Political Spectrum
The idea of a political spectrum stems from deliberative bodies in which groups of like-minded men would sit on opposite sides of a chamber, which gave rise to terms like "left" and "right" being attached to the views of the men on those sides.
The earliest known left-right classification was that of the National Assembly in France just before the French Revolution. 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." [1] In modern times, the left emphasizes collective wisdom as a guiding force (see planned economy), while the right emphasizes individual rights.
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" referred to the Church & monarchy who ruled by the Divine right of kings, and the so-called "left" constituted secular elements challenging the Church's long-held 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 church and states, such as in Islam [2] 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. Constitution. Hence Europeans today, based upon their own cultural idioms and history, have an extremely discolored view of what the "American right" is.
Another common misperception is, while the "right" has become identified with defending and advocating Judeo-Christian values, secular atheist mass movements such as National Socialism are often either mistakenly or deliberately labeled as right-wing. This fallacy has