and killed the bourgeois that he felt were unfit to live in his utopian Cambodia.