this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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I think that the left-right dichotomy is inherently flawed. A lot of what I believe might be considered "right-leaning" or "left-leaning," but I cannot say that I prescribe to either sort of ideology fully or with any fidelity.
I will always be opposed to any view with a pervasive "moral" authority, and both the so-called left and right are obsessed with their own versions of this. The problem we run into is the false supposition that beliefs can be categorized on a spectrum spanning right to left (or, even more liberally, a spectrum spread across two dimensions). It has been a ridiculous notion from its inception, whenever that might have been.
Building one's identity (another silly notion, in general—identity itself being a frivolous construct that functions only as a fulcrum for the extortion of social power) upon a supposed spectrum is likewise ridiculous. You can be conservative or liberal, or anything, really. But those beliefs do not exist in a linear or planar dimension. They are so far removed from each other that one cannot fathom sliding incrementally from one to the next.
And to each respective party, "left" and "right," the other can be demonized as evil, even without full comprehension of the other. It's all just so damned tribalistic and silly.
It's completely natural for humans to fall into a binary thinking.
It's evolutionarily advantageous to fully focus on "the enemy", whatever that may be, and "the friends", our own family/tribe, absolutely hating the enemy while absolutely loving your family. It's what made it most likely that our genes persevere, if you give the enemy the benefit of the doubt, and they backstab you, you're dead, but not if you just kill them first/don't trust them at all in any way.
This concept permeates our society and you see it everywhere. It's always "us" vs "them". If your ideology "wins" politically, throughout most of human history that means you get to kill your opponent, while if you lose, it means you may die. So it's naturally almost the worst thing in the world for us if someone disagrees with us politically.
It's really amazing how almost everything about the way we behave is completely shaped by what made us survive in some form or another thousands of years ago. The only way out so far is trying our hardest to resist our natural programming and apply rationality, which comes with its own set of problems.