‘Left’ And ‘Right’ Are Outdated Concepts Part Two

The first part of this post can be seen here.

In the first part of this post, I expressed my deep dissatisfaction with the binary thinking so prevalent in the West today. It seems that a great many people in politics, the media and online care less about truth than about their ‘team’ being on the winning side of an argument. In the UK, the 2016 vote to leave the European Union has poisoned public life to such an extent that everything is seem through the prism of ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain.’ Abuse, especially online, has become a real problem. The denigration of Margaret Hodge for daring to challenge Jeremy Corbyn over anti-Semitism in the Labour Party or of Sarah Champion for speaking out about the scandal of young girls in her constituency being raped and exploited by some British-Pakistani man has been particularly unpleasant. In both cases there was an undeniable element of misogyny in the language used and the disgusting rape threats. This is deeply troubling- it appears that some people believe that the anonymity afforded by the internet allows them to engage in behaviour that would never be tolerated in normal everyday encounters.

When I was young, the standard insult employed by woolly-minded pseudo-leftists was ‘fascist.’ As the Soviet Union still existed in my teenage years, right-wingers accused the mildest of left-wingers of being communists or in the pay of the Russians. Nonsense of course, on both counts. But the use of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ continues to this day, long after those labels ceased to have any meaning.

As I said in my original post, the modern left has fully embraced the poisonous ideology of identity politics whilst claiming to oppose the neoliberal economics that has dominated the West since the 1970s. The modern right supports neoliberal economics whilst claiming to oppose identity politics. What of those of us who are opposed to both neoliberal economics and identity politics – are we ‘left’ or ‘right’?

What of those of us who are opposed to the European Union in its current form – a poorly designed single currency and economic and monetary policies that have imposed brutal austerity on the countries of Southern Europe – but who are equally repelled by the neoimperialist fantasises of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage. Are we ‘left’ or ‘right’?

What of those of us who are appalled and disgusted by the behaviour of Donald Trump as President of the United States but feel that a corrupt and arrogant Establishment made a massive error in trying to foist the seriously compromised Hillary Clinton on American voters? Are we ‘left’ or ‘right’?

What of those of us who support the provision of free universal health care but fear that the 1940s statist model of the National Health Service is not fit for purpose as we approach the 2020s? Are we ‘left’ or ‘right’?

What of those of us who find the thinly disguised anti-Semitism and occasional outright racism of some of Jeremy Corbyn’s fans very troubling whilst in no way supporting the policies of the State of Israel in the West Bank and Gaza? Who find the one-sided coverage of Middle Eastern politics simplistic and simple-minded whilst also opposing the current Israeli government and its corrupt and confrontational leader? Are we ‘left’ or ‘right’?

What of those of us who find the May government utterly incompetent and desperately out of its depth but find the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn, Emily Thornberry, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott occupying the great offices of state something akin to the punchline of a very bad joke? Are we ‘left’ or ‘right’?

What of those of us who are disgusted by racial prejudice but find the selective application of principles by ‘anti-racists’ repugnant? What of those of us who abhor racism but are appalled when actual racists use the weapons of anti-racism to defend their own bigotry and hatred? Are we ‘left’ or ‘right’?

There are basically three groups of people in the West today. One group comprises those people who are doing well out of the current system and their hangers-on; this group currently controls all important institutions, from every political party to the BBC. The second group consists of people who want special privileges for their own in-group; these folks don’t resent inequality as such, they only resent the fact that they are not at the top of the pile – Islamist apologist Mehdi Hasan is a perfect example of this group. The third group consists people who want equality and equity for all human beings and who reject all differences between members of the same species based on superficial characteristics like skin colour or invented divisions based on religion. Who is ‘left’ and who is ‘right’?