philosophy and left and right

chewy

wo this board is busy? i tought everyone was an amateur philospher

i was wondering how people see the idea of left and right idealogies fits into the world of philsophy

i as see it philosophy is a bout eithics and is beyond left and rightness but then

having being involed in lots of the antiwar stuff going on at themo and meeting lots of people from the left i can see they have there own idealogoies which they can skew in anyway they like to be ethical from their point of view

is there no universal architype of justice and ethics that can be applied which will do away with the boring left and right


lofty idea but i don't know else to express it

Beruthiel

points of view
I lean towards the left myself and find it very difficult to understand a righties point of view. Righties would see me as idealistic, I would see them as bullies. Who’s to say who’s right and who’s wrong.

perhaps we are both right to a degree :dunno:

m1ke

I think it's far too simplistic to see things in either black and white - or left and right.

There is a liberal/conservative/revolutionary axis to peoples view on any individual subjects - and possibly to human nature. People can even move along this axis during the course of their lifetime - from revolutionary in their youth and finally conservative in their old age(although this is a total stereotype). You can be all for civil rights and the improvement of social freedom but you can also be economically conservative. The political compass is a good demonstration of how politics can't be graded along a left/right spectrum.

When it comes to a 'universal architype of justice and ethics' - these are embedded in various constitutions. A particular view is taken in the preamble and later throughout the constitutions of the way we want justive and ethics - like the Irish one, believes in a natural law common to all human kind.

Kappar

I believe that categorising people into wings isn't a good idea it cannot reflect the real issues of people.

Walls

There is a strong connection between Politics and Philosophy in historical terms, at least. The French Revolution was born out of Enlightenment Ideals which overthrew old world ideas. (Gotta work and here comes the boss - I'm hopefully going to fill out these ideas later)

chewy

I believe that categorising people into wings isn't a good idea it cannot reflect the real issues of people.

yeah and i don't doing that either but its hard to avoid... i mean when you talk about ethics it still seems to get bogged down in politics, i mean you could say someone is doing something because they believe it is right and ethical but that could mean bombing somewhere, so can really say you have an interest in overiding interest in ethics and justice when it simply could be justice as you see it from your political point of view

TheSonOfBattles

Just out of interest, what are the ideals of Lefties and Righties. Never really knew/cared, and now seems to be as good a time as any to find out as this seems to be an interesting thread.

simu

Originally posted by TheSonOfBattles
Just out of interest, what are the ideals of Lefties and Righties. Never really knew/cared, and now seems to be as good a time as any to find out as this seems to be an interesting thread.

That question's more appropriate for the politics board. Do a search before you post there though - it's a topic that has come up many times before and usually creates a lot of controversy too!

Left and right can have different meanings in different times and places whereas philosophy tries to look beyond current trends and events to get at deeper meanings like maybe the patterns of thought that led us to dividing the political arena into 2 opposing spheres.

simu

is there no universal architype of justice and ethics that can be applied which will do away with the boring left and right

Did justice and ethics exist before there were humans? I think they are creations of humans or a product of human society and that we have to figure out the best ways to uphold ethical standards all by ourselves. I don't think you can look for "laws of universal justice" the same way one would look for laws of say, thermodynamics.

Ethical systems in different countries around the world have some things in common though and you could examine these and compare them. Then you'd have to establish criteria for judging different ethical systems. It seems to me however that it's all still pretty relative - an Irishperson and an Afghanistani Mullah's versions of what constitutes ethical behaviour would vary quite a bit!

It's not so much that the left and right are boring - they are dangerous simplifications of complex real world situations. You get the choice between X and Y's way of doing things as if they were the only two possibilities in existence.

DadaKopf

Since when the hell was there a philosophy board?

KlodaX

Originally posted by DadaKopf
Since when the hell was there a philosophy board?

LMAO

chewy

and then of course it depends who categorising you....

if you say are against the death penalty because you believe its against the fundamentals of human justice then
you can be then classed as liberal and by association a lefty and mccarthy could could accuse you of being a commie...

could you convince someone your acting via ethics without them thinking you acting out of politic dogma

and of cour the irish person and the mullah are acting from a background of religious education and values even myself who is decided to reject the religion the born into....


em the above poster should try this http://www.politicalcompass.org/
and see where they end up could surprise ya.....

