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Marc2b -> RE: political relativity (10/25/2008 4:46:18 PM)
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quote:
Left or right are relative terms, not absolute ones. For instance, i have seen on these boards Obama referred to as left wing, and McCain as right wing. This then becomes a sense where Obma is identified by some as being syonymous with left wing activities in the rest of the world and McCain with right wing ones. The thing is, where's the centre?
i'd like to suggest that the centre in US politics is not the same as the centre in world politics. So a US poltician defined there as leftist would be defined in, say, the UK as right wing.
Do posters here think that this is giving a misleading slant to the debate?
Left, Right, Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, Republican, Socialist, Fascist, Communist, Nazi.
Loaded words all - and loaded with different meanings by different people. Certainly there is some overlap, some commonality. If there wasn’t, then such words (indeed all words) would truly be meaningless. Still, despite what common associations people attach to such words, they will have different meanings depending upon context, location, and the personal experience, beliefs, and political outlook of both the speaker and the listener.
Generally speaking I see the term Left encompassing collectivist economic polices and the term Right encompassing free market policies. I have used the terms in that sense on these boards but alas they really have become outdated. There is the so called Political Compass which I consider much more accurate but far from perfect (there are some questions on the test that I consider poorly worded and therefore I am unable to accurately answer).
Even if we agree that terms like Authoritarian, Libertarian, and Anarchism are more accurate they are still subject to the same personal interpretations as Left and Right. I have a hard enough time trying to keep up with the complexities and the vagaries of the American political system to delve to deeply into the political system of other countries. Certainly I am aware that what a term means to me may have a different meaning to someone from a different country. During Gorbachev’s perestroika period of the Soviet Union, I remember newscasts referring to hard line Communists who opposed Gorbachev as Conservatives – a term you would never hear applied to a communist in the United States.
As Philosophy pointed out the problem is compounded by the natural human tendency to apply guilt by association – if someone is Left (whatever that term means to us) on issue A then, we presume, that they are probably Left on issues B, C, and D. As other have pointed out, this is not always (perhaps even usually) the case. It is certainly not true in my case. If I tell people that I am pro-choice, anti-death penalty, against the teaching of Creationism (or it’s new incarnation, Intelligent Design) in public schools, and am pro gay marriage – then some people might conclude that I am a Liberal. If I tell people that I am a firm believer in the Free Market, States Rights and that I never met a tax cut I didn’t like – then some people may conclude that I am a Conservative. And that’s just in the United States. I have little to no idea how people in other countries will label me.
Compounding the problem even more is the emotional investment we put into such terms because of the emotional investment we put into our world view. Add to this the natural human tendency toward a if you’re not with us you’re against us attitude (a product of our tribal heritage), and someone who concludes that I am a liberal may concluded that I am a "bleeding heart liberal who hates America," or "that I am an "enlightened humanist." Conversely, some may conclude that I am a "heartless conservative who hates the poor" or that I am a "true American." Given all this, is it any wonder that not just American politics but politics all around the world are so contentious?
The communication revolution with the advent of the internet and other new technologies is only compounding the problem. Now we can talk to even more people who don’t attach the same meaning to terms that evoke such strong emotional responses. Twenty years ago I may have read newspapers or watched news broadcasts that talked about politics but that was being filtered to me and carried a (relatively speaking) common meaning to the words used. If I talked to someone about politics, it was pretty much a local affair. If I wanted to talk to people across the United States or around the world, then I would have to travel there and talk to them in person. Today, thanks to the internet, I am talking politics with people from across the United States and around the world routinely – the CM Message Boards being just one example. Sure enough there have been cases where I have gotten into heated debates with people in which we were not attacking each other’s political positions but what we thought were each other’s political positions. Sometimes I’m the one who figures this out first, sometimes I’m not.
So where do we go from here? I’m not really sure except to say that we must always try to keep in mind keep that what interpretation you think people will give your words and what interpretation they actually will give them are two different things. Take away the vocal inflections and the body language that add meaning to our words and it’s a wonder that any of us understand anybody around here.
Just in case anyone is interested, my score on the Political Compass is – Economic Left/Right:
3.38, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.10
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