No seriously, what the hell is "Left" and "Right"?

No seriously, what the hell is "Left" and "Right"?

Conservatism and Liberalism I can understand. But I was always taught Left and Right were relative directions, not political affiliations.

Try a fucking Google search and then come back.

The political spectrum is a social construct.

>murican educashun
Briefly: in the ol' days, right wingers used to be the monarch's right side of the court, the people who wanted to CONSERVE him in power and keep his laws in place. The left wing would oppose the right wing, and at some point in history, liberals wanted to free the commoners from taxation.

So if that's true, and you can say right is conservative and left are liberals, then why is it that us Americans think of the spectrum as a set of axis? Other than just being retarded, I guess.

because axis is a good way to display two variables at the same time dipshit

So what are the variables? Left and right to Liberal and Conservative? But isn't Left just Liberal and Right just Conservative, meaning you're just comparing the same variable to itself?

HYPERTEXT TRANSFER PROTOCOL CONFIRMS

Also fuck you its not a social construct

Basically it means nothing these days, because there are too many different understandings of the dichotomy around.

In the USA, as far as parties go, you are either a democrat or a republican, which is why the two axis spectrum """works""" so well for the average American. There are liberal republicans (libertarians) and there are liberal democrats (progressives), and there are conservative republicans (constitutionalists) and conservative democrats (centrists).

Not exactly friendo, the vertical axis display Authoritarianism to Libertianism. Meaning the more north you are, the more fascist, and south is more anarchism.

It's a very outdated metric.

You can really apply it to one metric at a time since economic liberals aren't always socially liberal and vice versa.

Oh, alright. That makes a lot more sense. Thanks for clarifying.

Being higher on the y axis means more authoritarian, not necessarily more fascist.

This one represents just about every possibility. Some countries only exist within one of the quadrants, others in between two, and rarely some have enough parties to represent a bit of every ideology within the four quadrants.

We invented it back in the day when likeminded people sat next to each other and created a political split in the room.

The same reason the correct answer to "How's it hanging?" Is "Low and to the left."

It's still being used in most European parliments I know at least, Conservatives sit on the right side and leftards beg for change on the left side. Except for us PIGS where the right wing doesn't really exist so everybody begs for money.

alt right is just european nationalism
and it's about time we have it

It goes back to the French revolution and what literal wing of the building certain parties physically occupied in government.

On the right are those that support the monarchy. On the left are those that don't.

where do u reckon technocratic lies on?

Right is edgy white boys

Left is retarded niggers are even dumber women


The real redpill is regression. Living in caves and drink your own urine is true woke

Somewhere within or around authoritarianism since it depends on what type of technocrats are the ruling party.

Probably somewhere near progressivism (aside from the fact that only experts can vote). However this is only if the technocracy is specialised, i.e. experts can only vote on their field.

For example the average economist is much more in favour of a market economy than most over experts in other fields.

I'd also say that you'd get a different result if only policy experts were allowed to vote, i.e. public health experts but not normal physicians.

By no means does that imply that most technocrats would be actual progressives. What this compass defines as progressivism is very different to what progressivism is usually defined as.

The Left believes equality is a necessity or a moral good, the Right believes inequality is an inevitability or moral good.

That pretty much clears everything. Stop worrying.

This is actually a very good definition.

Unironically really made me think.