What is the left?

This thread got me thinking:

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=198392

In practice, elitism is the rule, egalitarianism the exception.
Illiberalism is also the rule, liberalism the exception.
What we have in the world today, what we’ve always had, are competing forms of authoritarian elitism.
What’s different about modernity is not that it’s making the world more egalitarian and/or liberal, FTMP it’s not, but that it’s introducing new forms of authoritarian elitism.

In the premodern world, there was largely only agrarian and commercial authoritarian elitism, in the modern world there’s also industrial and postindustrial authoritarian elitism.
In the premodern world, there was largely only national conservative and religious authoritarian elitism, in the modern world there’s also global progressive and secular authoritarian elitism.
In the modern world, there’s also more quasi and pseudo egalitarianism and liberalism.

So what’s this contemporary antagonism between left and right, the west and BRICS really about?
Insofar as it’s not completely contrived, it’s about competing forms of authoritarian elitism.
FTMP the masses are simply incapable of organizing themselves, and so their agency, insofar as they have any, consists in which authoritarian elitists they give their support to.
Hitherto the masses have been incapable of creating grassroots movements capable of seriously challenging the ruling classes, and so there is little egalitarianism or liberalism in practice.

In America, Brazil and some parts of Europe like Italy where there’s actually a bit of difference between left and right, the right stands for national conservative and religious authoritarian elitism, as well as quasi or pseudo liberalism, the left stands for global progressive and secular authoritarian elitism, as well as quasi or pseudo egalitarianism.
And in places like Canada, Australia and NZ, where we’re laid back and don’t like to rock the boat, there is almost no difference between left and right.
Overall the west, both the left and right together, are more global progressive and secular, whereas the Muslim world are more national conservative and religious, while BRICS are somewhere in between.
Only time will tell which forms of authoritarian elitism will prevail, and where, assuming nuclear Armageddon isn’t imminent.

So in light of that; authoritarian elitism is the rule, liberal egalitarianism the exception, even in so called ‘democracies’, what does, or can that do to typology?

Left/Right: Quasi-Egalitarianism/Elitism

Top/Down: Authoritarianism/Quasi-Liberalism

Forward/Back: Progressive Technocracy/Conservative Theocracy

Quasi-Populism is perhaps less important.
One way of looking at it is; populists are more political economically egalitarian, authoritarian and progressive, and geosocially more elitist, liberal and conservative.

In democracies/covert oligarchies, it’s important for politicians to portray themselves as egalitarians, liberals and/or populists.

In leftwing authoritarianism, the economy is sometimes completely subsumed by the state, as it was behind the iron curtain, in rightwing authoritarianism, the church is sometimes completely subsumed by the state, as it was in Byzantium.

One can best understand my illustration if one first separates oneself from all prejudices about the conservative, the progressive, the right and the left and goes back to the basics. Plants and animals are and also all humans up to the time of the Neolithic Revolution and the beginning of writing and thus also of written history (i.e.: the beginning of historical science) were never progressive and never right or left, but always only conservative, because they firmly believed that only the conservative ensured their survival and punished everyone with death who rebelled against it. So there were always a few anti-conservatives, but they had no chance of being realised until the time of the changes just mentioned. Conservatism has been so dominant in about 98-99.99% of human history, namely in their natural history (macro-history or evolution), that nothing else was possible - this is what I meant when I said: “At the core, everyone is a conservative”. But since the Neolithic Revolution and the beginning of writing, and thus of written history, the anti-conservative has become more and more dominant, first slowly, then faster, finally exponentially, and soon called itself the progressive and also divided itself into right and left. The only problem is that this cannot go on forever, because it is not natural.

You must always take this into account if you want to understand why there can be right-wing conservatives and left-wing conservatives as well as right-wing progressives and left-wing progressives. As I said, the conservative and the progressive (anti-conservative) are opposites. And the right and the left are also opposites. We think we know that a progressive believes in progress - that is not entirely wrong either, but still a progressive is first and foremost an anti-conservative. He is more concerned with opposition than with the content of his belief (ideology). There is always progress anyway. A left-wing progressive is the progressive who is not so much anti-conservative as the progressive, but is more specifically aligned against everything right-wing conservative. All live from the opposites. That some of them believe in progress is the theoretical part of it, the practice is directed against the opposition. Now you can probably guess the rest: right-wing conservatives and left-wing progressives, like right-wing progressives and left-wing conservaives, are direct opponents. The only ones who do not attract any oppostion, or, as you could also say, all opposition, are the middles.

