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> I don't think "like the left wing of the French legislature in the late 1700s" is a very good description of what leftism means to people in the modern day.

> I don't think "like the left wing of the French legislature in the late 1700s" is a very good description of what leftism means to people in the modern day. That's why 'left' and 'right' have little objective meaning. They're more tribal than explanatory. > what leftism means to people changes over time with culture Correct, I don't think there's a good idea what it means in the USA right now, let alone worldwide and across time. > influences from many leftist writers and philosophers That's a circular definition though. How do you know they were leftists? By the current or the old meaning? Do old works suddenly become leftist works as the term changes and their author would now qualify as a leftist? > people's views could boil down to [mistaking a god for a theism] and yet all would easily be considered atheists by themselves and others There's a difference between a god and a theism so they'd simply be mistaken.

verall 4y ago
It's not so black and white and it's not circular. You can consider all of the above and the terms can be useful. The least useful is sticking to a hard definition, deciding noone qualifies, and therefore the term is "meaningless". In other words, it's fine if you consider a definition of leftism that includes anarchists, Marxists, collectivists, social democratists and many others to be incorrect, but large groups of people use the term that way and communicate just fine.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  > the least useful is sticking to a hard definition, deciding noone qualifies, and therefore the term is "meaningless". The point of the term is a political identifier. If it doesn't encompass anything you believe in but includes your mortal enemies it's not much good. > large groups of people use the term that way and communicate just fine. No, they don't. I don't know anyone "on the left" who would happily use it knowing the full scope of what others using it identified as - and validly under your definition. Surely they aren't communicating anything meaningful. Worse, it encourages those people to label others using their own lax standards, such that everyone who isn't an anarchist, or a marxist, etc, is the polar opposite - "the right". The left is a grab bag, the right is simply everything else. These terms signify a side a culture war but don't indicate any views or policies which may actually differ between them. They mark "us vs them" without being too specific to swap who is who when needed.
  - verall 4y ago
    > If it doesn't encompass anything you believe in but includes your mortal enemies it's not much good. > No, they don't. I don't know anyone "on the left" who would happily use it knowing the full scope of what others using it identified as - and validly under your definition. Surely they aren't communicating anything meaningful. You're entitled to your own opinion dude, but political ideologies will spend all day arguing between submovements what does and doesn't qualify, and yet it's still possible to get an outline and then make predictions and discourse from there. Leftist or Conservative, you can hear arguing between tankies and anarchists, between "fiscal conservatives" and fundamentalists, mostly at the fringes, because the fringes disagree with the most. I think what you're trying to say is that the modern left and right are defined by their opposition to eachother ("culture war") and not their value and policy positions. But they do have opposing value and policy opinions, and it's not very hard to write a list. And then you can give names to these opposing groups of values and policy opinions. And you can talk about them and it's not meaningless because there are obvious real-world associations between the values in each group. "The left of the 1700s French legislature" no longer accurately describes any modern political association so that's probably not a useful lens.
    - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
      > you can hear arguing between tankies and anarchists Those people are the legitimate users of the term 'Leftist'. As I was saying, very few normal people would be willing to use a term that lumps them with strident communists who yearn for the good days of the USSR. It's one thing that some other members of the tribe are commies, but "The Left" was literally coined and adopted by them. (Well, socialists, but no difference.) The Left fully adopted the post modernist rhetoric of the French philosophers in the 60s and 70s, including actual literal pedophiles trying to remove age of consent laws in order to "queer children before they are stifled by the patriarchy". Again, not something normal people would support if they knew. The only way this functions is by being so tribal that nobody looks at who else is in the group because they're so busy screaming at everyone outside the group. As proof that it's an identity and not a useful descriptor - your leftist status can be stripped from you and you will be identified as "far right" if you disagree with certain tribal truths. "The left" is a label people adopt, "the right" is how they label everyone they disagree with. It's a very religious thing, to view all opposition as part of a united collective that wants to destroy you. > Leftist or Conservative Conservative what though? That's almost as empty as leftist. As in careful planning, or as in pushing your religion? You have to add 'Fiscal' to conservative before it begins to represent an actual viewpoint instead of a tribal marker. > it's not meaningless because there are obvious real-world associations between the values in each group. But vastly less meaning than any actual descriptive. Terms like fiscal conservative, socially liberal, democratic fundamentalist, etc, at least mention the issues a person could believe. You're free to call yourself whatever you will, but it's undeniable that left/right, conservative, progressive, etc, are so broad that they're identities instead of platforms.

