You forgot to mention: the left wins because technological advancement is what allows leftism to flourish. Slavery couldn’t have ended if industrialization didn’t come and make production less human-intensive. Feminism couldn’t have happened without the dishwasher and vacuum cleaner and all the inventions that allowed a woman to not have to do housework all day. Tolerance of cultures around the world couldn’t have happened without mass media broadcasting such cultures. And so on.
“feminism and androgyny increase pacifism. When faced with the threat of primitive tribal warfare, gender equality is insane.” This speaks to technology: the more militarily advanced a country is, the more it can tolerate because they are not as worried about being defeated.
Reactionary reader here. While I think your line of argument is compelling, and you have a generally correct view of the Left, I think your view of the right is reductionist and too reliant on the 20th century. This becomes most apparent in your concept of social complexity, which is simply the amount of internal divisions within the society. I think this is a clever inversion of the right-wing concept of social bond, which for simplicity, I will describe as any social tie between the individual. Let’s take for example a hypothetical society with a marriage rate of 100 percent for adult individuals and say that the marriage rate decreases to fifty percent over the course of a century. Now there are a variety of variations of singleness or polyamory among the unmarried half of a population. You would argue that the social complexity pertinent to romantic relationships has increased tremendously, but instead all that we have really seen is the degradation of a social institution.
In that same way, the homogenous nationalism that characterizes your peak rightist society is far from inherently right-wing. Especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, nationalism was a liberal force used to decrease the ancient social bonds that characterized the multicultural and politically variant states of the ancien regime in Europe, especially to destroy the connections of the landed aristocracy to the peasantry and the supranational clergy of the Catholic Church to their laity. Specifically in the French Revolution, we see a destruction of regional identities and eventually languages, leading to a reduction in social bonds and social complexity.
Furthermore, if we continue to use the frame of the French Revolution, we see very clearly that diplomacy is far from inherently left-wing because it is properly understood as a social bond between nations. There is certainly a reason why so many of the great reactionary political thinkers such as De Maistre, Metternich, Grotius, and Pope Leo XIII were diplomats. Now the “diplomacy” of the 20th century in which one uses internationalism to usurp the authority of states and destroy the bond of subject to sovereign may certainly be leftist, but if we see diplomacy as a series of social bonds derived from the authority of natural law, it is obvious that the right has a conception of diplomacy that is better at maintaining social bonds, as well as social complexity, as rightist notions of international law preserve the dignity of smaller principalities as well as those with different governments. I am curious to see how your system can account for right-wing conceptions of social bond and international law.
Ok but a typical rightist could say, with relatively good arguments, that the west is in a state of overdose of leftism and that it is time to clean up the mess.
This is a very good historical analysis of how “leftist values” like diplomacy and tolerance of other cultures enabled even an expansionist, militaristic (right wing) society like Rome and the Mongols to expand without genocide and produce a multicultural state that by definition had to be leftist. And also I’m glad that you mentioned the Morgenthau Plan. It really did cause at least some Germans to become more interested in fighting to the death. And the Jewish culture took over Rome: it was called Christianity ✝️
Elgabalus was Arab not phonecian - his name is the Arabic Allah-Al-Jabal (the god of the mountain). His family were Levantine Arabs from Emessa, modern day Homs in Syria.
Well articulated article. This is a good response to those who insist there’s an optimal group strategy by simply being empathetic to your “in group” and psychopathic to your “outgroup”. It’s interesting that Britain due to its technological advantage was able to have more of a right wing empire as you describe it, but now in a post colonial world exhibit extreme ‘wokeness’, and are now relegated to such a survival strategy. My prediction is that because America has something closer to Roman Interpretation (through its multicultural, multi religious state), in a post colonial America, ‘wokeness’ will not nearly be as extreme as Britain.
I thought the “extremely far right society” was going to end up being Israel.
