I’ve been doing a thought experiment for the past couple of weeks, ever since someone asked me in casual conversation what I thought the expression “right-wing” means. On the spot I couldn’t really give a great answer, and probably tried a bit too hard to sound objective and unbiased, going on and on about things like how conservatism can be either libertarian or authoritarian but so, too, can liberalism, and how “extreme” political positions can be really hard to identify because what is considered “extreme” today may not be tomorrow, or may not have been yesterday. Suffice to say, I blew it.
As I am wont to do, after this conversation I gave the question a lot more thought, trying to come up with a better answer that I might have given had I been prepared for the question.
Obviously, “right-wing” (and/or “far-right”) means extreme conservatism, but what is “conservatism”, and what does “extreme” actually mean, i.e., what is the difference between conservatism that is “extreme” and conservatism that is not “extreme”? Same applies to “left-wing” or “far-left” liberalism; what’s the difference between the “left” and the “far left”? I had someone tell me recently that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are “far left” “extremists” because, in that person’s words, “They really want what they want.” To which I had to respond, “Everyone really wants what they want; ‘really wanting what you want’ doesn’t make you an extremist.” I don’t think the person had an answer for that. But we didn’t discuss what does, or what would, make you an extremist.
Now comes the obligatory clarification that while Both Sides® are not Just As Bad™, there are in fact ”extremes” and “extremists” on both “sides”. This is not about proportion or equivalency; as I’ve written before:
I think the difference between [how and why the two sides’ respective partisans distort reality for their own ends] may lie in the wishful-thinking element, viz., the nature and character of liberal-Democratic wishes vs. conservative-Republican wishes. I think the latter bother me more than the former because, at least in my view, the former are benign where the latter are malignant. Liberal-Democratic wishes, tainted by solidarity and compassion, may be annoying, but conservative-Republican wishes, tainted by self-congratulation and resentment, are horrifying. I think the authoritarian ethno-nationalist wishes of the latter are worse than the egalitarian “politically-correct” wishes of the former.
OK, so here goes; let’s do this thought experiment, keeping the foregoing comparison in mind. What makes a person, an idea, or an ideology “right-wing” or “far-right” as opposed to merely “conservative” (or “left-wing” or “far-left” as opposed to “liberal” or “progressive”)? I’m going to try to do this by way of definition, as opposed to example (although I might provide a hypothetical or two) and without any reference to historical treatises, expert opinions, and other research; this is what I understand these terms to mean and how I define them for my own usage. Please, feel free to disagree and to offer alternative definitions and expertise in the comment section.
Conservatism at its core has always been about maintaining and preserving traditional, entrenched social and economic power structures. Put simply, keeping the power to control, shape and influence societies and economies where it has always been, and where it therefore “belongs” — and keeping it off-limits to those who don’t have it or have never had it.
Liberalism at its core has always been about rooting out and eliminating all forms and manner of oppression and injustice. Put simply, holding up a mirror to those entrenched power structures, asking why they have always been and why they must continue to be as they are, being dissatisfied with the answers, and demanding they change.
If we can start with the foregoing definitions as a baseline, defining and understanding right- and left-wing “extremes” should be fairly straightforward.
Right-wing extremists would, in the first instance, be strongly if not militantly committed to preserving those entrenched power structures, and be willing to go to extraordinary lengths and take extraordinary measures to achieve that. What constitutes “extraordinary” lengths or measures may be a matter of perspective, but let’s put whining about “political correctness” on one end of the spectrum and mass genocide on the other. In one sense, what makes one “extreme” is how far one is willing to go to preserve whatever power structure one wishes to preserve.
On the other hand, an “extreme” conservative or right-wing position might have to do with the power structure itself. If the goal is, e.g., to maintain or preserve a power structure that most people see and understand is manifestly unjust or oppressive and really ought to go away, or to bring back an anachronistic power structure that rightly went away a long time ago, that might be considered “extreme” or “right-wing”. If the desire to maintain or bring back outdated, unjust or oppressive power structures is accompanied by a denial that those power structures are or ever were oppressive or unjust in the first place, that might also be considered “extreme” or “right-wing”. And, if one believes that the going-away of those power structures is itself oppressive and/or unjust, that’s about as “far right” as one can go.
But what about “left-wing”, “far left” “extremists”? Surely these people do exist; I doubt anyone would seriously deny that, and there are many such persons here. I bristle as much as anyone else whenever I hear the O’Reillys and Hannitys of the world, and their acolytes among my friends and acquaintances, label anyone who doesn’t reflexively, automatically and blindly vote Republican or root for the GOP as “left-wing” “extremists” or “the far left”. I realize it may be counterproductive to try to hang some actual meaning on those monikers, which are meaningless in the context in which they’re most often used.
