Political Spectrum

Political spectrums are not doctrinaire foundations for analysing political views, and there is no theory that explains any of them satisfactorily. Since coming into use at the end of the 18th century the terms have been often redefined. While the problem of assigning motives or views to groups which they do not hold has sometimes resulted, the spectrum theory still may hold some currency for compartive purposes.

Origin

The left-right classification originally came from the National Assembly in France just before the French Revolution. Members who supported political rights for all classes of society, would sit on the left side of the assembly hall in which they met. Members who supported the monarchy, would sit towards the right. Those who had been offended by their own party would frequently stand up and walk over to the other side of the hall in order to make a political statement. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. has said the spectrum theory was "adequate to the political simplicities of the nineteenth century, when the Right meant those who wished to preserve the existing order and the Left meant those who wished to change it. But the twentieth century, here as elsewhere, introduced new ambiguities."

Definitions

The original definition referred to Church and State issues from the late 18th century Enlightenment period. At its root was faith vs. rationalism, or the Church vs. secularism. The so-called "right", defined as "traditional interests" refered to the Church & monarchy who ruled by the Divine right of kings, and the so-called "left" constituted secular elements challenging the Church's longheld influence over civil government. These definitions have always been problematic when attempting to assign Western notions of "left and right" to societies which traditionally have no conception of separation of chuch and states, such as in Islam or Czarist Russia.

The monarchy and titled nobility became known as the "right"; this idea however has been disabused in the United States where a landlord class of titled nobles never existed, and in fact is specifically prohibited by the U.S. Constititution. Hence Europeans today, based upon their own cultural idioms and history, have an extremely discolored view of what the "American right" is.

The "left" is often described as advocating "change" of traditional systems and institutions of a society, however the leftist regimes of Cuba and North Korea stoutly resist changes other leftist regimes abandoned 20 years ago after seven decades of stagnation and exploitation of the oppressed common people by a privileged leftist ruling elite.

See also

• Nomenklatura
• Communist
• Socialist
• Fascist
• Libertarian
• Republican
• Democrat

External links

• a 2-d view with left-right based on US politics and a novel vertical axis