Things you can learn from Wikipedia – defining the Left

posted at 6:29 pm on March 12, 2010 by CK MacLeod
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When down in the weeds of a discussion trying to remember what the words we’re using meant before we started thrashing them, I find it useful to go to Wikipedia for the plain vanilla mainstream non-controversial standard definition. Sometimes, in the descent of the prose, you can trace archaeological levels, though, as in the excerpt below, it’s the more deeply buried levels that are closer to the present time.

In politics, left-wing, leftist and the Left are generally used to describe support for social change with a view towards creating a more egalitarian society.[1][2] The terms Left and Right were coined during the French Revolution, referring to the seating arrangement in parliament; those who sat on the left generally supported the radical changes of the revolution, including the creation of a republic and secularization.[3] The concept of a political Left became more prominent after the June Days Uprising of 1848.

The term was applied to a number of revolutionary movements in Europe, especially socialism, anarchism[4] and communism. The term is also used to describe social democracy.[5] Roderick Long, an anarcho-capitalist professor, summarises left-wing politics as “concerns for worker empowerment, worry about plutocracy, concerns about feminism and various kinds of social equality”.[6]

Left-wing politics – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So there you have it – born in revolution and radicalism, behind the great political alternatives, cooling into mere social democracy, and finally, in the words of something called an “anarcho-capitalist professor” (NTTAWWT) devolving into a set of “concerns” and an element of “worry” associated with a special interest issue agenda. It’s like the scene in Casablanca, when the assorted freedom-lovers sing their hearts out against the Nazis, except it’s “La Marseillaise” vs. the Spongebob Squarepants theme song, and Spongebob wins.

How far the lowly have fallen…

cross-posted at Zombie Contentions

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Gee, CKM, you didn’t even quote the good part at the end:

Left-wing post-modernism opposes attempts to supply universal explanatory theories, including Marxism, deriding them as grand narratives. It views culture as a battleground, and via deconstruction seeks to undermine all pretensions to knowledge. Left-wing critics of post-modernism assert that cultural studies inflates the importance of culture by denying the existence of an independent reality.

…Gary Jason, a philosophy professor, claims that “the failure of socialism, both empirically and theoretically…brought about a crisis of faith among socialists, and Post-modernism is their response.”

Now, that’s what I’m talking about. The Spongebob Squarepants theme song seems to go particularly well with this ineffable passage. I mean, I’m convinced. National health care NOW, dammit!!

J.E. Dyer on March 12, 2010 at 6:55 PM

As is often true of liberal philosophy, it’s hard to tell whether some of these passages were meant to praise or to denounce the left.

joe_doufu on March 12, 2010 at 6:58 PM

This is the same thing every undergraduate in America is fed. “Social justice,” yeah baby! Not hard to explain the blazing ignorance all around us.

rrpjr on March 12, 2010 at 7:03 PM

those who sat on the left generally supported the radical changes of the revolution

Such as liberal (pun intended) use of the guillotine against political opponents?

malclave on March 12, 2010 at 7:20 PM

J.E. Dyer on March 12, 2010 at 6:55 PM

When you’re right, you’re right.

CK MacLeod on March 12, 2010 at 8:11 PM

How far the lowly have fallen…

Not really. How many of the aims of the French Revolution have been achieved in America? It might be instructive to check. For instance Danton was the first man to conceive of the idea of universal compulsory education. But then I doubt conservatives would be to the right of the French revolutionaries on most issues, just to the right of whatever is considered to be the leftist extreme in 2010. The leftist position today will be the conservative position in 10 years, and so on ad infinitum.

aengus on March 12, 2010 at 8:31 PM

So, I guess I need to update the Wikipedia entry for “Right Wing”, in the worldview of the Lefties: hold my beer, watch this = conservative.

Robert17 on March 12, 2010 at 8:50 PM

Does Mr. Krabbs count as an “anarcho-capitalist” like Professor Long? Or would that be Plankton? The last paragraph made me think more of the French Revolution led by the ladies of “The View” (minus Elizabeth) with speical guest Alec Baldwin than anything else.

It’s like the scene in Casablanca, when the assorted freedom-lovers sing their hearts out against the Nazis, except it’s “La Marseillaise” vs. the Spongebob Squarepants theme song, and Spongebob wins.

OK, now you’ve got me thinking of this two-year-old video.

jon1979 on March 13, 2010 at 9:27 AM