A thumbnail history of the Left/Right
The classical period is a period foremost of action born of virtue, and this is to understand “virtue” not as the Church uses it, but etymologically, that of manliness, virility. Arete was the concept of human excellence, the excellence the heroic, action oriented, free-man.
The Christian epoch obviously began something new. That Christianity would except slaves and women as equals to freemen was incredulous to the classical mind. But the Christian epoch was not a mere re-centering of Classical virtue, ie heroic virility, to God instead of humanity. It was a redefinition of virtue from action to principle. Feurebach was right in that we created God as a repository for our highest principles. The sea-change shift was from the Classical seeking action and heroic virility to the Christian seeking piety and higher principles. It became an era of fealty, fidelity, and faith to the higher principles embodied in God. The chivalrous knight was virile, yes, but in the service of God, not heroism as an end in itself. Arete continued in aristocracy (from the same root as ‘arete’) but always an arete justified as serving a higher purpose (e.g. the divine right of kings).
The next sea-change in historical epochs saw the birth of Leftism. Etymologically the Left was born in the French revolution through seating arrangements in the National Assembly but this was just part of a long tradition going back to the English Civil War (mid-17th century). The Levelers and other Radical groups had the same exact goal as the French Jacobins. Historian Bernard Bailyn undertook to catalog the vast number of pamphlets, broadsides and letters of the American revolutionaries and concluded that they were influenced greatly in equal parts by the enlightenment thinkers, the English radical pamphleteers, and classical writers, especially the Roman Republic (not empire). Two out of the three ideological roots were of leftist origin, and the aim of the American Revolutionaries, the same as the English Radicals, were to minimize the effects of advantage, especially the advantages of the landed aristocracy of the British Parliment and of the King. Jefferson who helped lay the keel of the American revolution went to France and helped there, and specifically lent a hand in the formulation of The Rights of Man. This is a part of history that the modern Right wants to revise. The Right claims the American founding fathers as their own, yet wants to distance themselves from the French leftist humanitarians with guillotines.
In the mid eighteeth century, in the north of England, common men (not elite intellectuals/scientists) partially relieved from under the yoke of aristocratic advantage (thanks entirely to the activism of leftist radicals) birthed the industrial revolution. It was the appropriation of incredible power not unlike Prometheus stealing fire from the gods. And of course this great power would inevitably lead to great advantage. The landed elite enclosed their fields evicting peasants who had farmed the “commons” for centuries. They instead raised sheep to feed wool to the new industrial machinery. The wildly ironic narrative from the Right is that these displaced and starving peasants “were saved” (Mises) from their misery by wage-slavery to the new class of advantaged elite, the Captains-of-Industry, aka the Robber Barons. The reality is that these displaced and starving peasants were fed to the machinery in equal measure with the wool, and slave-grown cotton.
By the end of the Victorian age (the dawn of the 20th century) the Left was thoroughly disillusioned with this Pandora’s box they had opened. They had freed the individual to stand alone, and standing alone the common man could not fend off the exploitation of the advantaged elite, both new industrialists and established aristocracy, who now posed Prometheus’ fire. This crisis of faith was couched in romanticism. In this paradigm shift the Leftist movement transitioned from resisting advantage by empowering the individual - to resisting advantage through unity/collectivism. The transition birthed the rise of labor unions and communism/socialism. Undaunted, yet attenuated by, the atrocities of these collectivist ideals when embodied into the 20th century communist regimes the Left remains collectivists. Seeing government as the embodiment of social justice warriors against the advantage of big-business the Left has become the modern statists that the Right despises.
Meanwhile on the Right change was slow to occur. In a gradual change of heart the Right has grown to accept the individual liberties and laissez faire economics of enlightenment leftism. Seeing business as the embodiment of individual liberties the Right has become the modern capitalists that the Left despises.
How clear is this understanding than in the American protest movements of the early 21st century. The Tea Party is a reaction to the abuses of big government. Occupy Wall Street is a reaction to the abuses of big business.
In this historical epoch since the enlightenment and industrial revolution there is the narrative that it is the era of individual liberty and social justice. But in my opinion that is a noble lie. That is to view the era from too close-up. Future historians may have a better view of an era dominated by: the rise of nationalism and the vast expansion of statism; the totalitarianism of communism and fascism; the horrors of Victorian industrialization; and the post-industrialization near-universal spread of wage-slavery (the ubiquity of which renders the term “wage-slavery” absurd because there is nothing to compare it to, it is accepted as a just-so reality). This is an age when all aspects of life and human interaction is mediated by the state and corporations. These future historians will look hard to find the evidence of freedom-centric issues (e.g. gay-marriage) which are exceptional not exemplary. What is exemplary is the continual growth of state regulated conformity.
I suggest that ours is an era where we seek, through many different means (e.g. capitalism and communism and theocracy all in a single generation), to create a more perfect society and way of living. It is the era of an ends centrality where everything is judged by what it yields (in material terms). That is to say this is the era of Leftism … but thankfully Our Leftist Social Justice Warriors are still burdened by the ball-n-chain of principled Rightists.
