Defining Leftism

There have been some pretty odd definitions of conservatism offered on this blog and no agreement seems within sight.  I thought therefore that I might tackle the issue from a different perspective—by defining Leftism.  As I will show, I think the two ideas can be defined independently

My central proposal may seem at first paradoxical but it is that attitude to the status quo characterizes Leftists rather than Rightists. It is proposed that it is not Rightists who are in favour of the status quo. They are in fact indifferent to it and may equally favour it or oppose it according to circumstances.  Leftists, on the other hand, characteristically RESENT the status quo—at least in the modern democracies. Whatever else the Leftist may be, the bedrock of Leftism is a strong dislike or even a hatred of the way the world is.  They have a strong desire or even a need for political change, often extreme change.  This does not, of course, mean that Leftists will favour all sorts of change equally.  What sort of change the Leftist favours will depend on what it is about the world that the Leftist dislikes.  It will depend on the needs that drive his/her desire for change.  And there are even times when those needs dictate a defence of the status quo.

The Rightist, by contrast, generally has no need either for change or its converse.  If anything, Rightists favour progress—both material and social.  So most Rightists are conservatives (cautious) not because of their attitude to change per se.  On some occasions they may even agree with the particular policy outcomes that the Leftist claims to desire.  They resist change, then,  mainly when it appears incautious—and they are cautious (skeptical of the net benefits of particular policies) generally because of their realism about the limitations (selfishness, folly,  shortsightedness, aggressiveness etc.) of many of their fellow humans (Ray, 1972b, 1974 & 1981).  So it is only vis a vis Leftists that the Right can on some occasions and in some eras appear conservative (cautious about proposals for social change).

Few writers have a better claim to representing historic conservative thought than Edmund Burke yet note this summary of what Burke said:  “Far from opposing all reform, Burke insisted, “A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.” The issue was not reform versus no reform; it was between the view that reform was a simple matter that could be engaged in sweepingly and the view that it required prudence and was best approached incrementally”.  So conservatives have NEVER opposed change per se and it is little more than a calumny to say that they do.  Caution certainly characterizes conservatives but attitude to change does not.

This broad idea that what Leftists basically want does not have to be the exact opposite or mirror-image of what Rightists basically want—and vice versa—may seem at first surprising but does have some precedents.  Kerlinger (1967) suggested that Leftists and Rightists have different “criterial referents” and even thought that he had found in his survey research a complete lack of opposition between Leftist and Rightist attitudes.  Kerlinger’s reasoning is interesting but that he misinterpreted his research results has previously been shown in Ray (1980 & 1982—online here and here).  Whether Leftist and Rightist objectives are opposite or just simply different, how Leftists and Rightists go about achieving their different basic objectives certainly generates plenty of conflict and opposition between the two sides.

Whatever Rightists might want, however, wanting to change the existing system is the umbrella under which all Leftists meet. Even at the height of British socialism, for instance, British Leftists still wanted MORE socialism. That permanent and corrosive dissatisfaction with the society they live in is the one thing that clearly identifies all Leftists. That is the basic thing that they all have in common.  In deciding where they go from there, however, they are extremely fractious and can even be murderous towards one-another (e.g. Stalin versus Trotsky).  It is in describing his fellow revolutionaries (Kautsky and others) that Lenin himself spoke swingeingly of “the full depth of their stupidity, pedantry, baseness and betrayal of working-class interests”.  He could hardly have spoken more contemptuously of the Tsar.  This divisiveness of the Left does not however stop them from generally having some identifiable broad policy themes in common.  There was great hatred and antagonism between Russian and Chinese regimes in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, for instance, but they were nonetheless both Communist.

