The end of left and right
Is Osama bin Laden left-wing or right-wing? How about Robert Mugabe? Who has a more left-wing approach to women’s sexuality: Pope John Paul or Hustler magazine? Consider Fidel Castro. He persecutes homosexuals, crushes trade unions, forbids democratic elections, executes opponents and criminals, is a billionaire in a country of very poor people and has decreed that a member of his family shall succeed him in power. Is Castro left-wing or right-wing? Explain your answer.
The great intellectual curse of the French Revolution, which has crippled political thought for more than two centuries, was the reduction of all discourse into ‘left’ and ‘right’. From the beginning it was an infantile notion that replaced rational argument with a playground division into two gangs who understood nothing clearly except how much they hated each other. Despite the fact that nobody has ever been able to define the beliefs of ‘left’ and ‘right’ or the differences between them, this has not stopped political humanity joining these sides and facing each other with all the fury of Lilliput and Blefuscu fighting over whether to break eggs at the big end or small end. The resulting feuding has been sterile and idiotic. It has stymied political philosophy. It must end if we are to progress with rational politics, and I believe the only way this can happen is if some major actor enters the world stage with such gigantic contradictions that he throws political analysis into confusion and breaks the moulds of ‘left’ and ‘right’. I believe this saviour has now arrived.
Before announcing him, I should like to spend a paragraph or two grinding out the illogic of ‘left’ and ‘right’. Take the notions of privilege and equality. Is rule by a privileged elite right-wing? If so, communism, which always results in rule by a tiny governing group that has exclusive power and privilege quite unknown to the rulers in capitalist countries, must be very right-wing. Is the proletariat more left-wing than the aristocracy and bourgeoisie? For example, are the views of a London taxi-driver on immigration and homosexual marriage more left-wing than those of Prince Charles?
What is the meaning of ‘He is to the right of Attila the Hun’? Was Attila right-wing because he was violent and cruel? Lenin was more violent and cruel. Is Lenin to the right of Attila the Hun?
Some owl, from the Economist, I think, wrote, ‘The right believe in economic freedom, the left in personal freedom.’ Very well, a key economic freedom is free movement of labour and a key personal freedom is the right to own a firearm. So, does a right-wing Englishman believe people from Africa should have unlimited right to enter Britain looking for work, and does a left-wing Englishman believe all Britons should have the right to carry revolvers?
What about the free market and state control? Are regimes left-wing or right-wing when the economy is heavily controlled by the state, such as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Castro’s Cuba and apartheid South Africa? Is it left-wing or right-wing to believe in free trade, like Adam Smith and Karl Marx? When the movement of citizens within a country is controlled by internal passports, such as in the Soviet Union and apartheid South Africa, is this a measure of the left or the right? Is it left-wing or right-wing to hate capitalism, like Hitler, Lenin and the fathers of apartheid?
Is internationalism more right-wing than nationalism? Internationalist people and organisations include Adam Smith, Coca Cola, Karl Marx, McDonald’s, Trotsky, Microsoft, the United Nations, Toyota and the World Trade Organisation. Those opposed to internationalism include Hitler, the anti-globalisation demonstrators, Verwoerd, Stalin and Naomi Klein. I was in England for the 1975 referendum on whether Britain should stay in Europe. On the No side were Enoch Powell, Tony Benn, Ian Paisley, Michael Foot, the Communist party and the National Front. On the Yes side were Harold Wilson, Edward Heath and grandees from the Labour and Conservative parties. Which was the left-wing side?
How about attitudes towards the weak and the strong? Does the left or the right protect the strong but not the weak? Take the extreme examples of each — an unborn baby and an adult murderer. Is it very right-wing to allow the killing of the innocent baby but not the killing of the guilty adult?
Would you classify as left or right the Englishman in the last century who urged a massive increase in public spending and made the most radical proposal for a national health scheme that Britain had ever seen? I refer, of course, to Oswald Mosley, the fascist leader.