DadaKopf

To my knowledge, the distinction between right and left, in philosophical terms, is down to the rival ontologies of Kant and Hegel.

To oversimplify: Kant's vision placed importance on individual autonomy and the autonomy of rationality; if we act soley in accordance with the infinite, universal laws of the universe, we can be free. Hegel placed importance on the process of history and freedom as a collective process; we are all bound to each other and are therefore all committed to a historical process that will eventually attain to a state of pure spirit (freedom).

From these two guys' philosophies (both Enlightenment thinkers), two very different modern conceptions of Man, ethics, politics, freedom, art emerged.

Over time, the distinction came to be characterised as 'right' (Kant) versus 'left' (Hegel), as people like Friedrich Hayek and Karl Marx popped up (even though Hegel came to be associated with Hitler at one point).

But, really, I think these terms are meaningless. Right can mean pro-free market, or 'conservative', or libertarian. On the other hand, anarchist libertarians are considered 'leftist', even though figures like Mikhail Bakunin were libertarians who rejected all philosophical and social systems.

A committed post-Marxist (i.e. lefty) himself, Jean Baudrillard said a few nice things about the decreasing meaningfulness of the left/right distinction:

But if the entire cycle of any act or event is envisaged in a system where linear continuity and dialectical polarity no longer exist, in a field unhinged by simulation, then all determination evaporates, every act terminates at the end of the cycle having benefited everyone and been scattered in all directions.

[...]

All hypotheses are possible, although this one is superfluous: the work of the Right is done very well, and spontaneously, by the Left on its own. Besides, it would be naive to see an embittered good conscience at work here. For the Right itself also spontaneously does the work of the Left. All the hypotheses of manipulation are reversible in an endless whirligig. For manipulation is a floating causality where positivity and negativity engender and overlap with one another; where there is no longer any active or passive. It is by putting an arbitrary stop to this revolving causality that a principle of political reality can be saved.

- from http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-simulacra-and-simulations.html

Because we're living in a simulation of the world, substantive, meaningful talk of ethics, politics or ideology is without substance. The left/right dichotomy is formless. But what remains?

chewy

we've said that it isn't fair to label people left or right but we do and that it originated from teh enlightment and is more a economic idea then anything else

but how do you get beyond the left and right accusations...

somebody on another thread suggested compassion was a lefty notion?

its not its just a notion

of course ive been talking in very high horse? terms ,which ya can on the internet im no angel?

DadaKopf

What do you suggest?

chewy

that the answer is you can't

people will label you what they want to and your just going have keep doing what ya believe in, but even if i accept that im still trying to figure out the relationship between politics, philosphy and ethics....


even if a seperation isn't possible i like to be able to see in my head a distinction....


everyone believes that there doing there best, as said in another thread "they try there best not to screw people over" but we ineably hurt people oursleves acting out of fear or jealously etc....

i did the political compass and i was surprised at how left im am in terms of that test(i know the worlds moved to the right alot recently[relatively]).

it would be foolish of me to think of all people on right especially those who would actually consider themselves rightwing to be evil or that they're just ignorant and they'll learn. its not my wish that they'd see the light and begin to have socialist notions, as i don't identify with socialism.... i don't even want them to be nearer my ideas cos my ideas are off kilter too...


ok lets a bad example when somebody sees a child fall... (apart from laughter which is a relief the child is ok response)

we all feel sorry for it feel its pain... can remember or imagine that happening to you can that not be expand to a societal level to explain how there is a common sense of justice and ethics

rde

Did justice and ethics exist before there were humans?

Of course they did. Any species that's even remotely social develops ethics. Granted, chimps probably don't debate the subject, but any social structure is built around ethics by any other name.

I don't want to get into defining stuff, but I generally consider 'ethics' to mean the rules for an idealised society; how we should act in order to do unto other as we etc. In this sense it transcends law (natural or otherwise) which only dictates what we have to do. Of course, laws are based on ethics; they're just those bits of the Ethical Code that are considered essential rather than optional.

In this context, one's political leaning is central to one's view of what ethical behaviour entails. If you believe that the world is best served by a neocon president (or puppetmaster, as the case may be), then it would be unethical to let the hippies rule the day, with their pernicious agenda that's only going to keep the free market's inexorable climb to an earthly paradise.

