How did we come to think of "left" as being liberal and "right" as being conservative? Was
it from the Left Bank artists of Paris in the 1920s, or was there an earlier origin?

The story I heard (in my youth) was that it goes back to where people sat in the French Revolutionary National Assembly. More reading in Wikipedia (link).

Interesting question. I tried to find more about why they were termed that way, but I couldn't. I did find this interesting site from the UK, which describes the "right" and "left" much like it is in the US.

There may be a clue as to the reliability of the article by the fact that, on their little chart, Hitler is a moderate centrist.

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Originally posted by BobHale:
There may be a clue as to the reliability of the article by the fact that, on their little chart, Hitler is a moderate centrist.

Or it might be a clue as to how utterly depraved today's politicians are.

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Originally posted by Geoff:

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
There may be a clue as to the reliability of the article by the fact that, on their little chart, Hitler is a moderate centrist.

Or it might be a clue as to how utterly depraved today's politicians are.

Relating to Z's post/Wiki link, I'm reminded of the British monarch's motto, "Dieu et mon droit."

I wondered about that, Bob. But, would you call Hitler a rightist? I don't know. Some of his beliefs were very socialistic. Certainly, though, his beliefs on racism were rightist.

So, Bob, since you considered this an unreliable site, do "rightist" and "leftist" mean the same in the UK as in the US? That was what I was trying to show with that link, and I think they do.

Do you really think that racism is rightist? I've known racists from both the left and the right.

One of the white men I work with is married to a black woman. He said he overheard one of his in-laws saying to their daughter that she married the wrong man. Racism knows no boundaries. I have no idea what either side's political orientation is.

OK. Kalleh asked why I think it’s an unreliable article.
I’ve given it some thought and I’d say that the whole premise of the article is wrong. Let’s list the main points it suggests about left and right so that I can discuss them. It’s actually quite relevant to our board as it is interesting from the “use of language” point of view.
The article suggests
1. Left = country over individual, right = individual over country
2. Left = intervention for social justice, right= no intervention at all in the name of individual liberty
3. Right = “big Government”, left = “small Government”
4. Right=formal equality, left=affirmative action.

It states it in a more convoluted way and with more examples but that’s the main gist.

To begin with, even before looking at the specifics, what we have here is a fairly straightforward rhetorical trick – the creation of a set of false dichotomies. With the exception of number three, which is probably meaningless (though I will explain why later) none of them actually present a pair of opposites.
It’s like saying to someone “do you want to burn in a fire or drown in a lake?” I want to die peacefully in bed aged a hundred and twenty but that option isn’t offered.

So, moving on to the specifics.
Point one suggests a clear black and white difference. Not only isn’t it that clear, I don’t think the difference mentioned is even indicative of left or right, certainly not of real left and right wing parties (though I’ll concede that there may be literature from theorists that would support this division.)
Does the left favour the country over the individual. Arguably it’s back to front. Traditional left wing politics are all about empowering the people in society who have little power to begin with which seems to me to be about the individual.
Does the right favour individuals over country? Historically our most jingoistic, nationalistic Governments have been right wing not left.

The truth is that neither favours country or individual specifically, they simply have different views of what is expected of and by each. They might well favour different elements of society. You could (though I personally wouldn’t) argue that the right favours the already privileged while the left favours the disempowered. You could (though, again, I wouldn’t) argue that the right favours isolationism while the left favours internationalism.
You could equally write that last sentence with the two key words switched.

You could also argue that to suggest the country and the individual are different things is nonsense as the country consists of a lot of individuals and the implication that what is good for one must be bad for the other just doesn’t make sense.

Point two is just mischievous. The suggestion that social justice and personal freedom are incompatible opposites is a bit of particularly pernicious sophistry. You hear it a lot. Extremists with one agenda use it to suggest that all big business and all profit-driven enterprises are evil oppressors of the people and those with the opposite agenda use it to suggest that any social change or attempt to raise the standards for the under-privileged is a calculated attack on the very fabric of society.
It’s rubbish.
You can perfectly well have both together. I’d go further. You can’t have one without the other. Without the money from one side the social change is impossible while without the need for change from the other side business becomes a stagnant pool in which nothing can thrive.

