Why Does the Political Right And Left Feel the Need to Demonize Each Other ?

[Rippounet]

Also, a bit of history, mayhaps? From wikipedia:

Quote

 

The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left. [...]

Beginning in the early twentieth century, the terms "left" and "right" came to be associated with specific political ideologies and were used to describe citizens' political beliefs, gradually replacing the terms "reds" and "the reaction". Those on the Left often called themselves "republicans", while those on the Right often called themselves "conservatives". The words Left and Right were at first used by their opponents as slurs.

By 1914, the Left half of the legislature in France was composed of Unified Socialists, Republican Socialists and Socialist Radicals, while the parties that were called "Left" now sat on the right side. The use of the words Left and Right spread from France to other countries and came to be applied to a large number of political parties worldwide, which often differed in their political beliefs.^[11] There was asymmetry in the use of the terms Left and Right by the opposing sides. The Right mostly denied that the left–right spectrum was meaningful because they saw it as artificial and damaging to unity. However, the Left, seeking to change society, promoted the distinction. As Alain observed in 1931: "When people ask me if the division between parties of the Right and parties of the Left, men of the Right and men of the Left, still makes sense, the first thing that comes to mind is that the person asking the question is certainly not a man of the Left". In British politics, the terms "right" and "left" came into common use for the first time in the late 1930s in debates over the Spanish Civil War.^[13] The Scottish sociologist Robert M. MacIver noted in The Web of Government (1947):

The right is always the party sector associated with the interests of the upper or dominant classes, the left the sector expressive of the lower economic or social classes, and the centre that of the middle classes. Historically this criterion seems acceptable. The conservative right has defended entrenched prerogatives, privileges and powers; the left has attacked them. The right has been more favorable to the aristocratic position, to the hierarchy of birth or of wealth; the left has fought for the equalization of advantage or of opportunity, for the claims of the less advantaged. Defense and attack have met, under democratic conditions, not in the name of class but in the name of principle; but the opposing principles have broadly corresponded to the interests of the different classes.

 

There have been many evolutions of course, many attempts to redefine the terms, and many attempts to even do away with the left-right dichotomy. But frankly speaking I think there's been little change since the French revolution. Deep down the right is about protecting wealth, the left is about redistributing it. Both use moral arguments to defend their positions. Both have evolved and sometimes seem to be about other things. But I think history tells us everything we need to know.
 

[Darth Richard II]

I'm sure if we had just hugged Hitler more he would have turned out OK.

[Larry of the Lawn]

28 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I'll speak in a US context because that is what I know best.

Now why should I consider the Republican Party's point of view? Well I have and you know what I've discovered? It's mainly a pile of horseshit. Why should I go out of my way to be civil to people that keep spewing horseshit?
 

Imagine if you had actually written a bunch of posts analyzing the economic effects of the Left and Right's proposals, here, on this very board, supported with both theory and actual data that demonstrated a sound understanding of the concepts involved and the likely outcomes and cause and effect.  

Oh well, just continue demonizing the right instead.  

 

[Martell Spy]

29 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

I'm sure if we had just hugged Hitler more he would have turned out OK.

Well, it must be remembered that he was a vegitarian.

[Darth Richard II]

Another issue is with the right being actual demons.

[TrueMetis]

18 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Another issue is with the right being actual demons.

That is an issue, one's sides demonization is another pointing out the facts.

[Darth Richard II]

Also that time they tried to open the Ark.

[GAROVORKIN]

15 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Also that time they tried to open the Ark.

And your making this Raiders of the Lost Ark Movie reference  why?  What does this have to do with the topic ? If you want to talk about movies there is an entire section of this forum dedicated to movies and entertainment.

 

[Magnar of Skagos]

Awful lot of brainwashed folks crammed into 2 pages of a thread...

[Darth Richard II]

Or that time they tried to steal that rocket pack from Howard Hughes.

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Deep down the right is about protecting wealth, the left is about redistributing it.

No, or at least not in the US and probably not in most of Europe either. Today, both the left and the right redistribute wealth, they just redistribute it to different groups. For example, I am in the middle class -- certainly very far from being rich. The grand total redistributive effects of all of the political maneuvering in the past decade on me personally is that I had to pay a penalty for not having health insurance when I took half a year off from work (because of ACA) and that my federal taxes went down after the recent tax reform. Most of the redistribution is between various sectors of industry; the effects on ordinary people are marginal with the exception of those who win the equivalent of a political lottery (e.g. in the case of ACA, this is not the relatively large number of people who got government-sponsored health insurance, but the far smaller subset of these who actually got healthcare they desperately need as a result).

[GAROVORKIN]

2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Another issue is with the right being actual demons.

You need two hands to clap. 

[Darth Richard II]

I don't even know what that means.

[DMC]

6 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Why aren't Hawaii and Norway near each other?  

Yeah I really think there needs to be a permanent "If you were a hotdog, would you eat yourself?" thread that makes fun of other threads.  We can have a day for it - 16. February - in honor of on @unpaid comintern's genius.  Anyway, I'm going to seriously respond now.  Why?  I don't know.  This is me at my most..masochistic.

4 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Politcal polarization and divide.

In terms of the US, there are many reasons for the heightened polarization we're currently experiencing right now.  I wrote about these causes at length here.  (BTW, this took me a long-ass time to find.  This place needs a [new] search engine.)  In short, the answer to why we are polarized is much more complicated than @Altherion's Sun Tzu explanation of divide-and-rule.  That provides no insight into the empirical ebbs and flows in American polarization of the decades.  Hopefully the linked will provide you some.

4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

There have been many evolutions of course, many attempts to redefine the terms, and many attempts to even do away with the left-right dichotomy. But frankly speaking I think there's been little change since the French revolution. Deep down the right is about protecting wealth, the left is about redistributing it. Both use moral arguments to defend their positions. Both have evolved and sometimes seem to be about other things. But I think history tells us everything we need to know.
 

Yeah, once again, this harkens back to Lipset and Rokkan (1967).  First, there was the church cleavage (dare I say schism).  Then, there was the workers cleavage.  These dynamics imbue western politics to this day.  However, this is primarily description, not explanation.  Why certain fault lines change, and when they do, are much more nuanced questions.

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

No, or at least not in the US and probably not in most of Europe either. Today, both the left and the right redistribute wealth, they just redistribute it to different groups. For example, I am in the middle class -- certainly very far from being rich. 

LOL, run a poll and almost everybody identifies themselves as "middle class."  It's actually one of the most encouraging things about the American public - everybody wants to think they're normal.  Anyway, as Ripp said, the contemporary left and right do both redistribute wealth:  the left wants to redistribute it to the 90% that are less well off, while the right wants to redistribute wealth to the 10% that are most well off.  The recent tax bill made that cleavage crystal clear.

[Darth Richard II]

lol you said cleavage

[Darth Richard II]

Also the time they mocked survivors of a school shooting. Which was eh, 4 days ago?

[Darth Richard II]

Hell, Roy Moore. That alone should explain most of it.

 

 

[Jace, Extat]

7 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Roy Moore is the result, not the cause. Ditto the rest of #TheDeplorables. Trump may have cracked this country open, but he didn't create what oozed out.

EDIT: I haven't read this thread yet btw. Is it worth peaking under the rock?

eh

[Rippounet]

5 hours ago, Altherion said:

Most of the redistribution is between various sectors of industry; the effects on ordinary people are marginal with the exception of those who win the equivalent of a political lottery

Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.

[Isalie]

What's more amazing is that people keep responding to these threads. 

Edit: And that I read them...