“Left” and “Right” are Bogus Political Categories
Once upon a time, as they say—in the time of the French Revolution—the words “Left” and “Right” had some ascertainable meaning in politics. If you were in favor of the old regime, you sat on the right side in the National Assembly; if you were against it, you sat on the left side.
That was then; this is now. And decades before now, although the antiquated expressions "Left” and “Right” were still used to express supposed opposition in politics, they had already lost any meaning related to reality.
Blame it on the Communists. Evidently fascinated by the French Revolution, they designated themselves and their sympathizers as “the Left” and their opponents as “the Right.” Get it? They, like the guys on the left side of the National Assembly who rejected the old regime, were in favor of revolution, so they were likewise the Left, and their opponents were the Right. It didn’t much matter who the opponents were or what they believed; if they didn’t want a Communist revolution, they were “the Right.”
This led to notable absurdities. Communists didn’t favor revolution any more after they took power (except in places where they hadn’t yet taken power), but they didn’t suddenly become the Right and their anti-Communist opponents the Left. Worse yet, someone like Hitler was supposed to be on the Right merely because he was opposed to Communism. The shocking similarities between a Communist like Stalin and an anti-Communist like Hitler—such as that they were both totalitarian mass murderers—were thought to be of no consequence, in view of a totally unrealistic distinction between Left and Right.
Fast-forward to the present. The same antiquated, unrealistic categories of Left and Right are still in use, and there have been many efforts to define and explain them. The definitions don’t define, and the explanations don’t explain.
The silliest non-definition seems to be that leftists favor “progressive” policies and rightists oppose them. “Progress” and its derivatives are meaningless if they aren’t defined in terms of some goal, some state of affairs thought to be more desirable than a previous state of affairs. So, if you favor progress toward greater protection for the unborn and for old people who might be thought worthy candidates for assisted suicide—or toward greater understanding that biological males aren’t women and biological females aren’t men—are you a leftist? Well, no. It all depends on whose idea of “progress” counts as real progress. “Progressive” policies turn out to be simply those that self-styled “progressives” favor; apart from their dubious opinions, the expression has no meaning. Likewise, it has no meaning to define leftists as those who favor “progressive” policies.
How about the notion that leftists favor greater “social equality” and rightists oppose it? You tell me. Do Communists in power favor social equality between themselves and non-Communists? Do the supreme big shots in a Communist party favor social equality between themselves and the rank-and-file party members? Do so-called leftists in the United States favor social equality between themselves and those whose views they regard as loathsome, mindless, oppressive, fascistic, and the like? Enough said.
Well, then, maybe leftists can be defined as “liberal” and rightists as “conservative.” The fatal flaw here is the common but extremely bizarre notion that “liberal” is the opposite of “conservative” just as “left” is of “right.” The direct opposite of “liberal” is “illiberal”; the direct opposite of “conservative” is “destructive.” It’s all too well known that a politician or party may be both illiberal and destructive. It’s not nearly so well known, but equally true, that a politician or party may be both liberal and conservative. The words “conservative” and “liberal” have meaning only in relation to what the “conservative” wishes to conserve, and what kind of liberty, liberality, or libertinism is favored by the “liberal.” They are not simply opposites, and they can’t be cogently defined as opposites.
Perhaps leftists favor big government and rightists oppose it (see, e.g., Left Wing vs. Right Wing). What about anarchists? Logically, they must be on the left in desiring to overthrow the established order, like the men of the Left in the French Revolution—but anarchists, to say the least, do not favor big government.
Do leftists favor entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare and rightists oppose them? Tell that to the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), which strongly supports Social Security and Medicare but also frequently complains about “the Left.”
Do leftists “tend to be hostile to the interests of traditional elites, including the wealthy and members of the aristocracy, and to favour the interests of the working class” (see Left: Definition & Facts)? If so, are billionaires who support so-called leftist activities hostile to their own interests? Hardly likely. Are Hollywood, media, and academic elites, often thought to be largely composed of leftists, really so different from “traditional elites” as to fall into an entirely opposite classification? Equally unlikely. Do these elites really favor the interests of the working class? There have been a great many complaints that they don’t. For example:
The Elites Have Stopped Hiding Their Hatred of the Working Class | Opinion
How the Elite’s Disdain for the Working Class Could Become Their Undoing
America’s Working Class vs. Elites
These few examples, found (with variations) in many more supposed explanations of the differences between Left and Right, should be enough to make the point. Left and Right had meaning in politics at the time of the French Revolution; today they don’t. Occasionally you will even find an honest admission that this is true, like this:
“[T]he old frame to understand politics became useless. It’s unable to explain politics, and there isn’t anything to replace it yet. That’s why we still use this old-fashion[ed] classification” The political spectrum explained: what is left and what is right in politics?
So, the categories of Left and Right are now useless to understand and explain politics. Why, then, are the words “Left” and “Right” still in such common use in political discourse? The answer appears to be hardly creditable to those who use the words. The answer is that no actual understanding is needed to use the words for what now seems to be their most common purpose: to vilify opponents in today’s Cold Civil War.
