Right Wing is Anti-Philosophy

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Not even Nietzsche was right wing as such. He was apolitical.

  1. The Right Wing are predicated on Blood and Soil. This is abject materialism.

  2. Philosophy is an abstraction far beyond the material.

Philosophy = the mental plane. Mental plane = consciousness. Consciousness cannot be explained in material terms. Colour perception is all in the mind, there is no objective colour.

Philosophy is thus innately a reaction against, a departure from, materialism.

Philosophy is thus innately anti-Right Wing.

Proof: universities are always hotbeds of left-wing thought, because they are places of intellectual study - the intellect being consciousness and thus a departure from abject materialism.

Proof: academies focussed on vocational qualifications are not hotbeds of left-wing thought. They are predicated on the workaday, and thus derivative of materialism.

2 Likes
'left' wing ranting
'left' wing ranting
UK makes me queasy
What is the end game for conservatives?
2

Furthermore:

It follows that religious thought & spirituality are beyond the right wing as those concepts are above and beyond the material plane.

It also follows that a fascist tyrant, a dictator, being right wing, will always be materialist and anti-religious.

It is evident that monarchs rule Dei Gratia (even if it is merely claimed), therefore a monarch is the diametric opposite of the materialist tyrant / dictator, and therefore if anything, the monarch is ideally a philosopher-king and more compatible with the left wing, albeit a paradigm shift beyond politics altogether - the left wing would still be the path to the philosopher-king, the idealised monarchy.

3

I see a problem here. The left wing can be materialist. Left wing dictators have existed e.g. Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin. However, Mao and Stalin at least had a philosophy. Apparently Pol Pot too had a philosophy but his name (“Good Ghost”) hints at schizophrenia.

So, my revision:
Left Wing is Pro-Philosophy, but it can go either way: toward materialist dictatorship / tyranny or the Philosopher King, i.e. opposing ends of Plato’s 5 forms of government.

It still stands that the Philosopher King / Aristocracy will be spiritual / religion oriented, and the Tyranny will be abject Blood & Soil materialist. My revision is just that the Left Wing can lead to either of these, whereas the Right Wing can only lead to Tyranny.

By the way, it’s worth noting that the Left Wing dictatorships all get cashflow by trading with free markets. By implication, then, a Left Wing Tyranny is really a Right Wing Tyranny that is focusses wealth more extremely into an elite inner party, moreso than an actual Right Wing Tyranny.

Case in point: Stalinism is the way of modern eCommerce. Productivity goes up and up while people live under the diktat of ChatBots that have basically zero intellect and enact injustice per their programming, with psychotic eyes unblinking. People give their all, then die off, to be replaced by a fresh cohort of sellers. They get crushed by the eCommerce regime but on paper, the actual income generated off their backs keeps going up and up. eCommerce is a capitalist gulag.

So it may be that the Left can actually wash their hands of communism. I feel champagne socialism is the nexus of the Left Wing.

4

The left wing is at times which is most of the time inept to do so to religious philosophy:

Primary reason: the prescience of old hardly copied templates, trump any phenomenal cover which tries to belittle well intended humanist notions of being.

5

I consider myself a mixture of left and right political philosophies.

The truth of the matter is if you study both there is just differences of opinions or perspectives on a variety of many things. I like studying all of the perceptions of different kinds of people because it helps me become a more well rounded person. It’s clear there are some heavy biases within this thread.

:clown_face:

1 Like
6

Well, when meeting you the first time, and expressing my tru ad how feelings about you, at the time, I still hold to telling you how groovy.

1 Like
7

No, philosophy includes materialism just as it includes everything else. Material and ‘materialism’ are valid aspects of this reality.

Over-valuing materialism is an error and represents some kind of personal weakness or flaw. Philosophy understands this, just as it understands material and what materialism really is.

Philosophy is the study of truth and the love of truth, also called the love of wisdom (which involves not only truths but the ranking of truths based on certain standards of value or necessity). Within that philosophical context, nothing is “reacted against”, everything is sought to be understood as it is. Philosophy has no “right wing” or “left wing” biases. Also because both the right wing and the left wing are full of errors, insanities, ignorance and evil. Truth is always incorporating aspects of all sides and elevating to a new paradigm. Only people like you seem stuck in one polarized ideological position at the expense of a larger vantage.

1 Like
8

Says the Leftwingers who can’t define what a Woman is, or claim there’s 358 Genders…

Shut the hell up.

3 Likes
9

As stated in the opening posts, philosophy = intellection = a paradigm shift above and beyond the material plane. As such, philosophy will always be a departure from materialism.

