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I did not say labels are meaningless. I said taking labels that have meanings, like far right vs far left, and trying to redefine them (semantic games) to be re

by mlthoughts2018 6y ago

I did not say labels are meaningless. I said taking labels that have meanings, like far right vs far left, and trying to redefine them (semantic games) to be relative to some arbitrary standard within a single country (like saying “fiscal conservative but social liberal is “centrist” in the US” when in fact it all hinges on the fine points of those positions) is not helpful or useful. Political labels (not within-country labels at a point in time) can be useful. Far right and far left have long-developed meanings in terms of broad policies they endorse and those policies have meanings in terms of the actual measurable impact on lives and human flourishing. I feel your comment is not in good faith at all. Saying something like “what does this even mean” as a rhetorical deflection tactic when my comment was perfectly clear is very uncharitable and additionally it’s not contributing any new arguments or information, you’re just acting like the premise is unclear, but for no acceptable reason.

manigandham 6y ago
The labels referring to political parties within a specific country will have meanings within that same context. > "to be relative to some arbitrary standard" That's what you were doing by saying the left isn't actually the left. Why? The left has a clear definition in the USA. You are redefining it for some reason. > "Far right and far left have ... meanings in terms of the actual measurable impact on lives and human flourishing." Yes, both extremes are generally terrible for lives. Was that the point? Otherwise no, I don't know what you mean. Perhaps you can answer instead of deflecting.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  You’re still seemingly deliberately misrepresenting and not engaging with my point and just disingenuously deflecting by appealing to increasingly abstract meta debates about relative definitions. It doesn’t matter if the labels of right or left would have context within the colloquial definitions within a country and I am not “redefining” them by saying those reference points don’t matter. There’s a superseding context in which far right and far left already have well understood definitions in terms of terminal values and how their policies map to those values. That exists outside of any given country or political unit. > “The left has a clear definition in the USA.” Uhhh no. That is not a reasonable thing to say. For example, Trump campaigned on the idea that Kamala Harris is extremely far left, but most people who identify as far left see her as basically just slightly left of center. The idea there is a clear “left” in the US is itself a pure Republican propaganda construction just so it can paint Democrat candidates as “evil socialists” no matter their actual policies or how they map to the superseding notion of left-leaning politics. Biden for example would have been a solid, firm Republican candidate ~35 years ago, even if running on a Democratic ticket. My main point is that “center” in the US is already very far Republican-leaning and has shifted increasingly towards the right wing in the past 30 years, to the point that a very, very right-leaning Democrat like Biden is now sensationalized as being “far left” in election propaganda. There is not actually any mainstream political group in the US that is really “far left” in the sense of offering a counterbalancing policy initiative that Republicans would have to significantly compromise away from their right wing core in order to engage with. Such a thing does not exist in the US. You can play games of redefining words if you want and pretend like whatever position is occupied by the Democratic party thus, by definition, represents the “left” and thus represents a ideological separation from “the right” but it would just be falsely shifting definitions, it wouldn’t make “centrist” in the US to be any less far-right-leaning that what it really, actually is.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Biden for example would have been a solid, firm Republican candidate ~35 years ago, even if running on a Democratic ticket. 35 years ago the parties were a lot closer together because the Republican Party hadn't taken its jaunt into extremism that started in the 1990s, but, no Biden—who was then then to the right of his current position, was a solid Democrat then, though, like Clinton, part of the conservative Democratic Leadership Councl.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      I agree with you. I think we’re saying the same thing. 35 years ago Biden would have been pretty close to a centrist candidate, pretty close to a milquetoast Republican at that time, despite being in the Democratic party. While Biden may have ideologically shifted left a small bit (changed views on criminal justice, climate policy), he’s still very close to the same point on the political spectrum he occupied 35 years ago. But now, because of the slide to extremism of the Republican party, Biden is suddenly caricatured as a socialist, far left boogeyman. That’s not a function of the US Democratic party actually being far left leaning. It isn’t. It’s an expression of increasingly extreme far right positions of Republicans to shift the entire discussion massively to the right and redefine the center. Any system where you define the center in such a way that Joe Biden is “far left” is a complete far right propaganda machine divorced of any acceptable or realistic definition of “centrists” or far left.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    Why do you keep saying the labels don't matter than insist on using labels to say these parties and candidates are something else? The redefinitions are coming from you. So far you've offered three variations: (1) Left-vs-right as based on "outcomes of lives", (2) as opposed to 35 years ago, and (3) as opposed to some international comparison. The first makes no sense and still lacks any explanation. The other two are arbitrary. These parties are left-vs-right as of 2020 American politics. The definitions are dependent on the context of the time and place because politics change over time. They are also relative to each other; Left means left of the right, and vice versa. And center means in the middle of both. It's the current era that determines where the spectrum is actually anchored. Why are you so insistent on using some other scale to label everything differently? What purpose does that serve? Is that not meaningless semantics?