A few of many examples should suffice. Here are some from vilifiers of the Left:
“The Parasitic Nature of the Left’s Attack on American Children”
“Ordinary Americans Vs. Left-Wing Extremism Is The Real Culture War”
“Defend the Constitution; Stop the Left’s Political Prosecutions”
And here are some from vilifiers of the Right:
”Tony Hinchcliffe is part of the right’s humor-to-hate machine”
“Far-Right Groups Flood State Legislatures With Anti-Trans Bills Targeting Children”
“The Right-Wing War on Abortion Has Nothing to Do With Babies”
You get the point. Left and Right have become simply weapons in a war of words. They appear to be useful for evoking knee-jerk reactions of fear and loathing, but not for expressing any genuine understanding of political differences.
So, if Left and Right are bogus, are there any realistic, meaningful political categories that express genuine opposition between definable positions? Yes. What we can and should call a “totally pro-life” position is opposed to positions that, in one or more ways, are “anti-life.”
Note well that this opposition, unlike the supposed opposition of Left and Right, is not a polar opposition. No one who hasn’t committed suicide is totally anti-life in every way. Even the Nazis were pro-life in regard to members of their supposed “master race” but their “pro-life” position was seriously deficient, because they were anti-life in regard to members of the human race who were not deemed to belong to the “master race.”
So, although a totally pro-life position will not have a single opposite that is anti-life in every way, we can identify positions that are anti-life in important respects. A pro-abortion position is anti-life as to the very beginning of life—the life of you and me and every person on earth, as we once were. A pro-euthanasia position, even if not as extreme as that of the Nazis, is anti-life as to human beings not deemed worthy of continued life. A pro-assisted-suicide position is anti-life as to human beings who imagine themselves to be unworthy of continued life, with the assistance of those eager to agree that they’re unworthy of life. Needless wars, and even needless imposition of capital punishment, are anti-life as to their victims, who do not completely forfeit the right to life even if they have engaged in serious evildoing, and much less if they have not. Obviously the same is true of the crime of murder, which should be severely punished (though not by needless capital punishment) in any truly pro-life society.
Then there are positions that are anti-life as to the transmission and nurturing of human life. Among these, one of the most egregious (if not the most common) examples is the exploitation of young people, confused about whether they are boys or girls, to lead them to accept lifelong deprivation, by chemical and surgical mutilation, of their ability to transmit life to a new generation. Coercive or semi-coercive population-control programs, promising a better life to poor people if only they are rendered infertile, are equally egregious, far more widespread, and anti-life as to future generations of their victims. Governmental and corporate activities that weaken rather than strengthen the natural family are anti-life to the extent that they do so.
Still more positions are anti-life as to the full flourishing of human life. These can’t be adequately summarized here—and there may be some disagreement about what and how bad they are–but they include at least the following:
The exaltation of money-making and power-grabbing for a favored few above the human dignity of all—as manifested in failure to pay adequate wages for work, deprivation of opportunities to own property including productive property, failure to give adequate support to those who cannot fully pay their own expenses, and failure to protect and improve natural resources for maximum long-lasting benefit to human life.
The promotion of division and inequality among human beings on the basis of race, sex, nationality, and any number of additional characteristics, to the detriment of the unity and cohesiveness of the human community.
Efforts to suppress speech and other expression disfavored by some merely because they hold opposing views, whether by calling the disfavored expression “misinformation” or by any other means.
Needless arrogation of power to direct human life—including power over the education of children—to some supposedly supreme political authority, to the detriment of supposedly lesser authorities such as families, voluntary associations, state and local governments, and individual decision-makers.
Finally, there are positions that are anti-life in being opposed to the hope of eternal life. In politics, these include primarily the positions of those who seek, to a greater or lesser extent, to restrict the free exercise of religion and conscience to purely private matters.
This brief sketch can hardly set out every possible detail of a totally pro-life position. There may be much disagreement about what is necessary for such a position. What there should not be disagreement about is that the antiquated, now-unrealistic categories of Left and Right are not meaningful and useful today for any purpose other than cold civil warfare. Instead, we need to categorize political positions as either totally pro-life, or as anti-life in one or more important ways.
Those who hold the anti-life positions, no doubt, won’t wish to call themselves anti-life. They can, and presumably will, struggle to find nicer-sounding names for themselves. But their days of simply, mindlessly wailing and screaming about “the Right” should be over. Totally pro-life people can and should move on from similarly mindless complaining about “the Left.”
The great thing about the political category of “totally pro-life” is that, unlike Left and Right, it won’t go out of date, nor will it be arbitrarily redefined ad nauseam. It arises from real human life, not from seating arrangements that vanished long ago, and it will endure as long as human life itself endures. Whatever disagreements there may be about details, it will provide a firm and realistic conceptual foundation for political discourse and action, as Left and Right do not. So let’s use it, and dump Left and Right in the trash bin of history!