There is no materialist philosopher. Update: there have been a few second rate ones. However, in the light of science, i.e. today’s understanding, there is no materialist philosopher that can stand cross examination.

So it is that the Right Wing on these boards have nothing of substance to say. Just “what movie you watching?” “What colour car do you prefer?” “What happens when you mix blue with yellow huh?”

Philosophy is the reaction of the human mind to infinity. Infinity is appreciated when we transcend the material plane. Philosophy is that reaction. Again: it is a departure from materialism therefore.

2 Likes
10

A materialist philosopher will have to argue that the intellect arises from matter.

I’d love to see them try, now that the science has fleshed out and there’s still no way to create consciousness from matter.

1 Like
11

@LampAndNightingale

A materialist would argue biology is matter.

:clown_face:

1 Like
12

Yes so would I.

And there is no basis for consciousness arising from biological matter. It is of course shaped by biological matter, i.e. feelings of joy terminal when you stub your toe.

1 Like
13

@LampAndNightingale

I am not a materialist myself but I am familiar with their train of thought.

For instance, they would argue that the lack of consciousness in a person with a brain hemorrhage is proof of consciousness being a materially biological extension. Some of their viewpoints are valid and interesting.

:clown_face:

14

That is a valid argument at least. Re: brain insult —> consciousness deficit / complete loss of sentience.

However l’d have to see the precise examples.

1 Like
15

It’s quite simple actually. The argument in extreme form is: Decapitation is physical, and causes loss of sentience.

My response: As l say, biology, the physical circumstances, may modulate consciousness. Biology doesn’t create it though and that’s crucial for materialist philosophy to take off. Materialist philosophy hinges on matter giving rise to consciousness. I see no evidence for it yet.

I don’t know if physical decapitation will end sentience. Maybe, maybe not. Not enough data. But that’s besides the point anyway - the point being: matter giving rise to consciousness, not physical injury ending consciousness.

I would tentatively suggest: Consciousness is like a carrier bag in the breeze. It gets tangled in a tree - that is the physical body, the brain etc. The wind may then shake the branches, causing the bag to ripple, i.e. modulate = shifts in mood, feeligns etc. If the tree were felled, the bag would fall with it and that’d be the end of it all. Or the bag may come loose and float away.

The point of the analogy is: the carrier bag came from elsewhere.

1 Like
16

Your analogy depicts consciousness as a “carrier bag” temporarily entangled in the “tree” of the physical body and brain, rippling with external influences like moods. If the tree falls or the bag loosens, consciousness ends or floats away indefinitely. This suggests strict dependence on the material substrate, with no inherent divine ground ensuring continuity as in panentheism, which is my tentative position.

17

The carrier bag floating away is actually, more correctly, an infinitessimal fragment of divine light budding off (as per the famous Light Verse in the Qur’an).

It is always contingent on God, like the tree itself. However, the tree experience = a temporary valley of materialistic experience. The substrate you speak of (the tree / biological matter) is still energy (Qi, prana) i.e. the energy that is exchanged between molecules during chemical reactions or even mere molecular interactions (interactions = the ion flows through gated channels during a nerve impulse for example). It’s all energy flow but earthly. After death, no longer just earthly.

18

Example: Carrier bag is a flag instead.

Flag on mast of a ship ripples in the wind.
_Ship = this world, our bodily vessel, our physical reality etc.
_The rippling = our experience of this world, just as many stacked sinewaves can give you a complex waveform with timbre, i.e. the rich sond of a violin

Death: the ship reaches port and what remains of the flag is folded away
_Lack of rippling = perceived brief period of time before resurrection as per Qur’anic teaching

Afterlife: Idealised ship(s), perfected flag, new winds, new voyages ad lib ad astra for ever
_The rippling of the flag now: Perception of the afterlife.

Alll souls are really of God but for them to be placed on a time axis they must bud off from God and thus they effectively become contingent on God even though God is all per panentheism.The “contingent” nature of individual souls = their compartmentalisation from the Source (God). That compartmentalisation is contingent on God’s will and has been promised to us to be eternal, be it hell or heaven, possibly also a neutral space called The Heights but l’m unsure if that eventually gets resolved to heaven and hell.

19

I’ll try and retrace this to the original point:

I doubt that brain insult, decapitation, death prove that the mind is matter based, because that avoids the question, and cannot solve the question, of how consciousness arises from matter - c.f. the analogy of a carrier bag gettiing caught in a tree or a flag tied to a ship’s mast. The carrier bag didn’t grow from the tree nor did the flag from the mast., even if the carrier bag goes down with the tree or the flag with the mast at the point of destruction.

