Different Sides of the Horseshoe (Updated Tues Feb. 17)

In Critique of Religion and Philosophy, Walter Kaufmann gave excellent expression to a fundamental realization motivating philosophical inquiry: "what is well known is not known at all well."

That fact is evident enough in the earlier, "Aporetic" dialogues of Plato, where such common notions as "friend," "virtue," and so on prove, upon dialectical examination, extremely problematic.

Recently I've really felt how just how shaky my (implicit) conviction is that I have a grip on the political designations "Left" and "Right." As always, with language one needs to be on guard against equivocation in terms; there may well be many "Lefts" and "Rights." If so, then one would want to know: are they focally, or sheerly, equivocal? If focally, then what's the common core, the "form" as it were?

It's surely a mistake to regard Left and Right as timeless categories, though they might well exemplify timeless tendencies. And if, as such, they are mutualy exclusive, they're not jointly exhaustive.

And what about their (apparent) near kin, the "Conservative" and the "Liberal"? Those terms seem more directly related to one of the three perennial questions to which I adverted in my last post: taking the terms "adjectivally," it is characteristic of the Conservative to want to preserve something, and the Liberal to bring about a change [Ed. This is a bit of a stretch - perhaps being "liberal" connotes a certain forward-looking attitude, and openness to, or even enthusiasm for, change; and the liberal might well want to change that which the conservative wants to maintain]. In modern times is being "on the left" the logical or fitting "form"/development of the Liberal Ethos, and the same for being "on the right" and Conservatism?

Here too we may run into difficulties. One of my heroes, the historian Christopher Dawson, understands Liberalism as the notion, gradually burgeoning throughout history, that the individual has rights as against the state (both an interesting parallel to, and difference from, Hegel's Idea of Right) - does that ethos comport with the character of avowedly Leftist regimes? For that matter, what of fascism - is it "of" the Left, or Right, or is it an exceptional, modern amalgam? We might have to distinguish between core, "professed" convictions (the way a view looks "from the inside") vs. the ramifications thereof (in reality).

I'm going to take an experimental and most unscholarly approach, and work under the assumption that Left and Right are world-views-in-miniature - providing differing answers to a fundamental set of questions. Since I've insinuated that Left and Right are categories which meaningfully come into play under determinate conditions, what era informs my thinking? Vaguely, let's say, late-18th through the mid-19th century (in light of the French and Industrial Revolutions). For the representative view of The Right, I'm thinking, I suppose, of Burke primarily, and for the Left I'll weave from many strands - perhaps Anatole France, a dash of Auguste Comte, tendencies in Marx, certainly (with the shadow of Rousseau looming large). In any event, I hope to understand current realities the better by attempting to clarify some of the fundamental questions at issue in Left vs. Right.

The Questions:

What is the appropriate or fitting mental-spiritual mode of man?

Left: Rational-Secularism, Scientific Outlook; Anti-clericalism, Irreligiosity.

Right: Reason supplemented or "tempered" by the authority of tradition and religious faith; legitimate scope for - or unavoidability of - sentiment, myth, "prejudice."

What ought to be the mode or shape of society's relationship to material goods, commodities?

Left: Suspicious of, or downright hostile to, private property - at least in the "means of production." The ideal entails goods being held "in common."

Right: Enthusiasm for - or resignation to - private ownership. Ideal entails goods "held privately for common use."

What are the contours of a Just society, particularly as regards the "status" of individuals vis a vis one another?

Left: virtual reduction of commutative Justice - all Justice? - to distributive justice (or in terms of the mechanisms of distribution; commutative justice becomes a function of distributive Justice). Inequality in distribution is a bedrock social malignancy, which accounts for the unwarranted, differing status of various individuals; the ideal tends towards distributive equality (or opportunity for "equal" consumption). The doctrine of significant inequalities amongst/between men is a screen to preserve privilege (i.e., ideology). Only a radical (i.e., to the root) re-alignment of social factors and forces can repair structural defects which concurrently rigidify inequality and dehumanize man.

Right: men are unequal - this is the cornerstone of commutative justice; a social hierarchy is not in itself objectionable (nay, it's necessary), and at best exemplifies a fitting distribution of honors, privileges, rights and duties, as well as goods. Distributive inequality is regrettable, but not in itself unjust, and is remediable by alms-giving, palliative measures by the state, and/or the longer-term mechanisms of the market.

What degree of unity is desirable in the political community?

Left: Collectivism.
Right: Community

What is the fitting scope for the loyalties and allegiances of individuals?

Left: Cosmopolitan/Universal; trans- or inter-nationalist.
Right: Local partialities: family, neighborhood, city, Nation-State.

To which factor(s) ought personal agency be referred, even reduced?

Left: social - especially material - conditions.

Right: individual/personal accountability, "the wages of sin"; "metaphysical pollution"?

Is there a "trajectory" to human history? What is it?

Left: Progress, Meliorism - Society as perfectible. Cp. Auguste Comte's Epochal divison: Religion - Philosophy - Science

Right: We have lost our bearings, the present is terrible (cp. Eliot's "Wasteland"), yearning for a Lost Golden Age (The Middle Ages?). For the religious, Eschatology indicates the post-historical nature of any truly "humane" social order.

[Ed. Another question that occurs to me issomething like "on what side of the eternal nomos-physis (positive law/custom vs. "nature") issue does one come down?
Left: nomos (recalling the Vico-ian "we know what we make")
Right: physis - there is a stable-perennial "order of things" to which we are beholden]

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As always - but perhaps especially in this case, owing to the halting nature of my thoughts here - I would welcome comments (and correction) from any interested readers.