Left or Right wing?
(The danger of arbitrary labelling people rather than their ideas).
It’s within human nature to label and categorise everything from the world around us to find meaning. We categorise objects, situations, even people and cultures. Importantly it serves as a great time-saving exercise to categorise complex issues when attempting to comprehend them, even categorise the actors. This is especially true when debating political or social issues. It’s a natural approach.
Political correctness. In today’s politically correct world navigating acceptable labels to attribute to different groups or ideologies is somewhat of a minefield. If you are not from a particular minority you might not be able to use the very terms that that minority used to describe themselves. You may however be free to use a highly derogative label against a group perceived to be a majority, or a group with perceived power. For instance: white males, landlords or politicians are perfectly acceptable to refer to in derogatory terms.
Could we agree that it is safe to refer to a group of people who self identify by the name that they choose to be identified. And if we agree that is also fair to associate people who share the same views or values into groups.
Yet it’s fair to say that not everyone in a group will agree on every view or value.
For instance, I am not wholly left or right wing because I hold a view that is more conservative or radical than you on one or more issues. If there is one piece of wisdom that age has brought me, it’s that people are not completely predictable.
The blanket labelling of left- and right-wing deliberately assumes that all issues are boolean. When in reality almost no political or social issue can be viewed in one dimension. Whether you are spiritual or not the human brain is a gift that we should use at every opportunity. If you believe in Darwinism, you will believe that using your brain gets you laid.
When I am thinking about political or social issues and I feel the need to comprehend where an individual or group stand on a particular issue, I try to avoid visualising a spectrum, rather a multi-dimensional diagram. I accept that it is perfectly acceptable to use a linear spectrum when undertaking exercises such as Street Epistemology to get people thinking. This may be necessary in many cases because our public news and media organisations are no longer presenting news as a ‘collection of facts’ but as a pre-packaged narrative with a victim, perpetrator and moral view. Compounding the problem is the removal of critical thinking from school curriculums with predetermined social ideals some of which challenge principles of science.
Can we agree that a better approach might be to talk about specific ideas and the values and desires behind those ideas. When you read a book or watch a movie the characters motivations are key to your interpretation of the plot. In murder mysteries a good writer will obfuscate the key suspects motivations. Sound familiar?
Fair terms of reference.
Radicals hold a view of action being required even if the issue only affects a minority. These actions include ones that may have significant inconvenience or financial impact across a society.
Conservatives hold a view where action should only be taken if a problem affects a majority. Actions that inconvenience or affect a societies economic situation should be avoided.
So rather than talking about whether a group or individual is left or right wing could we agree to refer to good and bad ideas?
An example: a person is categorised as right wing because they have a conservative view of energy generation, yet they are an ardent supporter of progressive social issues. Imagine the juxtaposition of the non existent social impacts of gay marriage versus lithium battery manufacture and use.
We all need to develop a mechanism to identify where our views sit on the spectrums of public sentiment and more importantly scientific fact. And by scientific, I am referring to the official branches of science and peer reviewed papers and journals when available. There is no shortage of data and academic papers freely available online. I would warn you however, in recent years the bar has been lowered with respect to whom can call themselves a scientist and what is considered research. This is due to the rising costs of research and various DEI appointments of senior educators.
With the general public’s attention-span diminishing, it seems less likely anyone will bother to investigate an Academic, Author or Journalists’ qualifications or research methods. If we could use Elon Musk as an example. I had viewed his actual academic qualifications in response to claims during an interview whereby he claimed he was SpaceX’s chief rocket designer. Although he does have qualifications in this area they are in Marketing. Perfectly acceptable given his role, but likewise he shouldn’t make such claims because it is misleading and shows poor leadership. I would go on to point out the impracticality of both EVs and space travel. I think SpaceX and Tesla will go the way of Twitter (X) and slowly fade away.