verall 4y ago

It's not so black and white and it's not circular. You can consider all of the above and the terms can be useful. The least useful is sticking to a hard definition, deciding noone qualifies, and therefore the term is "meaningless". In other words, it's fine if you consider a definition of leftism that includes anarchists, Marxists, collectivists, social democratists and many others to be incorrect, but large groups of people use the term that way and communicate just fine.

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
> the least useful is sticking to a hard definition, deciding noone qualifies, and therefore the term is "meaningless". The point of the term is a political identifier. If it doesn't encompass anything you believe in but includes your mortal enemies it's not much good. > large groups of people use the term that way and communicate just fine. No, they don't. I don't know anyone "on the left" who would happily use it knowing the full scope of what others using it identified as - and validly under your definition. Surely they aren't communicating anything meaningful. Worse, it encourages those people to label others using their own lax standards, such that everyone who isn't an anarchist, or a marxist, etc, is the polar opposite - "the right". The left is a grab bag, the right is simply everything else. These terms signify a side a culture war but don't indicate any views or policies which may actually differ between them. They mark "us vs them" without being too specific to swap who is who when needed.
- verall 4y ago
  > If it doesn't encompass anything you believe in but includes your mortal enemies it's not much good. > No, they don't. I don't know anyone "on the left" who would happily use it knowing the full scope of what others using it identified as - and validly under your definition. Surely they aren't communicating anything meaningful. You're entitled to your own opinion dude, but political ideologies will spend all day arguing between submovements what does and doesn't qualify, and yet it's still possible to get an outline and then make predictions and discourse from there. Leftist or Conservative, you can hear arguing between tankies and anarchists, between "fiscal conservatives" and fundamentalists, mostly at the fringes, because the fringes disagree with the most. I think what you're trying to say is that the modern left and right are defined by their opposition to eachother ("culture war") and not their value and policy positions. But they do have opposing value and policy opinions, and it's not very hard to write a list. And then you can give names to these opposing groups of values and policy opinions. And you can talk about them and it's not meaningless because there are obvious real-world associations between the values in each group. "The left of the 1700s French legislature" no longer accurately describes any modern political association so that's probably not a useful lens.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    > you can hear arguing between tankies and anarchists Those people are the legitimate users of the term 'Leftist'. As I was saying, very few normal people would be willing to use a term that lumps them with strident communists who yearn for the good days of the USSR. It's one thing that some other members of the tribe are commies, but "The Left" was literally coined and adopted by them. (Well, socialists, but no difference.) The Left fully adopted the post modernist rhetoric of the French philosophers in the 60s and 70s, including actual literal pedophiles trying to remove age of consent laws in order to "queer children before they are stifled by the patriarchy". Again, not something normal people would support if they knew. The only way this functions is by being so tribal that nobody looks at who else is in the group because they're so busy screaming at everyone outside the group. As proof that it's an identity and not a useful descriptor - your leftist status can be stripped from you and you will be identified as "far right" if you disagree with certain tribal truths. "The left" is a label people adopt, "the right" is how they label everyone they disagree with. It's a very religious thing, to view all opposition as part of a united collective that wants to destroy you. > Leftist or Conservative Conservative what though? That's almost as empty as leftist. As in careful planning, or as in pushing your religion? You have to add 'Fiscal' to conservative before it begins to represent an actual viewpoint instead of a tribal marker. > it's not meaningless because there are obvious real-world associations between the values in each group. But vastly less meaning than any actual descriptive. Terms like fiscal conservative, socially liberal, democratic fundamentalist, etc, at least mention the issues a person could believe. You're free to call yourself whatever you will, but it's undeniable that left/right, conservative, progressive, etc, are so broad that they're identities instead of platforms.