Leftist Doctrine: Equality and the State

So why do modern-day Leftists adopt their various specific causes (anti-racism, gay rights, anti-globalization etc)?  Why, for instance, is a present-day Leftist not usually allowed to be racist? Because even a Leftist realizes that it is pretty vacant simply to be against the status quo. He has to have something a bit more substantial to say than that in order to get any attention at all. But his best attempt at finding something substantial to say is still pretty pathetic. What he says is: “All men are equal” and “The government should fix it”.  The proverbial Blind Frederick could see that all men are NOT equal and anybody who thinks that governments are good at doing things can only be pitied.  Nonetheless, “Equality” is the Leftist’s claimed ideal and government action is the way he proposes to bring it about.

So given his slender intellectual and rhetorical resources, the Leftist has to make up for their emptiness by advocating them both blindly and vigorously. And, if all men are equal, then all races must be equal too, mustn’t they?  Obviously so, one would think.  So, if he allows any recognition of racial differences, the Leftist risks having to give up one of the two slender straws that he clutches at in order to give himself something to say.

But how do we explain the fact that it only in relatively recent times that anti-racism has become a mainstay of Leftist agitation?  Again some history helps:  The “Levelling” idea that has always characterized Leftists had a very long history before Marx espoused it.  Such different people as the Christian fundamentalist “Levellers” in Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army and the slave-owning gentlemen who framed and espoused the American Declaration of Independence were attracted by the idea of equality.  The latter therefore even incorporated into their Declaration an assertion that it was an obvious truth that “all men are created equal”.  (Though the Declaration was of course a public policy document rather than any attempt at a scientific treatise).

“ALL” men?  So blacks and whites are equal too?  No.  Believers in equality or policies of equality have always had to be good at ignoring anything inconvenient and the American declarers had little trouble in reconciling equality with slavery—with what most people might think was its diametric opposite!  How did they and others after them do it?  They did it quite easily:  Long before Hitler made it his central policy, the people of the world were for many thinkers divided up between “Menschen” (men) and “Untermenschen” (sub-men) and equality obviously did not apply to “Untermenschen” either as a statement of policy or as a statement of fact.  So when the Hitlerian catastrophe thoroughly discredited and made obnoxious the idea of classifying certain races as being sub-human and hence outside the magic circle of “equality”, Leftists found it expedient to hop on to the anti-racist bandwagon—no doubt with some relief.  It did make their advocacy a lot simpler.

Clearly, however, their anti-racism is nonetheless mere opportunism:  History shows that they have no intrinsic committment to it.  When racism was generally regarded as sound and reasonable they were for it.  Now that Hitler has made the very word obnoxious, they are against it.

And WHY do Leftists rely so heavily on their two particular vacuous dogmas of “equality” and “The State can fix it”?  It is because they are not really interested in solving any problems at all. They are only interested in stirring up change. Really solving social and economic problems in our complex society requires thought, detailed enquiry, in-depth understanding of the problem, creative thinking and patience—and the typical Leftist is simply not interested in all that. All he or she wants is change. “Get the government to pass a law” is the Leftist’s simplistic “solution”.  And simplicity always has a lot of appeal.

Let us look at Leftist thinking on equality in more detail:

Why Equality?

First, a little history:  The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 under Lenin has had immense significance for politics since then but there were also three prior political revolutions that still have some modern lessons,  The English revolution of 1642, The American revolution of 1776 and the French revolution of 1789.  The British and American revolutions were essentially “conservative” revolutions designed to preserve traditional democratic rights and liberties and remove tyrannies but the French revolution was very different:

The French revolution is probably the earliest clear example of Leftism at work —a vast social change that attempted to destroy all that went before it (even the traditional calendar!) and replace traditional arrangements by totally new ones that were grounded only in theory and which in fact very rapidly turned out to constitute a new and terrifying tyranny.  Certainly the French revolution is the earliest clear example of high-minded ideals being used in some almost incomprehensible way as an excuse for a long and bloodthirsty reign of terror—a reign of terror that consumed not only the enemies but also many of the friends of the revolution.

And “equality” was of course one of those high-minded ideals.  The French revolutionaries would appear to have the distinction of being the first to show that in some mysterious way one can at the same time believe in equality and practice tyranny!  And, in an omen of Lenin and Stalin to come, that great child of the revolution, Napoleon, saw no contradiction in running a vicious police state while at the same time going to the trouble of actually enshrining in law the principle that all men are equal!!

