The Left-Right Paradigm Problem

An issue struck me when listening to the Guardian's politics podcast (highly recommended by the way) this morning. Lord Adonis was being interviewed at length due to having just released a book about the formation of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition. Whilst coming across as friendly and erudite, one of the main things I brought away from it was the debate over the Liberal Democrat Party's position on the Left-Right political spectrum, and also Nick Clegg's personal position.

Lord Adonis' opinion is that the Liberal Democrats are a fundamentally Centre-Left party, whilst Nick Clegg is Centre-Right. On the face of it, I can't disagree, although I suspect strongly that the Liberal Democrat core are more realist pragmatists than the idealists Adonis suggests them to be, but this is by the by. The main problem with the conclusion he reaches and the political context that informs it is that it in itself highlights a weakness of the Left-Right descriptive paradigm.

Firstly, and most obviously, it is reductive to the point of opacity. To describe someone as Left Wing or Right Wing or Centrist is not only completely subjective, it is almost counter-communicative. It tribalises and pigeon holes and reduces the likelihood that an observer would inspect the motives and aims of those perceived to be operating in a different area of the Left-Right spectrum to their selves. The party system is transparently guilty of this, of course, but the Left-Right dogma is insidiously entrenched so as to be the core from which the superstructure of opinion is formed, rather than a short-hand means of lumping together certain policy types.

The true facets and complications of politics and politicians are obviously not going to be assimilated by everyone, just as you couldn't expect everyone in the country to be interested by physics or dinosaurs, but I honestly believe that day to day political discourse in the papers, on the news, in the pub, would all benefit from binning these restrictive, overly reductive mental boundaries: "Right", "Left". As per the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (read about it, it's bloody interesting), language impacts and partially dictates thought. Less restrictive language may well result in less restrictive discourse (now who's being reductive? Send pedantic complaints to the usual address).

And finally (for this blog. I can see myself needing to rant further about this in future), I have to address this issue of the idea of the Liberal Democrats being a "Centre-Left" party led by a "Centre-Right" politician. This is a singularly unhelpful description of the party. Their current leadership is comprised of the same slightly bizarre tasting realist-pragmatist-idealist dough from which Tony Blair and David Cameron are formed. These people are not Right or Left Wing. Their politics do not respect these territories.
What the Liberal Democrats are currently is the epitome of British politics. They have a core of mostly PR-based ideals protected by smoke and mirrors to simultaneously hide their workings and reflect the public and opposition back on itself. To describe them as Centre-Left seems to miss the point. They are whatever they need to be; their Centre-Leftness remains only as absolute lines they will not cross, and even these are increasingly sketchy. This behaviour can be seen also in the Conservative and Labour parties. Some might even say Labour invented it in 1997. The idealism of the mid-20th century is either so long dead, or so long the norm, that party divides have become increasingly blurred and the Left-Right spectrum has been relegated in its usefulness to describe political extremes so self-evident as to make it singularly redundant.

I would posit that the Right-Left paradigm, with regards to British politics, is not only unhelpful or counter-productive, it is obsolete.

Time for a Little Change

I've been mulling on this blog for a while and I think I'm going to alter the format slightly. Or majorly. I write and waffle a lot, with philosophy being one of my major themes. I do, however, on my other blog humanfriendly.tumblr.com, write on various other things such as films, books, current events and just stuff that comes out of my head. From the creative side of things, I would find it easier if all these things were in the same place, riffing off each other organically and keeping mental context for me.

With this in mind, Have a Philosophy will still serve as a means for me to bellow out my personal ideas on the running and analysis of the world, but it will also serve as a means for me to bellow out my personal ideas on quite a bit else as well.

I can guarantee that this will mean you hearing much more from me. Make of this what you will.

Location:Holloway,Tamworth,United Kingdom