Left, Right, Wrong?

Imagine a world in which cardinal directions didn't exist, and instead our sense of direction was based on our left and right hemispheres. In this world imagine people who vehemently believe that one direction is somehow superior to the other whenever a literal or metaphorical fork in the road lies before them. Now imagine that our ship of state is an actual ship on the open sea, and these two groups are constantly fighting each other over control of the steering mechanism. One group is satisfied going in clockwise circles as long as they're always steering right, and the other believes that all our problems would be solved if we were fixed in a counter clockwise spin. No landmark or guiding star can change their stubborn beliefs, and as long as the struggle continues they can only dig in their heels in the face of the opposition. This mindless struggle ensures that the ship of state will forever be a ship of fools.

What does it mean to be left or right of center and where is center anyway? The terms come from the French seating arrangements in government from before the French revolution where the supporters of the monarch sat on the right and the more radical and liberal voices on the left. After the revolution the right remained but simply held a torch for monarchy and it's old order, always pining away for the good old days. To this day we still hear moaning about the good old days, and many would gladly welcome a monarch who could deliver up the old order again. Let's face it, as long as some people are prone to abuse power they will oppose a fair distribution of power and wealth. And when any movement towards fairness is made the ownership classes cry about how unfair fairness has been to them.

So the key difference here is those who believe in hierarchal power structures with the power in the hands of the few on top, and those who believe in a lateral distribution of power and wealth with no one person over another. Or to put it in Old English: those who are promised the favor of a king are in favor of a king. And in grade school terms: those who can be in the exclusive inner circle are in favor of having an exclusive inner circle. There is also a significant portion of every population that supports the old order despite the fact that it's held up on their backs and they receive no obvious material reward. And this is where rhetoric is the thread that bundles the factions together into the duality of either left or right. In fact, left or right may feel more comfortably lateral to the greater population, but top and bottom is where the true division lies.

We make matters worse when we use words like "liberal" and "conservative", and like all things abused they lose their intended meaning and purpose in the process. What does it mean to be liberal? or conservative? The answers are long and complicated and change with each person you ask. In the literal sense, we are all liberal and conservative but not in the same ways or on the same issues. It would make perfect sense to say that one who recycles bottles and cans is being conservative with finite resources. When we use those words politically however, we tend to mean that one is either liberal or conservative by a moral standard. So one who recycles is morally liberal by being adaptable to change and for sympathizing with the environment. But "conservative" and "Liberal" also date back to pre-revolutionary France and that same group of people who wanted to conserve the old order as it was.

A ship guided only by the basic directions of left and right is doomed to be lost at sea and one day bashed on the rocky shores while it's crew is busy infighting. Locked in this futile debate we may never find higher orders of direction making skilled navigation possible and instead we continue spinning aimlessly in circles. Our language is the battle ground and words like "liberal" and "conservative" are the targets of attacks set to malign the opposing sides. Those words are held up like martyrs whose true life and meaning have been sacrificed for a cause that redefines them until they are ultimately useless. Political rhetoric turns our language into a mine field with loaded buzz words ready to trigger the rage programmed into our circuitry.

In reality, words are neutral vehicles simply designed to transport ideas from one mind to another. The art of rhetoric is knowing that these words can be literally charged with negative or positive connotations obscuring their original semantic structure and purpose. It is up to us to take these words back for the crucial function of clear communication they are meant to serve. We must learn to recognize the connotations of a word as a temporary manipulation of an otherwise neutral tool. You can commit acts of violence with a hammer, but the hammer is not the violence or the violator. Every individual is responsible for finding the true meaning of each word in their vocabulary, and until they do they are vulnerable to the manipulations of those who dominate the debates in politics and media. Someday we will stop debating like children and have actual conversations.

Here is an excellent (recent) radio broadcast about the conservative mindset, have a listen!

Against the Grain - October 12, 2011 at 12:00pm

Click to listen (or download)