The third point, the “big/small” argument is nonsense. Just because different Governments prioritise differently is no reason to suggest that they favour more or less Government – phrases which seem to me to be intrinsically flawed. Left and right intervene just as much in the way things work just in different ways. Taking enterprises out of state control is every bit as much an intervention as taking them into state control. Nationalised enterprises are subject to every bit as much regulation as privatised enterprises. The whole “big/small” thing just doesn’t make sense to me.

And the last point is just another false dichotomy. Of course people should be formally equal in law. In what way does that contradict the idea that you should try to help the less fortunate? Programs to raise social and cultural rights, as the article has it, don’t contradict the concept of equal pay for equal work. The very concept of equal pay for equal work is an element of social justice.

In short the whole article sets up a false comparison. There are philosophical differences in how left and right wing Governments go about their business but I don’t believe that there is a fundamental difference in their actual objective of creating a society which functions as a whole and also works to the benefit of as many of its members as possible.
The implementation is where they differ. For what it’s worth I believe that the balance of policies at the moment is favouring the already privileged at the expense of the disempowered but that’s not the intention of the policies, simply part of the law of unintended consequences.
Things can very easily go too far the other way and cause economic problems for the country but again it isn’t a matter of ideology, just of actions having effects that were not foreseen.

Hope that all makes it clear why I think the article is unreliable.

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Do you really think that racism is rightist? I've known racists from both the left and the right.

Well, CW and Geoff, I agree that there is no black or white in this, just as all rightists don't want decreased taxes and all leftists don't want increased taxes. Yet, if we researched this, looking at the aggregate, I think we'd see a trend of the rightists being more racist, at least in the U.S. And, by the way, I hate the words "rightists" and "leftists," but we are using those terms here so I'll fall in with the group.

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OK. Kalleh asked why I think it’s an unreliable article.

No I didn't. I said that since you considered it unreliable, I still wondered if the English had similar definitions to the Americans. That's all. From reading your thoughtful response, I see that you think about "rightist" and "leftist" categories about the same as I do. There are too many nuances to put people into those neat categories. For example, if someone were to query me about my views, some of them are clearly "leftist," while others are not. That's true of my husband as well.

Right-Wing
like the headlines and pictures in the Daily Mail
racist
conservative
low tax
death penalty advocates
no sense of humour
hunt foxes

Left-Wing
read articles in the Guardian
anti-racist
revolutionary
high tax
pro-abortion
nicer
eat organic

That's about it here in the states, though the "nicer" adjective may be a little subjective.

One thing I discovered the other day that surprised me, although probably most Americans know it already: the Republican party was the one that was anti-slavery at the time of your civil war.

Yes, it is odd, particularly the way the Republican party has morphed.

Chicago's Catholic Cardinal got himself in hot water, and Chicago is a highly Irish Catholic city. Here is a Chicago Tribune editorial about it.

quote:

"You don't want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism."
— Cardinal Francis George, in a Fox Chicago newscast

The article says that 700,000 spectators viewed the gay pride parade. Why??? It sounds as if it's a freak show. Who, if any, would show up at a heterosexual pride parade? Sexual orientation is hard-wired into one's genetics; Catholicism is not. All this seems to have less to do with the left/right political dichotomy than who can out-silly the other.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Geoff,

700k is an incredible number. Checking google,that's the kind of crowd the GPP gets in Rio & Paris. Last summer's Chicago parade was held soon after the state passed civil union rights for gays, which presumably boosted attendance.

I can only judge from my experience w/the annual Greenwich Village event. It was perhaps considered freaky and titillating in the '80's when gays were making the transition from closeted pariahs to a political force. People attend for many reasons; my son partly as an indy musician & partly in awareness of the trials his gay aunt's family have endured over the years. If your practical viewpoint ('genetically hardwired') were universal there would be no need for a parade.

No doubt it's a 'lefty' event! Tho Bob's well-reasoned post makes it clear the word usage is neither logical nor theoretically accurate. That Chicago's GPP turnout was nearly double the previous year's may reflect that a lot more people were feeling downtrodden this year...

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It sounds as if it's a freak show.

Nope. Remember, Chicago, and the surrounding area, is big.

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No doubt it's a 'lefty' event!