A right-wing progressive goes with progress, but wants to control others for himself and/or his group by using technical and scientific progression and master morality, i.e. as a representative of the technically and scientifically progressive master people, he wants to control the rest, i.e. enslave the others, especially the left-wing conservative. A left-wing progressive goes with progress, but wants to control others for himself and/or his group by using technical and scientific progression and slave morality, i.e. as a representative of the technically and scientifically progressive slave people, he wants to control the rest, i.e. enslave the others, especially the right-wing conservative. The right-wing conservative goes along with the conservative, but wants to control others for himself and/or his group by using conservative values and master morality, i.e. as representative of the conservative master people the rest, i.e. enslave the others, especially the left-wing progressive. The left-wing conservative goes along with the conservative, but wants to control others for himself and/or his groupby by using conservative values and egalitarian morality, i.e. as representative of the conservative egalitarian people the rest, i.e. enslave the others, especially the right-wing progressive.

So we have for instance:

MOST CONSERVATIVE (PURELY CONSERVATIVE): CONSERVATIVE.
SECOND MOST CONSERVATIVE: LEFT-WING CONSERVATIVE, MIDDLE CONSERVATIVE, RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE.
THIRD MOST CONSERVATIVE: CONSERVATIVE LEFT, CONSERVATIVE MIDDLE, CONSERVATIVE RIGHT.
MOST PROGESSIVE (PURELY PROGRESSIVE): PROGESSIVE.
SECOND MOST PROGESSIVE: LEFT-WING PROGRESSIVE, MIDDLE PROGRESSIVE, RIGHT-WING PROGRESSIVE.
THIRD MOST PROGESSIVE: PROGRESSIVE LEFT, PROGRESSIVE MIDDLE, PROGRESSIVE RIGHT.
MOST MIDDLE (PURELY MIDDLE): MIDDLE.
SECOND MOST MIDDLE: CONSERVATIVE MIDDLE and PROGRESSIVE MIDDLE as well as LEFT-WING MIDDLE and RIGHT-WING MIDDLE.
THIRD MOST MIDDLE: MIDDLE CONSERVATIVE and MIDDLE PROGRESSIVE as well as MIDDLE LEFT and MIDDLE RIGHT.
SPECIAL CASE EXREME LEFT: EXTREME LEFT (LEFTISM).
MOST LEFT (PURELY LEFT): LEFT.
SECOND MOST LEFT: CONSERVATIVE LEFT, MIDDLE LEFT, PROGRESSIVE LEFT.
THIRD MOST LEFT: LEFT-WING CONSERVATIVE, LEFT-WING MIDDLE, LEFT-WING PROGRESSIVE.
SPECIAL CASE EXTREME RIGHT: EXTREME RIGHT (RIGHTISM).
MOST RIGHT (PURELY RIGHT): RIGHT.
SECOND MOST RIGHT: CONSERVATIVE RIGHT, MIDDLE RIGHT, PROGRESSIVE RIGHT.
THIRD MOST RIGHT: RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE, RIGHT-WING MIDDLE, RIGHT-WING PROGRESSIVE.

There are more than these mentioned 39 examples. History is full of them.

Like I said: the so-called “progressive” is the anti-conservative. Nothing is as anti-human as the anti-conservative. The left, the right and the middle are not as anti-human as the anti-conservative (“progressive”). They would have to become very extreme to be able to participate in at least one of the sides or the “lower” middle of the anti-conservative. And indeed: communism and fascism (especially National Socialism) are also anti-conservatives (“progressives”) because they are left-wing-“progressives” of the extreme kind and right-wing-“progressives” of the extreme kind respectively. But the greatest enemies of humanity are the pure “progressives”, because they are the most " progressives" (most anti-conservatives). We can see this very well in the current development. It shows us that in a historically short time man will be replaced by machines with the aim of eliminating him for the most part and making the rest completely dependent on the machines, before this rest will also be eliminated. It does not get any more anti-human than this! In his book “Der Untergang des Abendlandes” (“The Decline of the West”), published in 1918 (I) and 1922 (II), Spengler already predicted that man is about to become the slave of the machine. Others also said this later, but Spengler was the first to say it and make it very explicit. Goethe (1749-1832) already said this, but not so explicitly as later Spengler.

