Mainstream political discourse is hopelessly divided into the two poorly-defined camps of left and right. Leftists believe they’re the good and nice people against the evil and nasty rightists, and rightists believe they’re the good and tough people against the evil and weak leftists. The truth is that both sides are fuckwits.
The left vs. right axis is bullshit anyway – it’s completely arbitrary. Leftists claim to be for the working class, then dump hordes of violent refugees into working-class neighbourhoods. Rightists claim to be conservatives, but have conserved nothing, being more than happy to sell their descendants’ inheritance at discount price.
The truth is that there is a multitude of different axes upon which we can divide people’s political attitudes. The left vs. right axis has been subject to so many lies over the decades that talking about it no longer conveys any useful information. But there are at least three political axes that are still useful.
First: Authoritarian vs. Libertarian.
Mainstream academia likes to pretend that there’s no such thing as left-wing authoritarianism. As anyone who has read The Gulag Archipelago knows, this is bullshit. Left-wingers are more than happy to dictate how others are allowed to live, as evidenced by the creeping spread of cancel culture.
Right-wing authoritarians exist, of course, in the form of theocrats, and centrist ones exist in the form of Nazis. But fighting against one or two of the three kinds, while ignoring the malice of the others, is foolish. All that can be achieved by such an approach is to let authoritarianism in through the backdoor.
George Orwell summarised this insight best when he wrote that “The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.” As a simple comparison of the American Revolution versus the French and Russian ones makes clear, libertarian revolutions tend to go much better than authoritarian ones.
Second: Globalist vs. Nationalist.
The received wisdom for most of the last 100 years has been that globalisation is inevitable. The reality is that increasing globalisation is dependent on increasing energy use, and we’re running out of the fossil fuels that have provided us with so much cheap energy. As this cheap energy declines, so too will the impetus for globalism, and nationalism will ebb back into fashion.
As with the previous axis, there can be left-wing globalists and right-wing ones, and the same is true of nationalism. A person’s position on the globalist vs. nationalist axis will tell you more about their position on issues such as immigration, free trade and military interventionism than their position on the left vs. right axis.
Globalist interests overlap heavily with authoritarian ones in the age of the World Economic Forum. In any case, there are plenty of left-wing reasons to be a nationalist, and plenty of right-wing reasons to be a globalist. So it’s more indicative just to say if you are a nationalist or a globalist. The truth is that many people use the labels of ‘left’ and ‘right’ to hide the fact that they are globalists.
Third: Materialist vs. Idealist.
People act as if someone’s position on materialism vs. idealism is just a philosophical whimsy, a private matter of faith with no import. The reality is that people who don’t believe in an afterlife behave predictably differently to those who do.
As Erwin Schroedinger realised, people who don’t believe in an afterlife have little moral incentive to act altruistically. If the brain generates consciousness, and if the death of the physical body means the extinction of consciousness, then all possible karmic debt for bad actions is annulled upon the death of the physical body. If no afterlife exists, then death wipes the slate clean.
Because many people who claim to believe in God actually don’t, and are just superstitious, it’s impossible to tell from a person’s assertions if they are an idealist or not. It’s possible to tell from their actions, though – if they act as if it’s possible to truly get away with fucking another person over, chances are they’re a materialist.
In summary, dividing people into left and right is low-IQ, and rarely helps a person make accurate predictions about people’s future behaviour. The left-right spectrum considers globalist neoliberals to be centre-right, and nationalist socialists to be far-right. It considers ultra-conservative theocrats similar to low-tax anarcho-capitalists. It doesn’t make any sense at all.
The next time someone claims to be proudly or staunchly left-wing or right-wing, ignore it, and ask yourself where they stand on the questions of authoritarianism vs. libertarianism, globalism vs. nationalism and materialism vs. idealism. That will tell you much more about them than their position on left vs. right.
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Your third axis is idiotic regarding materialism vs idealism. Your bias towards secular people is telling and clouds your rational judgment.
You have physical needs, materialism is required in order to live. A positive attitude is no replacement for food. Ask anyone who survived the holodomer by eating their children.
And as for morals, if you won’t do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, but out of fear or greed of some divine reward/punishment. You’re not moral by my standards. Altruistic is another issue, this idea that win-wins are immoral and only by helping others while sacrificing yourself is virtuous and moral is a recipe for…well, clown world. How selfish of me to want win-wins instead of “I want you to benefit me at the cost of yourself”, right? Altruism isn’t as virtuous as you think it is…
Last I checked, it wasn’t Atheists that did 9/11 to get 72 virgins as promised. How about you put a picture of 9/11 after your sentence “The reality is that people who don’t believe in an afterlife behave predictably differently to those who do.”
Look into Carlos Cipollas Taxonomy of STUPID.
A better axis is Collectivism vs Individualism.
And I quote:
Collectivism does not preach sacrifice as a temporary means to some desirable end. Sacrifice is its end—sacrifice as a way of life. It is man’s independence, success, prosperity, and happiness that collectivists wish to destroy.
Observe the snarling, hysterical hatred with which they greet any suggestion that sacrifice is not necessary, that a non-sacrificial society is possible to men, that it is the only society able to achieve man’s well-being.