The birth of LEFT-WING and RIGHT-WING political monikers can be traced back to the French Revolution and the dividing of the National Constitutive Assembly in 1789. Those who supported the absolute veto power (Monarchy) sat in the RIGHT-WING and those who favored a limited veto power of King Louis XVI, in other words (Separation of Church and State), sat in the LEFT-WING. The LEFT and RIGHT diorama was a tableau of an acute time of conflict and since then our socio-political environments challenge this oversimplification. Our complex and pluralistic societies and our human nature deserve a reframe:
In analytic geometry and Cartesian coordinate systems, we remember the plane finds its points in reference to the x and y axis, and those coordinates move in their own direction all in ratio to each other but philosophically, only the RIGHT remains fixed because it is the axis. Even the LEFT finds its origins in the RIGHT but can only move as if magnetically LEFT or out of the RIGHT on a social grid. Through a cartesian analysis of LEFT and RIGHT ideologies we might reconsider the political system and how we view both the LEFT and RIGHT and reconcile them by relocating our coordinates to ease polarity.
The idea of the RIGHT finds its guiding principles and coordinates in the quadrants of Balance, Order, Wisdom and Justice: "do not swerve to the right or to the left" Proverbs 4:27. Having established this core orientation, the RIGHT is in essence CENTER or the ORIGIN. It is moderate, desires peace, prosperity and equal dignity under the law as it relates to a nation's measure of Ordered Liberty and the Common Good. The LEFT moves leftwards in continuum and off CENTER because it does not have any guiding principles other than to extract from the RIGHT without limit while dissassociating from the RIGHT.
The LEFT is not the opposite of the RIGHT however, or its geometric REFLECTION --it is the RIGHT without moderation. It moves out of orbit and is the counterfeit RIGHT. It is a tide that never comes back into safe harbor and is dependent on the RIGHT's fixed coordinates. The LEFT is LEFT only because the RIGHT exists. Based on its centrist strength, the RIGHT cannot move right of itself otherwise it has already moved LEFT or out its own RIGHT. The LEFT is the disordered version of the RIGHT. It is the taking of centrist principles, manipulating them and using them to excess even when well intentioned. For example, if citizens desire Good Government, the LEFT creates an expansive government with the initial goal of it being good, but an expansive government can by nature not be good for citizens because it over-rules the people by its need to centralize power. The Social Justice banner of the LEFT is a cut out of Catholic Social teaching and is appealing until the Social part becomes Unjust by removing the individual from the equation (Collectivism) or relegating Charity to government sponsorship and mandating free will. By labeling the RIGHT (Far-RIGHT) it gives the appearance that the LEFT is not as far from CENTER if both LEFT and RIGHT can move infinitely in their own respective directions on axis. The idea that there is a right of RIGHT is an oxymoron.
The Far-RIGHT is an illusion, and it is based on how far the LEFT has moved left of CENTER. In order to normalize itself, the LEFT must prove that the RIGHT cannot remain at the CENTER and 'there cannot be two points on the graph of a function with the same first coordinate' (Wolfram). Once the RIGHT is pushed RIGHT of itself, it has become LEFT by virtue of moving either by excess, disorder and away from the Center. Both extremes meet as two hemispheres on the round earth are drawn to one another by the same imbalance calculated by common denominators we have seen in authoritarian regime leaders throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries: (Hamid II, French Revolution Jacobins, Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pinochet), the usual suspects. In other words, "The bad are perversions of the good" (Aristotle, Politics).
When politics are driven by creating a Cartesian illusion of LEFT and RIGHT, a false perception is created. This is where the terms “Extremism” and “Fascism” are misused when referring the RIGHT. Historically the Fascist movement began with Nationalism as a LEFT-WING ideology in late 18th century France from the French Revolution proto-Bolshevik Jacobins, not to be confused with the Dominican Jacobin Friars, and later with Mussolini as a design of Socialism. Followed by his admirers under Adolf Hitler, the Nazi's National Socialist Party (though they initially rejected Socialism, admired the Soviet planned economy system, and with their European counterparts--the Axis powers of WWII, orchestrated mass cultural conformity. Those who effectively opposed Hitler were "conservative and in part also pro-monarchist forces" (Zitelmann. 2022) . This has been deceptively coined as a RIGHT-WING movement because of its authoritarian character but authoritarianism is inherently incongruent with the tenets of the RIGHT and most serious discussions about Fascism on closer look unveil the attributes of the LEFT, in particular, the Progressive's push for alliances between the Government and corporations to adopt social policies--a purely fascist manoeuver. To prove my entire thesis that both extremes are essentially the same, Hitler in a speech declares he would invoke the wrath of both:
“What we need is to attract powerful masses, preferably from the extreme left and extreme right wing” (Hitler, 1980a, p. 470).