Materialists cannot do philosophy because they cannot explain how mind arises from matter. This is crucial for materialist philosophy to take off. Sure, they can do political philosophy, which is predicated on matter (cashflow).

Therefore all philosophy aligns with the Left Wing (not saying you must be political to be a philosopher, but there’s an alignment).

Therefore the way to the Philosopher-King, the best ruler, would be something which aligns with the Left Wing.

By implication, his opposite number, the Tyrant, will align with the Right Wing.

It’s true that Left Wing can give materialist tyrants, so amendment: the Far Left are much like the Far Right, they are all materialists, and will only ever give you a despotic (one guy making up rules) tyranny.

By implicaton then, the Philosopher King will align with the centrist Left aka “Champagne” Socialists.

20

The concepts in Plato’s The Republic do not neatly map onto modern left-right politics, as the left-right spectrum originated during the French Revolution, long after ancient Greece. His concept of the Philosopher-King emphasises wisdom, virtue and elite rule for the common good. It critiques democracy as being susceptible to demagogues whose ideas are often considered aristocratic or anti-egalitarian rather than left-wing.

I tend to use the neo-mythical Lord of the Rings to illustrate the differences.

In this analogy, Plato’s Philosopher-King is a rare, rigorously educated guardian who understands the ultimate truth (the Form of the Good) and rules selflessly, free from personal ambition or desire for wealth. This hierarchical system divides society into producers, warriors and rulers, prioritising rational order over equality or popular will. Modern interpretations view this system as elitist or technocratic and incompatible with left-wing egalitarianism and democracy’s emphasis on broad participation.

While Tolkien drew on classical philosophy, including Plato, Aragorn embodies a more Christian ideal of a virtuous, reluctant king, aligning him with the concept of servant leadership rather than Plato’s strictly rational Philosopher-King. While fan discussions and analyses note Platonic echoes, such as portraying Aragorn as an ‘ideal form’ of kingship, direct scholarly links emphasise Aristotelian virtues or Christ-like qualities over Plato’s philosophy.

Plato describes the tyrant as the endpoint of democracy: a lawless, desire-driven demagogue who seizes power amid chaos and lacks reason, oppressing others. This figure emerges from unchecked freedom, rather than from any specific modern ideology, such as right-wing authoritarianism. Plato’s sequence of aristocracy degenerating into timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and then tyranny, warns against extremes, regardless of left-right labels.

Philosophy predates the left–right divide, which contrasts the equality-focused left (socialism and progressivism) with the hierarchy-focused right (conservatism and tradition). Plato’s anti-democratic elitism is closer to right-wing critiques of populism than to left-wing materialism or collectivism. Broadly labelling philosophy as ‘left-wing’ ignores conservative thinkers such as Aristotle and modern right-leaning philosophers.

Sauron embodies absolute tyranny: a fallen Maia who seeks dominion via the One Ring by enslaving orcs and men through deception and terror, much like Plato’s desire-dominated despot. Saruman is similar too, a corrupted wizard who becomes power-hungry, betrays his allies, industrialises nature for control and falls to internal vice. Gollum embodies the tyrant’s soul: ring-enslaved, he murders his kin and is isolated in paranoia.

Your point about far-left and far-right materialism echoes the horseshoe theory, which states that extremes converge in authoritarianism and tactics such as suppressing dissent, unlike centrists. Plato’s tyrant fits this despotic pattern, but his Philosopher-King seeks transcendent wisdom rather than material equity, hardly “champagne socialism”, a term used to disparage affluent leftists who preach equality while being hypocritical.

Tolkien was profoundly anti-materialist, viewing unchecked materialism as a corrupting force that degrades beauty, nature and the human spirit. The One Ring epitomises material temptation: a physical artefact that promises mastery but enslaves the will. This mirrors the tyrant in Plato’s work, who is gripped by appetites. Characters like Gollum devolve into subhuman beings obsessed with ‘My Precious’, while Bombadil, detached from power, embodies the joyful stewardship of the created order. In his letters, Tolkien critiqued modern ‘progress’, lamenting the triumph of machines over craftsmanship and the erosion of myth by scientism.

I believe that the so-called “Tech-Bros” are modern day smiths of “Rings of Power” using programs like Palantir (a direct reference) and AI as means to gain absolute power. So, the left-right dichotomy seems to be a distraction and really we are talking about a top-down distinction. True resistance lies in decentralised wisdom, shunning the Ring’s allure.