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I think the difference could essentially be summed up as right wingers supporting "genetic" values and left wingers supporting "humanistic" values. The right wing is driven more by things we intuitively believe in due to natural selection pressure, such as the family, religion, bloodlines, the concept of honor, and competition while the left has more "utopian" concepts like communalism, humanism, egalitarianism, and socialism, putting more of an emphasis on being cooperative and not necessarily believing in a fixed human nature.
The current dominant form of thought in the West is neoliberal - that is economically right wing, but socially libertarian. We're heading towards a world where people don't care if you're gay, white, black, Jewish, Catholic, a pot smoker, blind, or suffering, but only about your income and wealth.
The 'left/right' concept is so broad and vague that it's hard to give that a real answer. The differences between them can be a lot of different things. At it's simplest roots, it's a dichotomy of preservation vs change. Neither is inherently positive or negative. Preservation can be done to maintain balance or mass disorder. It can also be used to continue to withhold resources or maintain an unjust hierarchical power structure. Just like change can be made to improve the lives of those in need or to give power to a corrupt elite.
Once again, another flawed poll, one that assumes there IS a difference.
In my observation, in terms of attitude and behaviour, there is no difference between the hard core left and the hard core right. Both resort to name calling when they cannot argue on merit, for one thing. Both vehemently hate anyone they identify as a member of the other side. Both appear to have a laundry list of dogma points, and if one does not subscribe to every single one of those points, then you are not a member of one of those sides.
So my reponse is they are both the same. Extremists of either persuasion are exactly the same.
Once again, another flawed poll, one that assumes there IS a difference.
In my observation, in terms of attitude and behaviour, there is no difference between the hard core left and the hard core right. Both resort to name calling when they cannot argue on merit, for one thing. Both vehemently hate anyone they identify as a member of the other side. Both appear to have a laundry list of dogma points, and if one does not subscribe to every single one of those points, then you are not a member of one of those sides.
So my reponse is they are both the same. Extremists of either persuasion are exactly the same.
This isn't just about extremism. Moderates are included in this. Though I mostly agree, a hardcore leftist and a hardcore right-winger are going to achieve the same putrid result, but with different rationale (though nothing is likely to be rational about it).
The poll is somewhat flawed, and unhelpful. It really depends who you ask. Some people will think religious vs secularism is the primary division, and there easily could be an argument for that, but also a strong one against it.
In my opinion, where you fall on the political spectrum really is a matter of "trust".
Do you trust the people around you? Do you trust the government? Do you trust corporations? Do you trust people of other ethnicities/nationalities/religions?
Depending on how much or how little trust you have in these entities is the most reliable way to find out where you fall on the political spectrum.
Someone who trusts the government but not corporations, is probably a socialist/communist. Someone who distrusts the government but trusts the free market, is probably a libertarian. Someone who doesn't really trust corporations, but trusts the government even less, is probably a typical conservative. And someone who trusts neither the government or the market, is probably an anarchist.
Someone who doesn't trust our government, but doesn't trust other governments a whole lot more is probably a conservative who supports an aggressive foreign policy. Someone who doesn't trust people of other nationalities/ethnicities/religions is probably something like a white nationalist, or black nationalist, or an Arab nationalist, or a Muslim nationalist, or Christian nationalist, and so on and so forth.
Last edited by Redshadowz; 12-05-2014 at 02:46 PM..
Once upon a time I trusted the people around me(my friends and family), I trusted the government(public schools indoctrinated me to believe America was basically perfect), I largely didn't trust the market(I had only ever worked for other people who I felt had unfairly taken advantage of me), and I largely trusted people of other ethnic backgrounds(I had been told all my life that they were the same as me, and I hadn't had too many experiences with them, other than on TV).
Now, I only trust some of my friends and family(some are pretty crazy, lazy, or plain bad people). I don't trust the government at all, especially not the police, or the Federal Reserve and the big financiers, or US foreign policy/militarism. I don't trust the corporations, CEO's are overwhelmingly sociopaths obsessed with money and power, though most of my hatred of corporations is that they inevitably attach themselves to government to extract special-benefits for themselves(subsidies, tax breaks, contracts, etc). And lastly, I don't trust people of most other nationalities/ethnicities/religions.
Though what we are really talking about here is "culture". Culture is almost always intrinsically tied to nationality/ethnicity/religion. That doesn't mean I think they are bad people, its just that "they are not like me, and they don't really care about me, in the same way that I don't really care about them". It isn't that they don't want to, its just that people don't treat strangers like they treat their own family. It just isn't possible. And any attempt to is just weird and unnatural.
I have an attachment to my particular culture/way of life. I don't even like leaving my home state for other parts of this country. I think the other states are just flat out weird.
I mean, if the entire Northeast of the United States fell into the ocean, I simply couldn't care. If California fell into the ocean, I simply couldn't care. In my experience, I like Canadians a whole hell of a lot more than I like Californians or New Yorkers, and I don't really care about Canadians either.
Being a reformed liberal myself when I was younger, and spending several years debating with liberals, I can tell you that the biggest difference is: liberals form their beliefs based on emotion, whereas conservatives base their logic on reality.
Would be interesting to see a study on prevailing personality types / party preferences.
There's at least one book on that; the name escapes me at the moment though. Basically, conservatives are more fearful and liberals are more inquisitive.
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