The common denominator of the “extreme” right and left is, as the foregoing discussion illustrates, oppression and injustice. Conservatives don’t necessarily see themselves as preserving or resurrecting oppression or injustice, even if that is the net effect of their stated goals. They may fail to recognize oppression or injustice where it exists, deny that what they’re trying to preserve (or bring back) is (or ever was) oppressive or unjust, or role-reverse themselves into victims of oppression and injustice as a result of their own loss of power.
Liberals, on the other hand, see, perceive and understand oppression and injustice in places conservatives don’t, and here’s where we begin to understand what “far left” and “left-wing” actually mean, i.e., where the “extremes” on the left really are. As with conservatives, the lengths to which one is willing to go in order to eradicate the targeted oppression or injustice has much to do with where one lies on the “extreme” spectrum. I can’t, however, think of an analogy to the spectrum I set forth above, which becomes important shortly.
The heart of what “left-wing” means lies, I think, in where we look for and where we find oppression and injustice, which can become “extreme” in nature when we look for it in places where it really isn’t, try a little too hard to find it, and/or get a little too outraged by it relative to its importance. Oppression and injustice are a part of human history, American history in particular; they exist in a lot of places, including those in which no one has thought to look. I don’t think anyone would deny that, nor that the only way to root out oppression and injustice is to be vigilant, and watch out for it everywhere and always.
But there’s a difference between watching out for it and actively looking for it so vigilantly that you always find it whether it’s really there or not. I have always maintained, and I’ve said this about liberals as well as conservatives, that if you want to believe something badly enough, everything proves it. There is an element of wishful thinking that pervades everyone’s perception of the world. No one, myself included, is immune to that. And it something that left- and right-wingers have in common when it comes to oppression and injustice, viz., seeing or perceiving it when it’s not really there, the key difference being that right-wingers see only themselves, whereas left-wingers see others (and, perhaps secondarily or by proxy, themselves) as victims of oppression and injustice.
Let me use an absurd, totally-made-up example that I don’t think any real person actually believes, to illustrate the point. As I’ve written many times, discrimination is not in and of itself a bad thing, nor is it always unlawful; it’s perfectly OK to discriminate if it’s reasonable under the circumstances. There are no women playing in the NFL; that’s discrimination, but it’s not unreasonable. Meaning, it is neither oppressive nor unjust that the best female athletes cannot compete with the best male athletes in football. However, from the “far left” “extreme” “left-wing” perspective, it would be considered oppressive and unjust that women are excluded from the professional gridiron and its concomitant money-making opportunities.
The fact that more and more women have gotten involved in major pro sports in non-playing capacities in recent years is really beside the point, and as I said, I don’t think anyone is about to start demanding that pro teams start inviting women to training camp or have minimum numbers of women on their rosters. Could that happen? Sure. What seems perfectly just and reasonable today might seem outrageously oppressive and unjust tomorrow.
That, I think, is both the strength and the weakness of liberalism, and what differentiates the “extreme” “left-wing” “far left” from the left that is neither “far” nor “extreme” nor on the “wing”. Right-wingers are committed to preserving their favored power structures; left-wingers are committed to finding and rooting out oppression and injustice. When you’re that committed, you tend to see things that aren’t there; your philosophy becomes self-fulfilling; you do a poor job choosing your battles and you turn allies, even important allies, into adversaries.
Let me make one more point about the “extreme” “left-wing” “far left” that I think is bound to come up in the comments. It has been said to me, and I have said to others, that one cannot truly understand oppression or injustice if one has never been a victim of it; i.e., one cannot proclaim or determine that [X] is not oppressive or unjust if one is not a victim of [X] or part of the group affected by or excluded from [X]. There is a great deal of truth and validity to that. But it’s an impediment to understanding — not to mention a validation of the foregoing thesis — when the response to a suggestion that [X] may not be unjust or oppressive, is a self-righteous sh**storm of passive-aggressive hysteria. I’ve seen that far too often, and I think it hurts the cause far more than it helps, although I won’t go so far as to allege that it’s why Trump won, as so many others have.
Finally, let me be clear that I’m not making any judgments as to whether “extreme” in and of itself is good or bad, a virtue or a vice, blameworthy or praiseworthy. As with everything else, context matters. People of good faith and good conscience can disagree over whether [X] is unjust or oppressive; just because one finds [X] to be neither doesn’t mean one cannot find [Y] to be both, and vice-versa. And let me repeat:
I think the authoritarian ethno-nationalist wishes of the [right] are worse than the egalitarian “politically-correct” wishes of the [left].
At the end of the day, I’d rather stand and be counted with those who go far out of their way to find oppression and injustice, than with those who go far out of their way to perpetuate it, downplay it, or deny that it ever existed. Which is why I’m on the Side® I’m on.