I enjoyed reading this but it seems like a bit of an ideological cope. There is nothing inherently left or right wing about diplomacy or universalism. The mongols and Rome were not in any meaningful sense left wing, unless you torture the definition to the point of meaninglessness. I understand that you’re saying they might have adopted a left wing pattern of behavior to be successful, they were successful, therefore the left is always successful. But this ignores left wing ideologies that adopt right wing tactics such as violence in order to be successful like the Bolsheviks or any other militant left wing groups known for terrorism like the early zionists that were socialists.
I don’t disagree at all that there is some fundamental differences in ideology, in the left vs right dichotomy, and that every strand of belief can be bifurcated. Whether it’s Catholics in east/west, Muslims in Sunni/Shia, Jews in orthodox/reform, Americans in democrat/republican, or humans in man/woman. It’s part of our nature to divide and try to bridge the dissonance between ourselves but most of this bridging is done using the means most likely to be successful which is then incorporated necessarily into the ideology. If it’s terrorism, you justify that, if it’s pacifism, you justify that. This isn’t cynicism because they are justifying their actions to perpetuate their beliefs, which will make further action possible. Anything else would be treated as suicide, whether slow or fast. That’s not to say it’s correct or moral or anything, just that left wing movements have adopted non violent principles simply to be successful, like Ghandi or MLK who copied him. They weren’t in principle against violence. They knew that they wouldn’t be successful being violent though, so they incorporated that into their ideology. You could look at left wing movements that have used right wing tactics like justifying violence and say the opposite - that the right always wins.
My point is that none of this is as ideological as it seems, which I think is a good thing. Most of what we believe and act on, insofar as we actually act on what we believe, is contingent upon what is likely to be successful which is always extremely limited and while it is guided by religion or ideology, it must be one that can actually survive and it is the survival that determines most of what the beliefs are. And this is a good thing, because to a certain extent, serviceability and adaptability are good things in themselves if life is understood as a gift. Obviously, justifying terrorism as necessary for your survival is a perversion of this understanding
You forgot to mention: the left wins because technological advancement is what allows leftism to flourish. Slavery couldn’t have ended if industrialization didn’t come and make production less human-intensive. Feminism couldn’t have happened without the dishwasher and vacuum cleaner and all the inventions that allowed a woman to not have to do housework all day. Tolerance of cultures around the world couldn’t have happened without mass media broadcasting such cultures. And so on.
“feminism and androgyny increase pacifism. When faced with the threat of primitive tribal warfare, gender equality is insane.” This speaks to technology: the more militarily advanced a country is, the more it can tolerate because they are not as worried about being defeated.
Reactionary reader here. While I think your line of argument is compelling, and you have a generally correct view of the Left, I think your view of the right is reductionist and too reliant on the 20th century. This becomes most apparent in your concept of social complexity, which is simply the amount of internal divisions within the society. I think this is a clever inversion of the right-wing concept of social bond, which for simplicity, I will describe as any social tie between the individual. Let’s take for example a hypothetical society with a marriage rate of 100 percent for adult individuals and say that the marriage rate decreases to fifty percent over the course of a century. Now there are a variety of variations of singleness or polyamory among the unmarried half of a population. You would argue that the social complexity pertinent to romantic relationships has increased tremendously, but instead all that we have really seen is the degradation of a social institution.
In that same way, the homogenous nationalism that characterizes your peak rightist society is far from inherently right-wing. Especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, nationalism was a liberal force used to decrease the ancient social bonds that characterized the multicultural and politically variant states of the ancien regime in Europe, especially to destroy the connections of the landed aristocracy to the peasantry and the supranational clergy of the Catholic Church to their laity. Specifically in the French Revolution, we see a destruction of regional identities and eventually languages, leading to a reduction in social bonds and social complexity.
