Left and Right Explained

From time to time it becomes clear that the commonly used terms "Left and Right" need to be disambiguated. That time has come again.

The origin of "left and right" goes back to the French Revolution, where those loyal to the king and the church sat on the right and the revolutionaries sat on the left. 

Control of language is a critical aspect of ideology, and using meaningless abstraction vs meaningful terms  to describe something is proof of ideological language manipulation (see Ethics Of Rhetoric).

In order to proceed, we need to all agree on the loaded term "ideology". Ideology is a system of ideas and values that people believe in. It is exactly like religion except religion typically has a claimed supernatural root. For nearly all religious people, their religion holds a higher place of value in their worldview than whatever ideology they may subscribe to. For the non-religious, their ideology IS their religion, though typically they would argue that their ideology was "true" and religions were "false" until they actually face death (or maybe until Judgement Day ... when they will claim it is "unjust")

Trying to summarize political thought and world view in a single dimension is obviously a vast oversimplification, but we humans love to do such things.  Since we ARE doing this ALL THE TIME, a sane person chooses meaningful terms for the dichotomy, limited though it is. 

A reasonable labeling is  "Control vs Chaos" (It's a "Get Smart" world). The "Left" is CONTROL, the "Right" is CHAOS. The US was founded as a "center right nation" meaning "a little bit toward chaos from the center". It was founded this way because we had just come from being ruled by a King (Monarchy) ... TOTALITARIAN is all the way "Left", ANARCHY is all the way "right". 

Hayek, "Road to Serfdom" covers the co-opting of the term "liberal" and discusses the problem with WWII and the largely "marketing split" between the two modern brands of heavy state control (Statist), Fascism (National Socialism) and Communism. Even though Communism, Socialism and Fascism are all LEFT, we certainly wanted to be the GOOD GUYS, and we were fighting with the Communists as allies (USSR) ... so Nazi became "Right/Evil".

Historically, to the ancients, Left was evil and Right was good. Jesus sits at God's right hand. Left was the "bad hand" ... you did your bathroom cleaning with the left hand and shook hands with the right.

The way the terms are used today is INTENDED to be confusing for ideological purposes. It is a way of manipulating the population and at the same time breaking connection with the ancient, natural and sacred. The ancient order has been reversed and "Right" is "Nazi / Racist / Reactionary / EVIL", while "Left" is "Modern, Democratic, Progressive, Socially Responsible / GOOD. 

Note also the overloading of "conservative" -- when the USSR was falling, the "hard liners" were "right wing" -- even though they clearly wanted communism,  commonly located as "left" on the modern spectrum. Same for "revolutionary" -- in the original French context, that was "left", but in modern times if there is a "bad revolution", it will be termed "right wing" by the dominant elite.

Our brains (for good and ill) are wired to "like like". Most people are RIGHT handed, so the timeless natural bias is to call the good "the right" and bad/evil "left". Simplistic and prone to prejudice, but "natural" and "human" -- not confusing. We innately believe that "right is right" ... our language and history wire it into our brain (or it is divinely there as I believe). 

Ecclesiastes 10:2 "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."

Satan seeks the  INVERSION of nature  ... right becomes left, good becomes evil, and death is worshiped over life -- thus you see lots of killing of babies, tattoos of skulls and demons, etc. The goal of  Satan is to invert the natural order -- natural sexuality inverted to homosexuality,  natural gender denied, the mothers natural desire to protect her baby inverted to abortion,  etc.

 While the inversion makes everyone "feel wrong" (because "right is right" is wired in from God), that "wrongness" also feels "subversive, rebellious,  impudent, proud, exciting, etc" -- which can easily be mistaken for "good"  (like riding a roller coaster) -- evil is often exciting, easy, and in modern times, actually culturally approved! (if it feels good, do it) 

Did God REALLY say? Gen 3:4-5 "The serpent said to the woman,You surely will not die 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

So now you know left and right. Can you figure out good and evil?