The naiveté of the LEFT in its zeal to usher in Socialism further reveals it knows not what it does or ever comes to terms with the historic proof of its anti-democratic spirit. Lenin at least lays down his cards and is chillingly honest in his understanding: “It would be the greatest stupidity and the most absurd utopia to suppose that the passage from capitalism to socialism would be possible without constraint and dictatorship” Lenin, (May 28, 1917)."
The LEFT perceives the RIGHT the same way that the LEFT moves itself. The LEFT can only move left of LEFT in extremes or by infinite points: that is its function. It expects the RIGHT to do the same mathematically but the RIGHT can only stay CENTER otherwise it contradicts itself in terms of moral principle and traditional wisdom to avoid being “tossed at sea with every wind of doctrine" Ephesians 4:14, or moving infinitely RIGHT on a Cartesian plane. But human beings do not live on a plane, the dimension of our movements are ruled by a third axis, the z Axis, (zeus) God, and because we are aware of the struggle between divine law and human law, we are inclined to ascend rather than scatter on a plane of shifting coordinates echoing Montesquieu's underlying "Spirit of the Laws" idea.
The RIGHT avoids violence and chaos at all costs. Its Revolution is consistent, long suffering, gradual and enduring and so it ceases to be RIGHT when it abandons these hallmarks. People are generally reasonable and live by few coordinate changes. The Center of the RIGHT intersects both x and y axis and there dwells freedom, united self interest and a full range of social attitudes being positioned on all four quadrants with the inherit wisdom and constraints that “everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial” 1 Corinthians 10:23. Saint Paul may very well have been a Classical Liberal.
The RIGHT is currently straddling the balance of what looks closer to a moderate liberalism by maintaining separation of powers (our unique Magna Carta), a gift to us from the French philosopher Montesquieu, while the LEFT is looking to consolidate powers and convene an altruist Regime. The complexities of human nature, however make it futile to label and locate on a graph political and social attitudes just as both progressives and traditionalists overlap at counterpoints in their conception of Liberty. Some on the RIGHT may be surprised to find their coordinates out of CENTER and some on the LEFT might find a home in the CENTER of the RIGHT. The hope is that we meet at the CENTER.
The LEFT, to its credit plays a great role in reinforcing the RIGHT by being the irruptive force that draws reasonable people back to the CENTER and drives a social referendum on how people want to be governed. The goal of the LEFT is to remove the CENTER (the RIGHT) from its axis so that it can take its place but that is only possible when the LEFT moves RIGHT of itself. In that regard, the LEFT cannot dominate society without moving Right of itself to CENTER, thereby annihilating itself. The mission of the LEFT then, is to cancel the CENTER so that it cannot be held accountable to a CENTER and without a CENTER there is no axis and without an axis there is no..…
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References, further reading
1.Harvard Law Review. Equal Dignity--Heeding Its Call. 8 Feb. 2019, harvardlawreview.org.
2. Diderot, Denis. “Citoyen”. Article de l’Encyclopédie, 1751.
3. Montesquieu, De l'esprit des loix, 1st edn 1748, 2 vols. Book II On laws which derive directly from the nature of the government.
4. Marcuse, Herbert. "Repressive Tolerance" A Critique of Pure Tolerance,Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore Jr. Herbert Marcuse.1965
5. Bréchon, Pierre. Pacte Laboratoire de sciences sociales. The evolution of France’s left and right politics, from the 1789 French Revolution to this year's election https://www.pacte-grenoble.fr/ April 17, 2017
6. Mathiez, Albert. Le Bolchevisme et le Jacobinisme. Paris, Libraire du Parti socialiste et de L'Humanité.1920
8. Carrese, Paul O. America’s Moderate Liberalism: Rediscovering Montesquieu, Recovering Balance. Public Discourse, November 15, 2013. https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/11/11009/
9. Zitelmann, Rainer. The role of anti-capitalism in Hitler's world view.