Yet “all men are equal” (to the extent to which it is seriously meant rather than being merely a rhetorical ploy) is perhaps even more vacant an idea than the idea of relying on government—since almost our entire social arrangements are predicated on all men (and women) NOT being equal:  We don’t regard criminals and honest people as the same, men and women as the same, sane people and mentally ill people as the same, kind people and unkind people as the same, attractive and unattractive people as the same, clever and dumb people as the same, athletic and unathletic people as the same, scientists and roadworkers as the same etc., etc. And there is no doubt that tall men and busty women have an easier time with the opposite sex. There is fierce discrimination rather than equality in the mating game.

So why are Leftists so enamoured of their absurd “equality” idea? Because if the Leftist is right and all men (and women) are really equal then EVERYTHING in our society is wrong and in need of being attacked and changed. It is a way for the Leftist to say (quite paradoxically) to others: “You are ALL wrong and I am better and wiser and kinder than you”.  Pretty good stuff for the Leftist!

But of all the things that their “equality” doctrine enables them to attack and perhaps change, nothing is more attractive to the Leftist than the rationale the doctrine offers for attacking the existing power structures, authorities, hierarchies and centres of influence that already exist in society.  In the name of bringing about equality, Leftists get an excuse to tear down the whole existing structure of society—something that they need to do to give themselves any chance of fulfilling their dream of taking over all power for themselves.  It is the fact that he/she is not in charge of everything that the Leftist most of all wants to change.  So “all men are equal” is a very handy doctrine indeed for the Leftist.

That the “all men are equal” maxim appears to have originally arisen partly out of Christian idealism and that a form of it is enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence (long before Napoleon similarly used it) does not make it any less risible today. A common attempt to make it less risible for the non-religious is to do as Napoleon did and add “before the law” to it. But that too is thoroughly counterfactual. Our treatment before the law is very unequal and seems destined to remain so. Most of us cannot afford the law at all. Clearly both the very rich and the very poor (who get legal aid in most advanced countries) are very much at an advantage before the law. This is not to deny that equality before the law is a worthy ideal: In a democracy it is obviously important for governments to be seen to be as fair and as impartial as possible in dealing with all their citizens—but the imperative for that does not have to come from a quasi-religious myth.

Leftists are usually irreligious if not anti-religious (except insofar as Leftism itself is some sort of secular religion) so will often reject the notion that all men are “created” equal and will—when pressed—sometimes justify their endless and characteristic advocacy of equality by saying that what they really mean by their doctrine is that all men are of “equal value” or some such. But of equal value to whom? And how do we know? Short of resorting to religion again to answer such questions, the slogan then quickly reduces to a recommendation that all individuals be TREATED equally on all occasions—and that is something that no human or animal society has ever done or seems likely to do, so the doctrine remains a pious absurdity.

(Having one LAW for all is a viable and rightly respected public policy but even that often does not result in equal treatment and in any case what Leftists generally seem to want is DIFFERENT laws and regulations for minorities and for others—e.g. “affirmative action”.)

And the competing conservative doctrine that each person should be treated “fairly”—i.e. according to his or her “desserts”, however determined—seems to remain anathema to most Leftists, at least in theory (in part, perhaps, because it requires more complex judgments and so is less suitable for propaganda purposes).  Conservatives also normally see it as fair that all children be given “equal opportunity” by the educational system but even that quite large ideal is usually still not nearly enough to satisfy Leftists.

One might argue that if blacks, women, gays etc. are entitled to advocate more rights for their respective groups, it is equally proper that (for instance) whites should vigorously advocate more rights for their group, but, being moderate as they are and because they are NOT strongly group-conscious, conservatives very rarely argue that.  They are quite happy with equal opportunity.

Posted by jonjayray on Thursday, June 2, 2005 at 08:14 PM in Liberalism & the Left
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