Of course, 'right' can generally be a label stuck on social conservatives; a lot of these are the so-called 'religious right'. Are they right-wing because of their beliefs, or vice versa? If their opposition to, say, stem cell research has a religious basis, then the question becomes relevent. Well, maybe not relevent, but possibly worthy of 4.5 minutes pondering while the telly's muted during the ads.

chewy

thanks for replying to my Q's rde


i like what your saying in the last two paragraphs, but


"In this context, one's political leaning is central to one's view of what ethical behaviour entails."

which comes first, i don't quite think its a chicken and egg situation even with your points about religion

hmmm i was going to say that surely anyones sense of ethics initialy comes from a gut feeling, and therefore you develop a sense of right or wrong, rather then a sense of republic or democrat, first. ie ethics then politcs

but perhaps ethics come in where you have to think about something and thats probably after/beyond gut feeling

rde

hmmm i was going to say that surely anyones sense of ethics initialy comes from a gut feeling, and therefore you develop a sense of right or wrong, rather then a sense of republic or democrat, first. ie ethics then politcs

but perhaps ethics come in where you have to think about something and thats probably after/beyond gut feeling

Inevitably, I must repeat the wisdom of others, when they said that it's unhelpful in terms of 'right' and 'left'; in fact, I'd extend that to say it's unhelpful to talk about 'politics'. The reason right and left are so hard to define is that they encompass so much; there's no monolithic entity called 'politics' where we tick a number of boxes, and that's our polical outlook defined. Our politics, like our ethical sense, is merely an accumulation of attitudes based on our experiences. Humanity's love of labelling means we call some of those attitudes 'ethics', some 'law' or 'justice' and some 'politics'. Some of those political attitudes we call 'right', and some 'left'. Some of those right-wing attitudes we call 'fiscall conservative', and some 'socially conservative'. And so on, ad infinitum.

Can't separate ethics, justice and politics? Don't worry about it. Though they may differ procedurally, they're all the same thing. In fact, they're probably defined by how we deal with them. Citizenship? We're dealing with the alleged problem through a referendum, so it must be political. But there's also a judicial component when it's dealt with through the courts (or Department of Justice). And who could deny that it's also an ethical question?

simu

Any species that's even remotely social develops ethics. Granted, chimps probably don't debate the subject, but any social structure is built around ethics by any other name.

Other species have observable modes of behaviour. Humans have ideas about different possible modes of behaviour and the desirability of different versions of these which may not always be put into practise and thus observable in human society. These ideas are what I consider ethics to be.

Then again, maybe this is anthropocentric bias:)

Capt'n Midnight

how did that quote go

"capitalism is the explotation of man by man, wherer as communism is the exact opposite."

thought you meant left and right as in clockwise and anticlockwise - is the left sinister ?

chewy

i don't get the meaning of that quote?

for example a friend of mine is dead certain that if we reject capitalism then all will be fine, but for me that is too simply, the viewpoint i would go with is that you have to look at the roots causes of things, so he would say war in iraq: the root cause capitalism, but thats not going back far enough the problem is people ability to be mean to eachother ... so you can't just get rid of captialism and all will be fine you have to lok at how people minds and motivations... so so talking about left and right is still talking on the surface of things ?

DadaKopf

It was a rhetorical comment by someone (an economist like JK Galbraith or something) about the fact that at the time of the cold war, capitalism and communism were as bad as each other.

for example a friend of mine is dead certain that if we reject capitalism then all will be fine, but for me that is too simply, the viewpoint i would go with is that you have to look at the roots causes of things, so he would say war in iraq: the root cause capitalism, but thats not going back far enough the problem is people ability to be mean to eachother ... so you can't just get rid of captialism and all will be fine you have to lok at how people minds and motivations... so so talking about left and right is still talking on the surface of things ?

Yes, that view is too simplistic. Nonetheless, the structure of the capitalist system engenders certain kinds of values and behaviours that, perhaps if not in place, wouldn't happen. Rejecting capitalism doesn't necessarily mean the rejection of 'human nature' - let's assume that is a dynamic confluence of inherited biological factors and environment - but rejecting capitalism means rejecting an entire system of production, control and exploitation. Or, at least, significantly rejecting damaging aspects of its structures.

