Left/Right Wing
The stillborn search for community
Recently, there has been a discussion about the growing number of Orthodox Christians who identify with the alt-Right. That this conversation is almost wholly the work of tenured (or tenure track) academics suggests (to me at least) that whatever might be the case statistically, the debate is driven by the same narrow tribal politics that BYU-Idaho history professor Hyrum Lewis identifies as harmful to American Experiment.
As he and Verlan Lewis wrote in a recent WSJ op-ed (paywall):
…the entire debate is based on a misconception. “Left” and “right” aren’t fixed and enduring philosophical belief systems. They’re merely social groups whose ideas, attitudes and issue positions constantly change. Since the meanings of “left” and “right” evolve, it makes little sense to speak of individuals, groups or parties moving “to the left” or “to the right.” Nonetheless, talk of left and right dominates our public discourse and claims about “ideological polarization” fill the political science literature.
Below you’ll find a bit of what he has to say on why we need to abandon the left-wing/right-wing model.
Pay particular attention to the last sentence: “Instead of talking about a political spectrum, let's just talk about issues.” This is hard and not because do we often not have reasons for the reasons we hold to this or that policy position, Such a conversation would expose my own lack of thought. It would also require that I be honest about this. Harder still, I’d have to discuss what it is about this or that tribe that caught my attention and come to hold views not (necessarily) because they are my own but because they were the price of admission to the group.
(Tangle) People who think in terms of left-wing and right-wing are far more filled with animosity, are less fact-based, are less able to make accurate predictions, and are less cognitively able. There are hundreds and hundreds of studies that show that when people are bound by ideology and thinking, in terms of the left-right framework, they are — let's put it as bluntly as we can: It makes them stupid and evil.
Now, that doesn't mean they're all stupid and evil people. It just means they're less cognitively able and less morally appropriate than they would be in the absence of these. I know a lot of very good people who consider themselves left-wing. I know a lot of very good people who consider themselves right-wing. I'm just saying those people would be better and smarter, and be more accurate in their political analysis, if they dropped the nonsense.
So, what can we do about it? … Let's just stop using a false paradigm. It's as if I lived in the 19th century. And I was a doctor and doctors were cutting their patients open and bleeding them in order to balance their four humors. And I was saying, stop the four humors, stop bleeding your patients, you're killing them. And they're saying well, we need an overriding framework. No, you don't! The overriding framework of four humors is doing way more harm than good.
The framework that there's only two issues in politics is obviously nonsensical. So let's just dispose of it. Instead of talking about a political spectrum, let's just talk about issues.