Furthermore, if we continue to use the frame of the French Revolution, we see very clearly that diplomacy is far from inherently left-wing because it is properly understood as a social bond between nations. There is certainly a reason why so many of the great reactionary political thinkers such as De Maistre, Metternich, Grotius, and Pope Leo XIII were diplomats. Now the “diplomacy” of the 20th century in which one uses internationalism to usurp the authority of states and destroy the bond of subject to sovereign may certainly be leftist, but if we see diplomacy as a series of social bonds derived from the authority of natural law, it is obvious that the right has a conception of diplomacy that is better at maintaining social bonds, as well as social complexity, as rightist notions of international law preserve the dignity of smaller principalities as well as those with different governments. I am curious to see how your system can account for right-wing conceptions of social bond and international law.
Ok but a typical rightist could say, with relatively good arguments, that the west is in a state of overdose of leftism and that it is time to clean up the mess.
Well we know that the righties would make a worse botch of it. Look no further than Washington 😁😳😭😭😀
This is a very good historical analysis of how “leftist values” like diplomacy and tolerance of other cultures enabled even an expansionist, militaristic (right wing) society like Rome and the Mongols to expand without genocide and produce a multicultural state that by definition had to be leftist. And also I’m glad that you mentioned the Morgenthau Plan. It really did cause at least some Germans to become more interested in fighting to the death. And the Jewish culture took over Rome: it was called Christianity ✝️
Elgabalus was Arab not phonecian - his name is the Arabic Allah-Al-Jabal (the god of the mountain). His family were Levantine Arabs from Emessa, modern day Homs in Syria.
Well articulated article. This is a good response to those who insist there’s an optimal group strategy by simply being empathetic to your “in group” and psychopathic to your “outgroup”. It’s interesting that Britain due to its technological advantage was able to have more of a right wing empire as you describe it, but now in a post colonial world exhibit extreme ‘wokeness’, and are now relegated to such a survival strategy. My prediction is that because America has something closer to Roman Interpretation (through its multicultural, multi religious state), in a post colonial America, ‘wokeness’ will not nearly be as extreme as Britain.
I thought the “extremely far right society” was going to end up being Israel.
I enjoyed reading this but it seems like a bit of an ideological cope. There is nothing inherently left or right wing about diplomacy or universalism. The mongols and Rome were not in any meaningful sense left wing, unless you torture the definition to the point of meaninglessness. I understand that you’re saying they might have adopted a left wing pattern of behavior to be successful, they were successful, therefore the left is always successful. But this ignores left wing ideologies that adopt right wing tactics such as violence in order to be successful like the Bolsheviks or any other militant left wing groups known for terrorism like the early zionists that were socialists.
I don’t disagree at all that there is some fundamental differences in ideology, in the left vs right dichotomy, and that every strand of belief can be bifurcated. Whether it’s Catholics in east/west, Muslims in Sunni/Shia, Jews in orthodox/reform, Americans in democrat/republican, or humans in man/woman. It’s part of our nature to divide and try to bridge the dissonance between ourselves but most of this bridging is done using the means most likely to be successful which is then incorporated necessarily into the ideology. If it’s terrorism, you justify that, if it’s pacifism, you justify that. This isn’t cynicism because they are justifying their actions to perpetuate their beliefs, which will make further action possible. Anything else would be treated as suicide, whether slow or fast. That’s not to say it’s correct or moral or anything, just that left wing movements have adopted non violent principles simply to be successful, like Ghandi or MLK who copied him. They weren’t in principle against violence. They knew that they wouldn’t be successful being violent though, so they incorporated that into their ideology. You could look at left wing movements that have used right wing tactics like justifying violence and say the opposite - that the right always wins.
My point is that none of this is as ideological as it seems, which I think is a good thing. Most of what we believe and act on, insofar as we actually act on what we believe, is contingent upon what is likely to be successful which is always extremely limited and while it is guided by religion or ideology, it must be one that can actually survive and it is the survival that determines most of what the beliefs are. And this is a good thing, because to a certain extent, serviceability and adaptability are good things in themselves if life is understood as a gift. Obviously, justifying terrorism as necessary for your survival is a perversion of this understanding
How does Trumpism and the current Far Right affect this frame? Does it mean it will lose?