Lefty event? No, I'd say not. It's a gay liberation event. I know lots of Republicans ("rightists"?) who support gay liberation. The media, however, tends to highlight the small percentage of Republicans who are highly conservative, tea party types. I live with a Republican who supports gay liberation; is pro-choice; does not support lowering taxes for the rich, while raising them for the poor; among many supposedly "rightist vs. leftist" issues. Unfortunately, the media gives us the impression that every single conservative ("rightist") thinks one way, while every single liberal ("leftist") thinks another way. That's just not the case.

I agree, that's what I meant in referring to Bob's essay. Championing gay rights is thought of as "left" in the sense of government protecting the rights of a minority, yet a libertarian or conservative "righty" could see infringement of gay rights as an unwelcome intrusion of 'big gov't' into the private affairs of the individual. Any side might perceive infringing gay rights as contrary to founders' principles, i.e. putting legal authority behind a patently religious agenda.

Back in the '80s Prof. Eugen Weber recorded 52 lectures called "The Western Tradition" that broadcast on public television (they are all online now). In one of them, The Rise of the Trading Cities, he talks about Amsterdam and the culture of tolerance that allowed Catholics, Protestants and Jews to live and trade together in safety while the rest of Europe was torn by religious wars. San Francisco is a trading city with a history of relative tolerance not because it's all lefty and socialist, as those who deride Nancy Pelosi's "San Francisco values" would have us believe, but because tolerance is good for business.

quote:

Originally posted by neveu:
San Francisco is a trading city with a history of relative tolerance not because it's all lefty and socialist, as those who deride Nancy Pelosi's "San Francisco values" would have us believe, but because tolerance is good for business.

A somewhat cynical point of view, but likely correct. After all, the Netherlands were a hotbed of religious fanaticism prior to the Dutch Republic, with people being burned at the stake at an alarming rate. Commerce did seem to calm the insanity.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Geoff,

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A somewhat cynical point of view, but likely correct.

I don't think I'd call it cynical; it sounds realistic and positive to me. It is good for business when people live peacefully together. But then I am probably classified (at least by the media and the tea partiers) as "liberal leftist." It's not the case, though. I have plenty of views that would be classified as "rightist," such as favoring the voucher system of education.

I don't think I'd call it cynical; it sounds realistic and positive to me.

Most cynics (myself included, and quite a few pessimists besides) see themselves as realists.

For joy, for joy! I can see z's posts again!

As regards the above few posts, welcome to the wonderful world of Pragmatism, y'all! http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/

We may have had a similar attitude among the Moors in Spain before Ferdinand and Isabella bedded down together and ruined Spain's Golden Age.

Well, here an online dictionary's definition of cynical:

1. Distrusting or disparaging the motives of others.
2. Showing contempt for accepted standards of honesty or morality by one's actions, especially by actions that exploit the scruples of others.
3. Bitterly or sneeringly distrustful, contemptuous, or pessimistic.

Is that being a "realist?" [I guess that could be "cynical" definition of it. ]

I am a realist.
You are a pragmatist.
He is a cynic.

What arnie said.

Obviously that dictionary entry was not written by a cynic.

Somewhat pertinent to this discussion is this discussion of language and nationalism, among other things: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl...archives/004365.html

Hmmmmmm... I may have to quit being a peevologist if I keep reading this stuff!

Found this today

From Adam’s Navel by Michael Sims:

Nowadays such terms as left-wing and right-wing are merely buzzwords hurled by political parties to stereotype opponents. They date from the eighteenth century, especially from the days of the French Revolution. The seating plan of the French Estates-General, like that of some European ruling bodies at the time, dictated that the burghers (the so-called Third Estate, the other two being the nobility and the clergy) sat to the left of the king and the nobles to the right. When the topic of the royal veto came up, those on the left voted against it and those on the right for it. In time left came to represent reform, radicalism, and even internationalism. Right symbolized the opposite -- tradition, conservatism, patriotism. The assumption that these ideas were at opposite ends of a spectrum inspired the concept of political centralism. In reality, of course. the parties were never so black and white, and at least since World War I, the old descriptions have no longer been accurate.

Yup, that's about right (or left as the case may be).

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Hmmmmmm... I may have to quit being a peevologist

I've never considered you a peevologist. You sometimes support their views on issues, but you are always much more thoughtful and you research the issue. Many of them don't.