Left and right are two words.
They are words that indicate direction or sometimes ‘to leave something’ or ‘to be correct’
By themselves, they have no other concrete meaning.
Let’s be specific about the distinction, and the unbridgeable gap, between two competing philosophies.
First, let’s describe them in concrete terms... Totalitarianism vs Individualism.
They are diametrically opposed.
What is popularly termed the right and the left are only two flavors of the same totalitarian poison.
I think we make a mistake when we play the L/R-game. What we seek is outside of this box.
‘Conservative’ is what most of us would call ourselves but even that isn’t specific enough,
It has some connotations to it that can muddy the water a bit and necessitate long-winded explanations.
Individualism cuts right to the core.
Individualism puts the Individual above the government. The government serves him not rules him
Freedom is an innate, Natural Right of the Individual. It is always better to err on the side of Freedom.
With Freedom comes the responsibility to protect others’ Freedom. Freedom is not licentiousness.
We act with the knowledge that our Freedom only extends to a point where it does not interfere with the Freedoms of other Individuals.
Totalitarianism in all its disguises seek to control the Individual,
to subject the Individual to the rule of a singular or a group of ‘masterminds’,
to destroy the Individual’s Freedom and place the ‘individual’ in a subservient position to government.
100%. Good explanation, kanawa, thank you.
I think we use left and right because most people use it as shorthand for what they perceive because trying to frame it at totalitarian vs individualism is difficult for some people to grasp.
We understand it, because individualism is exactly what is at the root of freedom, and totalitarianism is the other diametrically opposed end.
While I agree regarding totalitarianism being bad (barring of course instances where God himself is totalitarian). I’m not entirely sure if I agree on individualism regarding whether it’s a good thing. After all, Jean Paul Sartre and the ACLU advocated for the “absolute freedom of the individual” and claimed it to be the highest good, yet he was left-wing and not even remotely a good person. You can see it here:
https://web.archive.org/web/19980119060706/http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/1996/feb96/focus.html
“When did these ideas begin to infiltrate the ALA? And who brought them in? During the social turmoil of the late sixties, the Office of Intellectual Freedom in the ALA headquarters in Chicago became very important in the making of policy. Around this time, Judith Krug began her tenure as director of that office, and in 1970 forged strong links between the ALA and the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU functioned under a philosophy of nihilism/individualism since its founding by Roger Baldwin after the turn of the century. For a time in the 1970s, Ms. Krug served simultaneously as ALA Intellectual Freedom Director and as a board member of the ACLU, which has given her several awards. The ACLU, according to George Grant’s 1989 study, believes that children should have the same rights as adults, that pornography should be protected by the Constitution, that the First Amendment’s free speech clause implies a right to receive information, and that the smallest limitation of any speech or expression will automatically lead to totalitarian repression.
“The fourth source [for the American Library Association’s radicalization] is Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist who was so fashionable in the 1940s. He held the absolute freedom of the individual to be the highest good and yet saw all values as relative. His idea that there are no rules by which we must govern our conduct dispenses handily with Madison’s idea that the Ten Commandments are necessary for peaceful self-government.”