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I’m starting to think political definitions only have use as propaganda. Definitions are definite, yet political definitions are anything but. In the US, much

by amradio1989 1y ago

I’m starting to think political definitions only have use as propaganda. Definitions are definite, yet political definitions are anything but. In the US, much is made about “the left” and “the right”, but we can hardly describe what these things mean. “The left” is simply more liberal than I, while “the right” is more conservative than I. On what issues, no one knows, because we hardly ask. The point, I think, is simply to label the opposition while hiding any commonality or points of agreement. Useful for propaganda, but useless for substantive political discourse; you know, the kind that underpins a healthy democracy.

deleted 1y ago
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bilbo0s 1y ago
the kind that underpins a healthy democracy To be fair, this kind of presupposes that all actors in a polity actually have as their goal, "healthy democracy". Pretty sure that's not the goal of most people in power nowadays. (At least in the US it's not the goal of people in power.)
dijit 1y ago
I'm not sure I agree here. There are "right wing issues" and "left wing issues" and there is friction between them. What concerns me most is political "slurs" where everyone forgets the meaning of the term but constantly throws it around as if it's just a bad word. Then the conversation just goes off the deep end as soon as they're invoked. "You're a wokie" or "you're a fascist"; as if either of the people using those terms even knows what they're referring to primarily, they just decided it's bad and because the person they're talking to is bad they must be whatever bad word I have in my vocabulary. PS: I will say that "woke" has a more concrete definition than fascist to many, but I don't want to be accussed of being for (or against) any particular side when writing this comment, and I can't come up with many off the top of my head that the right wingers use against the left wingers... so, sorry.
- jrm4 1y ago
  "Woke" is perhaps the freaking platonic ideal of what this article criticizes. I'm black. It once was just a mostly fun little word that meant "Hey man, are you paying attention to the world around you?" And today it is completely without concrete meaning. For the left, it's kind of whatever, because it's responding to what it is for the so called right -- literally nothing more concrete than "what I don't like right now that might be associated with any group possibly considered a minority."
  - ziml77 1y ago
    It has been obvious to me for a long time that the people using the term woke now don't even have a concrete definition of the term, but I was still blown away by the sheer stupidity and obliviousness of one of those right wing people posting about how they are not woke, they are awake [to the world around them].
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      I use the term to describe the need and moral entitledness of modifying language as a reaction and treatment to injustice and to the intended normalization of every sexual practice existing. As such I don't see these two examples as contradicting. One side uses woke (awake) as acting to the world in "ingesting" it in language, while the other side thinks of being awake in seeing that the world doesn't actually work that way. They both think they are "awake", they just disagree how and what "the world" is.
      - jrm4 1y ago
        This is either an epic troll or an excellent bit of evidence in favor of my point. :)
        1718627440 1y ago
        > This is either an epic troll That wasn't my intention. :-) I just wanted to point out that it is not "sheer stupidity and obliviousness", but a useful distinction. > It once was just a mostly fun little word I think part of that issue is, that the term didn't exist here when it only meant that. Was it a "in black subgroup" thing? Or was this known to a wider audience? > excellent bit of evidence in favor of my point Can you explain this to counteract my obliviousness? So you see ziml77 as an example of left and me of right, or what?
bee_rider 1y ago
“The left” and “the right” are, IMO, useful terms in the sense that they are explicitly meaningless (unless you are in charge of some seating arrangements in France). “Liberal” and “conservative” are not good words for describing the teams in the US. These words have more conventional meanings. Liberalism is a political philosophy based mostly on personal freedoms. Conservatism describes how fast you are willing to change the system. The US was founded on Liberalism, and most Americans would probably be best described as liberal conservatives.
- vmchale 1y ago
  > These words have more conventional meanings. Kondylis disputes the typical interpretation of "conservatism." Historically it was a backwards justification of feudalism. Easy to see why someone would talk up "history," "tradition" when they're at the top of the social order and an upstart comes on to stage.
jrm4 1y ago
:) Definitions are rarely definite if we're even discussing them.
OkayPhysicist 1y ago
Left and right are useful labels, and while the exact border may be somewhat ambiguous or perhaps arbitrary, they do identify a useful spectrum. Ultimately, left vs. right-wing thought boils down to views on hierarchical power structures. On the extreme right, there's the view that hierarchies are good and natural, and should be reinforced and expanded. On the extreme left, there's the view that hierarchies are evil and unnatural, and should be abolished. In between you have a whole spectrum of views like "some hierarchies are a necessary evil", "some hierarchies are good", etc. Individual issues sometimes unambiguously map onto this spectrum: Supporting slavery (a pretty obvious hierarchical construct) is further right than wanting to abolish it, for example. Other times, issues occupy some certain space on the spectrum, with opposing viewpoints on both sides of it: a left-leaning individual might oppose free-market Capitalism because it forms a hierarchy of wealth, while a further right-leaning individual might oppose Capitalism because it gives the "wrong" people higher standing than they should (according to some other "better, more natural" hierarchy).
vmchale 1y ago
> only have use as propaganda Propaganda helps you ascend to power and then constrains what you do with that power. Ultimately if you want to look objectively, you have to look at the concrete, at history. But propaganda matters: history would unfold differently without it!
Jensson 1y ago
> “The left” is simply more liberal than I What is "liberal" here? Seems like that term has gone obsolete as well, what Americans call liberal is not what I call liberal, to me they are pretty authoritarian.