If the machines are much, much more intelligent in terms of the algorithms of mental processes than the most intelligent human being and also than all intelligent human beings put together, then human beings will have returned to where they were before, when there was no writing and all human beings had to be conservative (for natural and primitive cultural reasons - they would not have survived otherwise). All humans will be conservative again, because the machines will have taken over the “progressive” (anti-conservative), and again humans will have to be conservative (for almost the same reasons as then - this time only as high civilisationals: last men).

I was thinking something along similar lines.
The progressive right use progressive or empirical, rational, heterodox, scientific, philosophical and secular means for rightist or elitist, exclusionary, segregationist, separatist and supremacist ends.
Conversely the conservative left use intuitional, emotional, orthodox and religious means for leftist or egalitarian, inclusionary ends.
Sometimes we group empiricism and rationalism with heterodoxy but they could just as easily if not more so be grouped with orthodoxy, it just depends on what sort of orthodoxy we’re talking about, if it ultimately has some basis in what is empirical and rational.

Entropy.

I think entropy happens when you go too far left (egalitarian) or right (elitist), but interesting take.

What’s-his-name did a take on this and I was surprised to see another person with the same idea. The left (also called progressivism) is a manifestation of entropic release of energy from within the system. This is achieved primarily as a result of ever-increasing technology. The more technology exists and the faster it is being developed, the more leftism/progressivism will spread and increasingly dominate that society.

Moldbug, that’s the name of the guy I was thinking of. He explained this pretty well. Communism is a form of leftism, therefore is a form of entropy. Obvious when you look at the results of enacting communism within a society. The enlightenment was also a form of leftism, therefore entropic. You would expect it to have resulted in a slackening and at least partial collapsing of the existing social structures, norms, values and ethics of the people. And it did. Every move leftward is a collapse or lessening of something that had prevously existed as an important component of society. Marriage, duty, hard work, frugality, independent thought, even concepts themselves. Today we are so far advanced in the entropic decline that even the most basic concepts are collapsing. What is a man, what is a woman? Did you know you’re a bigot for even asking such a thing? Of course men can get pregnant, you transphobe neandertal!

Well that’s an interesting take.

So you see leftism as a slackening of the prevailing sociopolitical and economic order rather than an alternative order.

So leftism is basically chaos, disorder, discordianism, nihilism.
Leftists aren’t presenting a different order so much as tearing parts or all of the existing one down.
They’re not so much a thing as an anti-thing.
Defined wholly by what they’re against, not what they’re for.

I can definitely appreciate your point, there’s at least some validity to it.
Still I tend to think of the left as at least partly something.
Like communism, socialism and ergatocracy are something.
They’re a different set of property and political norms rather than a lack of norms.
While the USSR and the 2nd world behind the iron curtain didn’t achieve anything like what Marx envisioned, it was something, it had its own sort of law and order, it wasn’t a lack of law and order or anarchy.

Authoritarian socialism is crap, but social democracy/liberalism can be good.

As I’ve explained in this thread, for me communism, socialism and ergatocracy are leftwing, but liberalism, populism and progressivism, republicanism, democracy and technocracy, aren’t exactly leftwing.
Regardlessly, republicanism has actually been one of the most successful sociopolitical orders in unrevised history.
Rome was able to conquer half the Mediterranean as a timocratic republic, then the other half as a democratic republic.
It did all of its conquering after it overthrew its absolute monarchy and most of it before it became a dictatorship.
It was the most successful state in antiquity, perhaps because the vast majority of its neighbors were absolute monarchies.

And Britain, a constitutional monarchy, and America, a liberal republic, have ruled the world for the last 2-3 centuries between them.
The British and American systems are largely modeled on the Roman system.
The Roman system is arguably one of the best systems yet devised and fully realized, insofar as official history can be trusted.

And republics, with their constitutions, rule of law and separation of powers, elections and multiple political parties, are actually more complex and dynamic sorts of things than absolute monarchies.
If anything they contain a higher degree of order than absolute monarchies, which are largely subject to the whims of just one individual.