manigandham 6y ago

The labels referring to political parties within a specific country will have meanings within that same context. > "to be relative to some arbitrary standard" That's what you were doing by saying the left isn't actually the left. Why? The left has a clear definition in the USA. You are redefining it for some reason. > "Far right and far left have ... meanings in terms of the actual measurable impact on lives and human flourishing." Yes, both extremes are generally terrible for lives. Was that the point? Otherwise no, I don't know what you mean. Perhaps you can answer instead of deflecting.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
You’re still seemingly deliberately misrepresenting and not engaging with my point and just disingenuously deflecting by appealing to increasingly abstract meta debates about relative definitions. It doesn’t matter if the labels of right or left would have context within the colloquial definitions within a country and I am not “redefining” them by saying those reference points don’t matter. There’s a superseding context in which far right and far left already have well understood definitions in terms of terminal values and how their policies map to those values. That exists outside of any given country or political unit. > “The left has a clear definition in the USA.” Uhhh no. That is not a reasonable thing to say. For example, Trump campaigned on the idea that Kamala Harris is extremely far left, but most people who identify as far left see her as basically just slightly left of center. The idea there is a clear “left” in the US is itself a pure Republican propaganda construction just so it can paint Democrat candidates as “evil socialists” no matter their actual policies or how they map to the superseding notion of left-leaning politics. Biden for example would have been a solid, firm Republican candidate ~35 years ago, even if running on a Democratic ticket. My main point is that “center” in the US is already very far Republican-leaning and has shifted increasingly towards the right wing in the past 30 years, to the point that a very, very right-leaning Democrat like Biden is now sensationalized as being “far left” in election propaganda. There is not actually any mainstream political group in the US that is really “far left” in the sense of offering a counterbalancing policy initiative that Republicans would have to significantly compromise away from their right wing core in order to engage with. Such a thing does not exist in the US. You can play games of redefining words if you want and pretend like whatever position is occupied by the Democratic party thus, by definition, represents the “left” and thus represents a ideological separation from “the right” but it would just be falsely shifting definitions, it wouldn’t make “centrist” in the US to be any less far-right-leaning that what it really, actually is.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Biden for example would have been a solid, firm Republican candidate ~35 years ago, even if running on a Democratic ticket. 35 years ago the parties were a lot closer together because the Republican Party hadn't taken its jaunt into extremism that started in the 1990s, but, no Biden—who was then then to the right of his current position, was a solid Democrat then, though, like Clinton, part of the conservative Democratic Leadership Councl.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    I agree with you. I think we’re saying the same thing. 35 years ago Biden would have been pretty close to a centrist candidate, pretty close to a milquetoast Republican at that time, despite being in the Democratic party. While Biden may have ideologically shifted left a small bit (changed views on criminal justice, climate policy), he’s still very close to the same point on the political spectrum he occupied 35 years ago. But now, because of the slide to extremism of the Republican party, Biden is suddenly caricatured as a socialist, far left boogeyman. That’s not a function of the US Democratic party actually being far left leaning. It isn’t. It’s an expression of increasingly extreme far right positions of Republicans to shift the entire discussion massively to the right and redefine the center. Any system where you define the center in such a way that Joe Biden is “far left” is a complete far right propaganda machine divorced of any acceptable or realistic definition of “centrists” or far left.
- manigandham 6y ago
  Why do you keep saying the labels don't matter than insist on using labels to say these parties and candidates are something else? The redefinitions are coming from you. So far you've offered three variations: (1) Left-vs-right as based on "outcomes of lives", (2) as opposed to 35 years ago, and (3) as opposed to some international comparison. The first makes no sense and still lacks any explanation. The other two are arbitrary. These parties are left-vs-right as of 2020 American politics. The definitions are dependent on the context of the time and place because politics change over time. They are also relative to each other; Left means left of the right, and vice versa. And center means in the middle of both. It's the current era that determines where the spectrum is actually anchored. Why are you so insistent on using some other scale to label everything differently? What purpose does that serve? Is that not meaningless semantics?