I have recently been reading a lot about Africa. Although we imagine 18th century Africa to be a continent of distinct ethnic groups and tribes, who fought over issues of land, property and control, the reality was very different before the colonisers arrived. Social systems were fluid, ethnic communities were fluid, economic competition existed between groupings but due to their social system, generally speaking, the same problems as in Europe did not persist. When the slave traders arrived, and subsequently the colonisers, they foisted capitalism on Africans and, with their racialist prejudices, invented tribes where there were none, favoured some invented groups over others through economic and political pay-offs to buy allegiance and contributed significantly to the emergence of a fairly violent postcolonial situation.

The imposition, according to many contemporary scholars, of capitalism on Africa and the whole world has created the culture of capitalism, which has generated cultures of violence in the South, and cultures of apathy in the north. Capitalism isn't a system that reveals human nature - its powerful exponents invent human nature in a way that they convince us that it is "human nature".

I don't deny the import of natural constraints such as the ecological system, our biological make up, imperatives of survival etc., but to me this system brings out the worst in us and it's a system that can change - within limits. Changing the system will change the way people behave, but for people to be receptive to change, they must be able to see that change, to want that change, to make that change.

chewy

capitalism and communsim are as bad as each other imho



"Changing the system will change the way people behave, but for people to be receptive to change, they must be able to see that change, to want that change, to make that change."


to expand on your last paragraph, i do btw agree that capitalism exacerbates individualism and all that, but (...) i guess one has to work on two tracks then you may be suggesting, changing the system cos it needs change now, looking at our attitudes...




was there an name for the african system..... one would presume the fluidity you speak of would probably be alot to do with respect for the land... ie sustainability

DadaKopf

was there an name for the african system..... one would presume the fluidity you speak of would probably be alot to do with respect for the land... ie sustainability

From what I've read, the most generally applicable term would be 'kinship system'. But that's not to say that cultures or civilizations (whatever they were) were the same throughout Africa, clearly they weren't. Some cultures like Ethiopia had developed state structures, the Ibo of Nigeria were nomadic kinship groups.

They obviously weren't into 'sustainability' because they weren't industrialised, and I honestly don't know how he cultures of Africa saw their place in the world.

I was just suggesting behaviour changed with the imposition of capitalism.

Interesting thing though: some guy visited this tribe in the Philippenes called the Lue. He couldn't find any reasons why the Lue were any different from any other groups surrounding them, he tried everything but they just were the same as everyone else. So he concluded that what set them apart and defined their cultural identity and separateness was the fact that they felt they were Lue.

Cultural identity is a funny thing.

chewy

The imposition, according to many contemporary scholars, of capitalism on Africa and the whole world has created the culture of capitalism, which has generated cultures of violence in the South, and cultures of apathy in the north. Capitalism isn't a system that reveals human nature - its powerful exponents invent human nature in a way that they convince us that it is "human nature".



so what would you guess socialism would do us, good and bad

hmm interesting thought the good aspect of capitalism...

funky penguin

Originally posted by Beruthiel
points of view
I lean towards the left myself and find it very difficult to understand a righties point of view. Righties would see me as idealistic, I would see them as bullies. Who’s to say who’s right and who’s wrong.

perhaps we are both right to a degree :dunno:

Or both wrong....?

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by funky penguin
Originally posted by Beruthiel
points of view
I lean towards the left myself and find it very difficult to understand a righties point of view. Righties would see me as idealistic, I would see them as bullies. Who’s to say who’s right and who’s wrong.

perhaps we are both right to a degree

Or both wrong....?

The confilct between these philosohies sounds a bit like the aftermath of a nuclear war - It doesn't matter who is right - afterwards all that matters is who is left.

funky penguin

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
The confilct between these philosohies sounds a bit like the aftermath of a nuclear war - It doesn't matter who is right - afterwards all that matters is who is left.

Okay, was that a purpose built play on words, or just a million to one chance? In my experience, million to one chances happen nine times outta ten.

DadaKopf

It's one of those other famous quotes.

Anyway, any chance we can get back on topic?

What was the topic?

funky penguin

It is on topic.
Philiosophies on left and right wing.

Is it a famous quote? Who said it?

simu

It didn't turn up in when I searched in google - maybe the Capt made it up. Neway, how about discussing the original topic rather than just coming up with a long list of quotable quotes? (I'm not forbidding such quotes but any that are used should help fuel the discussion rather than end it).

chewy

it was a good quote