Left and Right

Nothing Good Has Ever Come Out of the Right-Wing

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This single statement sums up the history of the right-wing pretty well with some qualifications, For instance, medieval Europeans generally didn’t believe in a flat earth and there were conservative critics of the excesses of the industrial revolution. But but you will never believe who said this.

“It is a historical fact that nothing good has ever come out of the right wing. If it had not been for such revolutionaries as Copernicus, Kepler, Giordano Bruno and Galileo, we should still believe that the earth is flat and the center of the universe. When capitalism developed, the establishment made no attempt to solve the social problems resulting from the industrial revolution, but went on to exploit the new working class mercilessly— thus giving rise to revolutionary thoughts as expressed in Marxist ideology. And all the necessary and just social improvements we have seen during the past 100 years have only been introduced after hard pressure from the left wing, with right-wing conservatives in constant retreat, pitifully trying to preserve as much as possible for themselves.

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11 replies »

  1. Povl Riis-Knudsen a Neo-Nazi.

    Sorry I cheated with google 🙂

    How exactly is Galileo and Copernicus not right-wing? They were both devout Catholics.

    Yeah, he’s a moron. I guess he never heard of Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, and Bach; or Shakespeare, Milton, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky; or Mendel, Maxwell, Newton or Boyle? Yeah some kind of nothing.

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  2. “Povl Riis-Knudsen a Neo-Nazi.

    Sorry I cheated with google :)”

    LOL.

    “I guess he never heard of Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, and Bach; or Shakespeare, Milton, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky; or Mendel, Maxwell, Newton or Boyle?”

    Could any of those really be said to represent the “right-wing” of their time? Maybe by today’s standards, of course.

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  3. “Could any of those really be said to represent the “right-wing” of their time? Maybe by today’s standards, of course.”

    The problem with the above definition of right-wing is that it is not revolutionary or innovative. Then by that definition the ancient regime was not right-wing either, but a creation of revolutionaries like Cardinal Richelieu and Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The ancient regime was very innovative visa-vise the old feudal order. It was the first centralized state in western Europe since Rome.

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  5. It’s hard to classify anything as left or right prior to the late eighteenth century, or do you think these terms might have some meaning in retrospect?

    For instance, is Aristotle a prototypical conservative and Plato a prototypical leftist?

    Were the absolute monarchs that emerged during the late medieval/early Renaissance period prototypes for anything?

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    • “It’s hard to classify anything as left or right prior to the late eighteenth century, or do you think these terms might have some meaning in retrospect?”

      I admit that classifying “right” and “left” can be hard, based on various differences people use in classification. I will say this thought, that before Locke and Rousseau nothing like the left as we understand it existed, i.e., before 1750 everybody was conservative and on the right. That is not to say there were not proto-leftists such as the Diggers, Munster or the Mazdakites, but all of them were deeply religious and sought divine sanction for their actions, something that is anathama to the left with its rallying cry of no gods, no kings, no masters.

      “For instance, is Aristotle a prototypical conservative and Plato a prototypical leftist?”

      Certainly Aristotle is Mr. Conservative, but I don’t think Plato is really left-wing. After all even in The Republic we see a very stark elitism and belief that a qualified elite (i.e., philosopher kings) should rule over the people.

      “Were the absolute monarchs that emerged during the late medieval/early Renaissance period prototypes for anything?”

      The Absolute Monarchs were, I think, at least prototypes of the modern nation state. Sure nationalism was not important yet, but the machinery of state was being refined and developed that would be used later by modern regimes.

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  7. “Was the Munster Rebellion a prototypical Marxist revolution?”

    I know Marxists would like to think so.

    I think that Munster is a classic example of millinerian peasant revolts/movements. They occurred in Persia and China as well.

    We also have to ask ourselves what is a typical Marxist revolution? Both Lenin’s and Mao’s revolutions were radially different, the former was a workers based revolution and the latter a peasant’s based, among other things.

    I think that while there might be superficial similarities between say Munster and communist revolutions they are just that superficial. Many of the motivations of Munster had to do with the belief in the imminent return of Christ, something anathema to Marx.

    What makes the left truly unique is that it seeks human solutions to human problems rather than divine. From Locke to David Horowitz or Marx to Chomsky they really don’t invoke supernatural aid or advice in resolving human problems. Whereas even the radical Diggers and Munster would have done so.

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  8. ““The mass political movements of the 20th century were vehicles for myths inherited from religion, and it is no accident that religion is reviving now that these movements have collapsed.”
    -John N Gray”

    ““Humanism is not an alternative to religious belief, but rather a degenerate and unwitting version of it” -John N Gray”

    I totally agree with that. Nothing new under the sun.

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