The
Crowded Rightwing Life Rafts or The Great Social-Political Divide:
Left or Right
By
Gaither Stewart
11 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
(Rome) After the fall of Soviet Communism some political
scientists came to believe that the terms Left and Right no longer made
sense, that they were actually the same. Before his death in 1980 former
Communist Jean-Paul Sartre went so far as to speak of Left and Right
as “empty boxes,” as if they had been buried by Stalinism.
Other political thinkers began using in their place terms such as progressive
and conservative.
Though the
Democratic and Republican parties in the United States contain both,
a little of this, a little of that—with the result that both parties
are the same—no political movement with a genuine ideology is
and can be both Left and Right. Some positions and values can be exchanged
and integrated in diverse systems, but there is after all a limit. For
example, war cannot be peace.
In these
times these two words are often considered old-fashioned. They shouldn’t
be. Besides they are not as old as some would like us to think; the
two words were in vogue from the French Revolution up until a few years
ago when at the onset of the American counter-revolution they became
somewhat politically incorrect.
The terms
Left and Right had a geographical birth, originally in reference to
the seating arrangements in the French Chamber of Deputies after the
revolution. They have been used in European parliaments since. Popular
or not, politically correct or not, the Left/Right classification reflects
what I see as the fundamental polarity in social-political thought.
The two simple
words work fine. They distinguish an entire Weltanschauung, the vision
of life and social relations of human beings.
Before the
French Revolution society was divided vertically. Power was at the top,
and filtered down, down, down through the hierarchy to the voiceless
peasant-slave, thus facilitating the rise of history’s despots.
Though weaker from Power’s point of view, the horizontal Left-Right
division was more democratic, intended to limit and control Power.
Peter Kropotkin
notes in his The Great French Revolution that the whole of France was
then divided into two hostile camps: on one side those who possessed
property, on the other, those who possessed nothing—the rich and
the poor. Just as property holders and the landless, Left and Right
are by definition mutually exclusive.
Diverse criteria
distinguish between the two visions of life. The Right defends the status
quo and is defined as conservative or reactionary. Right believes in
the superiority of its cultural heritage. Right defends traditions,
the past and the nation, and as a consequence, militarism, individualism
and more recently anti-Communism.
The Left,
reformist or revolutionary, stands for emancipation from the chains
of the past, libertarianism and innovation. For example, emancipation
from the binds of organized religion. Though not universally true, especially
in Europe religion is generally considered Right and atheism, Left (symbolically
the good are seated on the right of God; the evil on His left).
War obviously
belongs to the Right. The position on war of America’s Democratic
Party today is a Right position, as is its position on social justice.
Right positions inevitably result in clash, in war and increased social
injustice. The pro-war position of European Social Democracy at the
outbreak of World War I led directly to its decline and the predominance
on the Left of the Bolsheviks and thus to the birth of Stalinism.
War is no
minor political oversight, a slipup, a boo-boo, as American Democrats
must by now know. War is historically all-determinant. War has already
destroyed the foundations of the American republic and undermined American
democracy itself.
Equality
and Inequality-One Or The Other
Norberto
Bobbio (1909-2004), Italy’s leading political philosopher, determined
that the major distinction between Left and Right is the relationship
of each with equality. Bobbio’s book Destra e Sinistra (Right
and Left) is a key reference for this article.
Though not
every social-political view can be classified as Right or Left, Left
as a rule tends toward everything that strives for equality among men;
Right tends toward inequality. Or, expressed more forcefully, Right
favors forms of hierarchies dividing men.
This distinction
on the issue of equality is clear, uncompromising and on target.
Yet French
revolutionaries themselves were hard put to come out unequivocally for
equality even in their Declaration of the Rights of Man. But when the
popular revolution forced the new government to finally proclaim equality
in the Preamble to the (new) Constitution, the Revolution flung defiance
in the face of all of the powerful royalty of Europe.
It’s
one or the other—Left or Right. They are not interchangeable.
Despite Right’s frequent claims that it too is “Socialist”
and despite Hitler’s appropriation of the word in National Socialism,
and despite Left’s frequent electoral claims that it too is moderate
middle of the road, both ideologies if they are genuine are one or the
other.
Neither Left
nor Right can be middle of road.
Some political
philosophers like to describe the basic dichotomy between the two with
the categories Progressive and Conservative. Those common words are
not satisfactory. The words recall Sartre’s empty box; Right can
be progressive on certain limited themes, while Left to achieve and
maintain political power easily becomes conservative as seen in the
Left of America’s Democratic Party or often in European Socialism.
Again, the extreme Right of Nazism and Stalinism used the word Socialist
freely and in the end created parodies of socialist states.
Today, Left
considers the Center a disguised Right; the Right believes the Center
is only a cover for the Left. And it is true; the Center or the Third
Way is often a cover for one or the other. Often the Third Way is labeled
a “conservative revolution” as if the ambivalent Third Way
could prevail over genuine Left or Right. For in the long run, also
the Center is obligated to assume positions reflecting either Left or
Right.
One or the
other, Left or Right, predominates in a given society in a given moment,
though one does not eliminate the other. Times change but the basic
dichotomy remains.
In Italy,
the Right of Mussolinian Fascism fell and after World War II the Left
predominated—though the imperialistic USA in the post-war never
allowed it to govern Italy. In the confusion of post-war Italy, both
the neo-Fascist Right and the ex-Communist Left came to assume Center
positions in order to emerge from political oblivion.
Like Washington,
the European Center today is crowded by survivors from Left and Right
hanging onto crowded political life-rafts.
The worst
and most blatant and disturbing example of ignoring the obvious is the
USA, the world’s most powerful country controlled by a one-party
system, where the very words Left and Right are shunned.
Nevertheless,
America’s Republican and Democratic parties stand comfortably
shoulder to shoulder on the Right, bolstered by religious extremists
and a myriad of secret militias—those in the woods and those abroad
like Blackwater—and the usual flag-waving patriots.
In order
to devaluate the other, each party has devaluated itself.
The result
is that today America’s two parties are interdependent, one on
the other. They have exchanged political and social values as if they
were merchandise. The two-component one-party system on the basis of
the great euphemism, democracy, now a façade, fake and mendacious,
today heads the great American Counter-Revolution.
The one-party
system and mainstream culture have meanwhile coined less threatening
words for Left such as: “Alternative” or “Indy”,
which is America’s Left. The active Left. Independent bookstores
and publishers. Alternative press and culture.
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