What in your opinion separates Right and Left wingers?

[Каие]

What in your opinion separates Right and Left wingers?

I always used to think the Right believed in the inherent imperfect nature of man whereas the Left was more optimistic.

But there are so many ways to go with this, including the role of the state, the attitude to others, idealism, the need to help, etc. etc.

What are your thoughts?

[Player989random]

Giant conspiracy whose sole intent is to make the masses believe that there is a difference in everything and anything. At least in the U.S.A.

It all depends on the country IMO. I know next to nothing on the Politics outside of the U.S.

Here the Right is far more religious and sadly turns away the younger generation, but it is not as naive as the Left. Yet the Left doesn't react that fast toward world issues and is more tolerant of damn near anything.

But I really think that they are just labels meant to turn people in the polls.

[The Devil's Sergeant]

The way I see it the difference between left and right is the importance and value of the individual. A right winger see the individual as fundamental, and society is no more or less than the sum of the individuals. Left wingers see society at large as fundamental, and individuals are subordinate to society.

That is at least one way to look at it.

[BNS]

Right wing (liberalism) - Is morally based on an individual's right to self ownership. Everything that relates to it stems from this one absolute right. The right to own the fruits of your labor and to freely exchange it, the liberty to rise or fall independently and to freely exercise their own unique talents and potential. When it comes to economics it's against regulation, taxation, redistribution, and recognizes and makes the optimum use of the scarcity of resources. It is opposed to social coercion and restrictions on liberty so long as the right to life and property of others is respected.

Basically anything that denies a person their right to life and property through coercion, is opposed and left wing. Or at least if we are going to see it from this narrow libertarian point of view.

[★Bandiera Rossa☭]

Left = More secular than religious and stresses the greater good.
right= religious and stresses individual rights.

[Muagan_ra]

There's economic right/left, and social right/left. I tend to go by social attitudes: retroactive social attitudes are characteristic of the "right", and progressive multi-cultural approaches are of the "left."

[★Bandiera Rossa☭]

Which is why the left owns all... sorry I just had to say it..

[Alkarin]

right wing is based off of the individual being more important the the whole of society while the left is about the whole of society and not the individual.

[Dayman]

right wing is based off of the individual being more important the the whole of society while the left is about the whole of society and not the individual.

I disagree, the left and the right, at least in US politics, have both shown themselves to be more concerned with "society" than individual rights. The left wing does this through promotion of social programs and support for "poltiical correctness", and the right wing likes to promote religious or coporate causes over induvidual rights (although I admit in the past the right wing, ala Goldwater conservatism, was far more supportive of induvidual rights).

[BNS]

Яome kb8

As an answer to all your recent threads, I really think you ought to stop trying to define yourself as either right wing or left wing. These terms are very vague, subjective, and devoid of their original meaning and should be safely disregarded by people who are politically well informed, just as yourself and many of us who visit this sub forum. I for example can be considered very right wing by many, but if I was in early revolutionary France I would have been considered very left wing. Meanwhile I am also grouped with fascists even though liberalism is diametrically opposed to fascism.

I think you should have a glance at this somewhat long, biased, but very interesting essay. It gets around towards talking about the transformation of these terms from their inception to modern day. http://mises.org/story/910

[El Brujo]

In America there is a difference in what individualism means even among those considered to be politically on the right. There is the more libertarian notion of individualism, which was in the past an important part of classical liberalism. This is the Atlas Shrugged kind of individualism. Then there is a less ideological form of indiviualism, often called rugged individualism, that is more rooted in Anglo-American cultural traditions. The difference is that the first kind of indivilualism is political and ideological, while the latter kind is a cultural trait. The former also tends to be held by individuals who are socially liberal, while rugged individualism is more common among social conservatives. Both of them are considered to be right wing and conservative.

well facism is individuality in the form of the state...its about the state not the human race..while if you look at communism (its left counterpart) its about the good of the human race and shuns nationalism

Fascism usually tries to appeal to a national/ethnic group or at least a single state, while communism appeals to a specific class of people and in theory cuts across tribal and national boundries, but not class boundries. They are ultimately both still collectivist, they just have a different concept of what constitutes their in-group.

[Каие]

Яome kb8

As an answer to all your recent threads, I really think you ought to stop trying to define yourself as either right wing or left wing. These terms are very vague, subjective, and devoid of their original meaning and should be safely disregarded by people who are politically well informed, just as yourself and many of us who visit this sub forum. I for example can be considered very right wing by many, but if I was in early revolutionary France I would have been considered very left wing. Meanwhile I am also grouped with fascists even though liberalism is diametrically opposed to fascism.

I think you should have a glance at this somewhat long, biased, but very interesting essay. It gets around towards talking about the transformation of these terms from their inception to modern day. http://mises.org/story/910

Don't worry that isn't it. I've just noticed the definitions of right and left wing have changed over the last decade or so, and depending who you ask, the things they stand for have changed too. So I'm only getting people's opinions.

[Manco]

Depends how you define right and left in the first place. If right wing is about the individual, than what about national socialism where state supersedes the individual, the most extreme right wing theory we know, and individualist anarchists which are left-wing but place more emphasis on the individual than classic liberalism?

Though in my country where left-wing is socialism and social progression and right-wing is nationalism and social conservation, I'd agree that left-wing seems more optimistic.

In an American context, individuality comes in play, less so in Europe.

[Alkarin]

Depends how you define right and left in the first place. If right wing is about the individual, than what about national socialism where state supersedes the individual, the most extreme right wing theory we know, and individualist anarchists which are left-wing but place more emphasis on the individual than classic liberalism?

well facism is individuality in the form of the state...its about the state not the human race..while if you look at communism (its left counterpart) its about the good of the human race and shuns nationalism

[Manco]

well facism is individuality in the form of the state...its about the state not the human race..while if you look at communism (its left counterpart) its about the good of the human race and shuns nationalism

But that's really stretching the word individuality.

[Alkarin]

But that's really stretching the word individuality.

words are merely figures.

[Manco]

Then you might as well state that that socialism sees humanity as a whole as an individual.

But we all know that that's not what individualism means.

[Alkarin]

Then you might as well state that that socialism sees humanity as a whole as an individual.

But we all know that that's not what individualism means.

i think you get my point....

[The Devil's Sergeant]

Alkarin I hereby place you under arrest for the murderering the meaning of the word "individuality."

[Ó Cathasaigh]

What in your opinion separates Right and Left wingers?

One mindless moderate.