To me, leftism is egalitarianism, rightism elitism, and egalitarianism, like elitism, is a spectrum, never absolute, always relative, you could always have more or less egalitarianism or elitism.
Egalitarian ends and means can be reasonable or unreasonable, same as elitist ends and means.
To the degree they’re reasonable, they’re anentropic, to the degree they’re unreasonable, they’re entropic.

I agree today’s mainstream left is batshit, I mean from Woke to WW3 or World War Woke, they just can’t seem to do anything right, but it wasn’t always this way.
Throughout the centuries the left had its good and bad, same as the right.

Too much elitism and exclusivity on the one hand, and too much egalitarianism and inclusivity on the other, stagnates, or declines, you need a healthy flow between the two polarities, for people to be able to move up and down the ladder according to their talents and tenacity.
And if we have plenty of surplus resources, we can be compassionate and merciful to an extent just for the sake of it, because that’s who we are as human beings, so long as we don’t go overboard.

Yes, more or less. Although it doesn’t need to not also be or result in the appearance of entirely new alternate orders.

Correct.

Exactly. Look at every leftist issue or emotional position they take, is it not almost always a direct inversion and cancellation of a previously existing cultural, economic or otherwise stabilizing structure that already existed in human society? Marriage and procreation as having children in stable families, for example, is a very important and stabilized sociocultural institution. What are among the biggest leftist issues? Abortion (mothers killing their own children), homosexuality (abnormal sexual relationships without the possibility of procreation) and transgenderism (confusion of the basic sociocultural and biological categories of male and female).

Yes I think you are on the right track by subjecting these labels and terms to a lens having more to do with elitism vs non-elitism. When we see things in this light they make a lot more sense, even the confusions and breakdowns of the terms make sense. Like how today’s leftwing people are totally crazy compared to the leftwing people of just a generation ago. Everyone is being sucked up into false dichotomies pushing positive pressures of cognitive dissonance to keep them from figuring out that the entire system is pushing and pulling everything in more or less the same direction – technocracy. Biodigital surveillance and authentication, spatial web 3.0, CBDCs, digital IDs, XR (mixed reality AR and VR), advanced robotics and AI, all of this is converging. The “elites” want a single “holistic system of systems” covering the entire planet and as close to 100% of its people as possible. Panopticon. Keep in mind that when I was talking about my and Moldbug’s theory of leftism as entropy Moldbug specifically ties this to the level of technology and the pace of technological development/change. More tech and a faster pace of change = more destabilization. This is “creative destruction” from the perspective of technocratic elitism, the conversion of more and more sociocultural substance into pure energy “entropy”-- they prefer things to be in a fragile state of chaos, imbalance and uncertainty. Never let a crisis go to waste is their motto, along with problem - reaction - solution. Create the problems you will propose the solutions for, those “solutions” being exactly what you wanted from the start. Think vaccine passports and biodigital authentication, and how these will work within a larger social credit system. “Cancel culture” is nothing but the early stages of social credit systems being introduced in the west, effectively communism.

I don’t get too hung up on left vs right anymore, or all the “isms” theories and labels-terms. It’s best to see through all of that mush and conceptual proliferation to what is really going on below, at the level of purer meaning and truth itself.

So is leftism nihilism, tearing down the existing sociopolitical order, or utopianism, building up a new sociopolitical order, or both?
Is there both a negative left and a positive left?

Both of course. Utopians are nihilistic enough to deny reality and deny actual authentic human meaning in order to pursue their crazy fantasy utopian ideals. They don’t care who or what gets crushed in the way of their “progress”. And that whole sort of impulse, movement, desire, inclination is rooted directly in the entropic collapsing of existing structures.

Imagine the emotional and mental ‘collapses’ needed to have occurred and still be occurring within someone for them to be like this. Then they spread their personal entropy like a disease outward to others, infecting others around them at both the memetic and genetic levels until society itself (keep in mind this is all occurring within the broader context of declining intelligence, declining mental health and declining physical health all declining at the genetic level as a result of accumulated unpurged gene mutations in western populations that have not been subject to hardly any purifying selection since the late 1800s) becomes a reflection of all this chaos, insanity, irrationality and death-drive.