deleted 1y ago

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bilbo0s 1y ago

the kind that underpins a healthy democracy To be fair, this kind of presupposes that all actors in a polity actually have as their goal, "healthy democracy". Pretty sure that's not the goal of most people in power nowadays. (At least in the US it's not the goal of people in power.)

dijit 1y ago

I'm not sure I agree here. There are "right wing issues" and "left wing issues" and there is friction between them. What concerns me most is political "slurs" where everyone forgets the meaning of the term but constantly throws it around as if it's just a bad word. Then the conversation just goes off the deep end as soon as they're invoked. "You're a wokie" or "you're a fascist"; as if either of the people using those terms even knows what they're referring to primarily, they just decided it's bad and because the person they're talking to is bad they must be whatever bad word I have in my vocabulary. PS: I will say that "woke" has a more concrete definition than fascist to many, but I don't want to be accussed of being for (or against) any particular side when writing this comment, and I can't come up with many off the top of my head that the right wingers use against the left wingers... so, sorry.

jrm4 1y ago
"Woke" is perhaps the freaking platonic ideal of what this article criticizes. I'm black. It once was just a mostly fun little word that meant "Hey man, are you paying attention to the world around you?" And today it is completely without concrete meaning. For the left, it's kind of whatever, because it's responding to what it is for the so called right -- literally nothing more concrete than "what I don't like right now that might be associated with any group possibly considered a minority."
- ziml77 1y ago
  It has been obvious to me for a long time that the people using the term woke now don't even have a concrete definition of the term, but I was still blown away by the sheer stupidity and obliviousness of one of those right wing people posting about how they are not woke, they are awake [to the world around them].
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    I use the term to describe the need and moral entitledness of modifying language as a reaction and treatment to injustice and to the intended normalization of every sexual practice existing. As such I don't see these two examples as contradicting. One side uses woke (awake) as acting to the world in "ingesting" it in language, while the other side thinks of being awake in seeing that the world doesn't actually work that way. They both think they are "awake", they just disagree how and what "the world" is.
    - jrm4 1y ago
      This is either an epic troll or an excellent bit of evidence in favor of my point. :)
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        > This is either an epic troll That wasn't my intention. :-) I just wanted to point out that it is not "sheer stupidity and obliviousness", but a useful distinction. > It once was just a mostly fun little word I think part of that issue is, that the term didn't exist here when it only meant that. Was it a "in black subgroup" thing? Or was this known to a wider audience? > excellent bit of evidence in favor of my point Can you explain this to counteract my obliviousness? So you see ziml77 as an example of left and me of right, or what?

bee_rider 1y ago

“The left” and “the right” are, IMO, useful terms in the sense that they are explicitly meaningless (unless you are in charge of some seating arrangements in France). “Liberal” and “conservative” are not good words for describing the teams in the US. These words have more conventional meanings. Liberalism is a political philosophy based mostly on personal freedoms. Conservatism describes how fast you are willing to change the system. The US was founded on Liberalism, and most Americans would probably be best described as liberal conservatives.

vmchale 1y ago
> These words have more conventional meanings. Kondylis disputes the typical interpretation of "conservatism." Historically it was a backwards justification of feudalism. Easy to see why someone would talk up "history," "tradition" when they're at the top of the social order and an upstart comes on to stage.

jrm4 1y ago

:) Definitions are rarely definite if we're even discussing them.

OkayPhysicist 1y ago

Left and right are useful labels, and while the exact border may be somewhat ambiguous or perhaps arbitrary, they do identify a useful spectrum. Ultimately, left vs. right-wing thought boils down to views on hierarchical power structures. On the extreme right, there's the view that hierarchies are good and natural, and should be reinforced and expanded. On the extreme left, there's the view that hierarchies are evil and unnatural, and should be abolished. In between you have a whole spectrum of views like "some hierarchies are a necessary evil", "some hierarchies are good", etc. Individual issues sometimes unambiguously map onto this spectrum: Supporting slavery (a pretty obvious hierarchical construct) is further right than wanting to abolish it, for example. Other times, issues occupy some certain space on the spectrum, with opposing viewpoints on both sides of it: a left-leaning individual might oppose free-market Capitalism because it forms a hierarchy of wealth, while a further right-leaning individual might oppose Capitalism because it gives the "wrong" people higher standing than they should (according to some other "better, more natural" hierarchy).

vmchale 1y ago

> only have use as propaganda Propaganda helps you ascend to power and then constrains what you do with that power. Ultimately if you want to look objectively, you have to look at the concrete, at history. But propaganda matters: history would unfold differently without it!

Jensson 1y ago

> “The left” is simply more liberal than I What is "liberal" here? Seems like that term has gone obsolete as well, what Americans call liberal is not what I call liberal, to me they are pretty authoritarian.