Maggie's Farm

That's a quite modern and very silly redefinition by the American political right. By that measure, King Louis XVI, within whom all political power was concentrated, was on the political left. Or social conservatives in America, who want to use the power of government to control private behavior, are on the political left. But that is exactly contrary to how the left and right terms are used.

The amount of government, varying from totalitarian to anarchism, is orthogonal to the political left-right spectrum. The left is defined by the promotion of egalitarianism. The right is defined as the promotion or acquiescence to hierarchy. Egalitarians can be totalitarian (Soviets) or anarchist (end-state Marxism). Hierarchicalists can be totalitarian (Fascists) or anarchist (Rothbard).

The Taliban is considered by everyone (outside the right-wing echochamber) ultra-conservative. They want to use governmental force to shield their society from and eliminate the vestiges of what they see as the corruption of modernism.

James: Louis the IIVth would have almost certainly been considered socially LW by his peers.

If you mean Louis XVI, he was and is considered to be on the political right.

James: Egalitarianism requires equality of opportunity, not outcomes.

That’s clearly not correct, as in the Marxist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Marxism foresees social development into an anarchistic and perfectly egalitarian society.

James: RWers might recognize the virtue of hierarchy based on merit, but that is more an acquiescence to merit or competence, not an intrinsic hierarchy.

That is also clearly not correct. While some on the right advocate for hierarchies based on merit, others advocate for intrinsic hierarchies. Louis XVI and aristocrats everywhere believed they deserved power due to birth.

James: If you're talking about insisting we not allow teachers to expose children to porn or indoctrinate them, ok.

Social conservatives have historically advocated for laws against divorce, equality for women, sodomy, birth control, and miscegenation; in other words, harnessing the power of government to protect what they considered important traditional mores.

James: But the right is rarely about legal compulsion about what consenting adults do in private.

Then you have closed your eyes to history. In the United States, for instance, the Moral Majority strongly supported laws against homosexual conduct. And, from what started the thread, the Taliban is universally considered to be religiously conservative, as they advocate for laws to enforce their theocratic vision for society.

The example of the Taliban alone undermines the attempt at a redefinition. That it also requires putting Louis XVI on the political left just shows you how very silly is the claim.

egalitarianism

1 : a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs
2 : a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people

Egalitarianism can take different forms, from ending the privileges of the aristocracy to political equality for white men of property to equality of opportunity to equality of outcomes. Hierarchialism can also take different forms, regimentation under a single tyrant to birth-right aristocracy to theocracy to merit sorting.

The history of the modern West has seen greater equality over time, from limitations of monarchal power to ending the Church’s sole province over matters of conscience to weakening of aristocratic privilege to increased political power of white men of property to extending suffrage to women and minorities to providing more equal opportunity to people with universal education and limiting child labor to a social safety net to reduce poverty. What was extreme in one period has become accepted in later periods, such as women’s suffrage. The political center has been moving to the left, towards a more egalitarian society, since the Renaissance, so much so that you seemingly forgot that conservatism has resisted all these changes.

That is not to say that conservatism is wrong. Too fast or ill-thought change can have deleterious or even dangerous unintended consequences. Utopianism can be a dire threat when combined with a belief that the ends justify the means. And even the most necessary reform can cause damage to valuable and essential traditions and mores. (Note that, while conservatism is on the political right, the right is a much wider spectrum that reaches from simple caution concerning change to extreme reaction wanting to return society to a mythical past.)

James: if you ignore the actual definition of egalitarianism . . .

Huh? We provided the definition from Merriam-Webster.

James: But the actual meaning is that one is permitted to achieve goals which their personal aptitudes allow them to, regardless of social or economic class, race, ethnicity or sex.

No. That’s your philosophical view as to how best to achieve a more equal society. Someone who believes society has an obligation to help those who, for whatever reason, fall into poverty may support a social pension plan for the elderly, or unemployment support. It’s egalitarian for obvious reasons—because it provides an economic floor to the distribution of income.

Regardless, you again neglected to address counterexamples to your redefinition, which demonstrates the weakness of your position.

James: Every single significant interaction between two or more people in the history of the world has had a hierarchy involved in it.

That’s right. However, not all social arrangements have the same degree of hierarchy. A strict monarchy, such as Louis XVI, is more hierarchical than a republican form of government. A anarchistic hippie commune run by consensus is more egalitarian than a military organization.

Your point about human nature is correct. The Marxist dream of an anarchistic society with perfect equality and the end of war can never be achieved. Such utopianism combined with the belief that the {unachievable} end justifies the {extremist} means has led to untold misery. But that is the Marxist dream, which is why Marxism is placed on the far left.

Fascists, on the other hand, who want a strictly hierarchical society, a reestablishment of past glories, and where struggle between nations lends meaning to the existence of a people, is why (outside the right-wing echochamber) fascists are considered to be on the far right.

The article at issue in the original post even wants to put extreme religious conservatives on the left. No one anywhere (outside the far reaches of right-wing echochamber) consider the Taliban to be liberals.

James: Do you really not understand why the definition of egalitarianism you selected is irrelevant to our conversation?

Ah, you're using a special, secret definition. But when discussing semantics—and this is essentially a semantic discussion—practical lexicography must needs be the basis.

James: But if you insist on talking about historical cases, at least get them right.

And yet, the vast majority of historians, then and now, place fascists on the far political right. That's how ordinary people, then and now, refer to them. And today, neo-fascists are almost universally considered to be on the extreme political right.

• Nazism and the Radical Right in Austria 1918-1934, Lauridsen.
• The Routledge companion to fascism and the far right, Paul Davies.
• The Culture of Fascism: Visions of the Far Right in Britain, edited by Gottlieb & Linehan.
• Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right, Griffin et al.
• France in The Era of Fascism: Essays on the French Authoritarian Right, edited by Jenkins.
• Fascism and Neofascism: Critical Writings on the Radical Right in Europe (Studies in European Culture and History), edited by Weitz & Fenner.

You again neglected to address counterexamples to your redefinition, which demonstrates the weakness of your position.

King Louis XVI, left or right?
King Louis XVI's republican opponents, left or right?
Marx, left or right?
Noam Chomsky, left or right?
Hippie commune run by consensus, left or right?
Latin American military dictatorship, left or right?

James: Your constant insistence on resorting to historical analogies in the distant past is as unfruitful as it is exhausting.

You are using words that are demonstrably different than their normal usage for which we have provided multiple lines of evidence. You confuse an argument about semantics with an argument about substance. If you think you have a substantive point, then you need to first define your terms and explain why your definitions appear to contradict normal usage.

And, you once again neglected to address counterexamples to your redefinition.

At this point, you may want to revisit the genetic y-chromosome data, which shows that Palestinians nest more closely to Jews than to most neighboring Arab groups. It's amazing, when you think about it, that the Jewish paternal lineage was retained during centuries of diaspora. It shows that both Jews and Palestinians have deep genetic roots in Palestine.

Oops. Wrong thread. Please ignore.