Is Osama bin Laden left-wing or right-wing? How about Robert Mugabe? Who has a more left-wing approach to women’s sexuality: Pope John Paul or Hustler magazine? Consider Fidel Castro. He persecutes homosexuals, crushes trade unions, forbids democratic elections, executes opponents and criminals, is a billionaire in a country of very poor people and has decreed that a member of his family shall succeed him in power. Is Castro left-wing or right-wing? Explain your answer.
The great intellectual curse of the French Revolution, which has crippled political thought for more than two centuries, was the reduction of all discourse into ‘left’ and ‘right’. From the beginning it was an infantile notion that replaced rational argument with a playground division into two gangs who understood nothing clearly except how much they hated each other. Despite the fact that nobody has ever been able to define the beliefs of ‘left’ and ‘right’ or the differences between them, this has not stopped political humanity joining these sides and facing each other with all the fury of Lilliput and Blefuscu fighting over whether to break eggs at the big end or small end. The resulting feuding has been sterile and idiotic. It has stymied political philosophy. It must end if we are to progress with rational politics, and I believe the only way this can happen is if some major actor enters the world stage with such gigantic contradictions that he throws political analysis into confusion and breaks the moulds of ‘left’ and ‘right’. I believe this saviour has now arrived.
Before announcing him, I should like to spend a paragraph or two grinding out the illogic of ‘left’ and ‘right’. Take the notions of privilege and equality. Is rule by a privileged elite right-wing? If so, communism, which always results in rule by a tiny governing group that has exclusive power and privilege quite unknown to the rulers in capitalist countries, must be very right-wing. Is the proletariat more left-wing than the aristocracy and bourgeoisie? For example, are the views of a London taxi-driver on immigration and homosexual marriage more left-wing than those of Prince Charles?
What is the meaning of ‘He is to the right of Attila the Hun’? Was Attila right-wing because he was violent and cruel? Lenin was more violent and cruel. Is Lenin to the right of Attila the Hun?
Some owl, from the Economist, I think, wrote, ‘The right believe in economic freedom, the left in personal freedom.’ Very well, a key economic freedom is free movement of labour and a key personal freedom is the right to own a firearm. So, does a right-wing Englishman believe people from Africa should have unlimited right to enter Britain looking for work, and does a left-wing Englishman believe all Britons should have the right to carry revolvers?
What about the free market and state control? Are regimes left-wing or right-wing when the economy is heavily controlled by the state, such as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Castro’s Cuba and apartheid South Africa? Is it left-wing or right-wing to believe in free trade, like Adam Smith and Karl Marx? When the movement of citizens within a country is controlled by internal passports, such as in the Soviet Union and apartheid South Africa, is this a measure of the left or the right? Is it left-wing or right-wing to hate capitalism, like Hitler, Lenin and the fathers of apartheid?
Is internationalism more right-wing than nationalism? Internationalist people and organisations include Adam Smith, Coca Cola, Karl Marx, McDonald’s, Trotsky, Microsoft, the United Nations, Toyota and the World Trade Organisation. Those opposed to internationalism include Hitler, the anti-globalisation demonstrators, Verwoerd, Stalin and Naomi Klein. I was in England for the 1975 referendum on whether Britain should stay in Europe. On the No side were Enoch Powell, Tony Benn, Ian Paisley, Michael Foot, the Communist party and the National Front. On the Yes side were Harold Wilson, Edward Heath and grandees from the Labour and Conservative parties. Which was the left-wing side?
How about attitudes towards the weak and the strong? Does the left or the right protect the strong but not the weak? Take the extreme examples of each — an unborn baby and an adult murderer. Is it very right-wing to allow the killing of the innocent baby but not the killing of the guilty adult?
Would you classify as left or right the Englishman in the last century who urged a massive increase in public spending and made the most radical proposal for a national health scheme that Britain had ever seen? I refer, of course, to Oswald Mosley, the fascist leader.
Andrew Kenny - Spectator
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário