Posted on 10/25/2010 12:53:38 PM PDT by Feline_AIDS
You can make it work in particular cases -- in one country at one time -- but it starts to get in the way when you try to make larger points. What's left and what's right will be different at different times and in different contexts.
The left-right idea started with the French Revolution and it was outdated in a few years, when the Jacobins (the left) brought in a dictatorship that would put the old monarchic regime (the right) to shame. Then there was Napoleon who further messed up the neat scheme of right and left.
And even before the revolution, were centralizing kings like Louis XIV right or left? Some would say that absolute monarchy was by definition on the right, others would see it as breaking down the older aristocratic order, and hence on the left.
The Nazis were a mixture of right-wing and left-wing tendencies. They came to be seen as being on the right because they made their peace with German elites and fought bitterly with Communists in the streets. In much of their thinking, though, the Nazis were closer to the reds than to the old "black" Christian conservatives.
I don't think you can simply put the Nazis on one side or the other, since they took their ideas from many sources which weren't always in agreement with each other, but I don't have a problem with the notion that all extremes can be trouble, whether you want to view the extremes as communists and fascists or anarchists and statists.
Jonah's right about nationalism originally being left-wing. That also goes back to the French Revolution, and it's certainly something you have to take into account. But by the 20th century nationalism had been seen as right-wing. That's an indication of how faulty such schemes can be when they don't take changes in thinking into account.
People want to believe that the left or the right was always identified with what they regard as good and decent and the opposite side was always identified with the opposite -- depraved and corrupt -- ideas, but that's too simplistic. The left weren't always and everywhere tree-hugging, pacifist, anti-racist, non-sexist, anti-homophobes, and the right wasn't always free market, character-building, non-discriminatory individualists.
On the whole, Jonah raises some good points, but he processes history into political talking points too much, and turns the messiness into simple cheer-leading for one side against the other.
Well... let’s see. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” comes to mind. And yes, those countries do have socialist elements, to some lesser or greater extent. And yes, they aren’t fascist. If they were nationalistic, socialist, and totalitarian.... eh, who knows? And remember, Germany was fascist, so they have some experience they could pass on... ;)
Hoss.
That would make him an ex-dictator, pushin’ up the daisies.... ;)
Hoss
Mob Rule = Nazis, Fascists, Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Monarchy, Theocracy, Sharia, even Parliament..
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Democracy is never democratic..
Democracy is the road to socialism. -Karl Marx
Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism. -V.I. Lenin
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism .-Karl Marx
true
Most excellent post. Such distinctions have meaning only for a particular place and time, and are often highly misleading even then.
For instance I’ve been reading a lot recently about the English Civil War. Trying to place the various factions meaningfully on a Right/Left spectrum is quite impossible. By our present standards their politics were just too scrambled.
There is a good deal of evidence Hitler never gave up his intentions for a social revolution, just postponed it until he had dealt satisfactorily with the internation situation.
What he would have done if he had stabilized himself as the absolute ruler of Europe is unknowable, but it is pretty unlikely he would have been satisfied to maintain indefinitely his de facto alliance with the traditional German elites.
He despised them almost as much as he did Jews and Slavs. Most of them despised the Nazis in return, and the Nazis were well aware of it.
Go to this site:
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm
Read “Hitler’s 25 points”, the founding principles of the National Socialist Party. Count how many are associated with the left of today.
Then make up your own mind. The answers may surprise you.
Franco? What about him? He was pretty much a typical military strongman in the Latin tradition. he allied himself with the dictators who supported his ride to power, but he didn’t take their side in WW2. Is this what you consider evidence that the Nazis were right-wing?
No the Nazi’s were big time leftists because they had the word socialism in their name.
No, they were Republicans because you and Keith Olbermann say so.
Olbermann? Isn’t that a German name?
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