Left and right

I dislike the political terms left and right for two main reasons. First, why should we classify political orientations based on what side of the room people sat on at the Estates General during the French Revolution? It's kind of arbitrary.

 Second, labels come with baggage. The left side of things comes with all kinds of sinister baggage (look the word up), which conjures up all kinds of associations, mostly negative.

Third, accepting labels can have consequences. This is true in many aspects of life but especially in politics. Think back to Russia in the early 20th century. A tiny sect of the Russian Social Democratic movement called themselves the majority (Bolsheviks). The much larger group (the Mensheviks) idiotically accepted the label. And, when it counted in terms of effective political force, they were the minority.

A good friend of mine once said he was concerned less about left and right than about tops or bottoms. I think I'm with him.

Freedom and chains

"Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains."

Those are the opening lines of The Social Contract, a very influential work by the 18th century philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).

Those words express a long held belief on the political left that attributes our unsavory characteristics--such as greed, lust for power, servility, etc.--to the corrupting influence of society. If that was the case, then presumably a new social environment would yield new and better people.

The radicals of the French Revolution tried to wipe the slate clean and create a republic of virtue. The Terror unleashed on their opponents was seen almost as a salutary public health measure which both educated the people and wiped out decadent aristocrats.

The Revolution at various points wanted not merely to change old laws but to remake the calendar, the system of weights and measures, and even replace the old religion with cults of Reason and the Supreme Being. The year 1789 became Year One; the months were renamed, the seven day week was replaced by "decades" of ten days. Most of those measures, with the exception of the metric system, didn't last too long.

Neither did liberty, equality and fraternity for that matter.

The history of that and other radical revolutions suggests that while society certainly can have a corrupting influence, the human animal has its own evolutionary baggage that may always be an obstacle to perfect social harmony. That doesn't excuse any particular social injustice and isn't an argument for not trying to improve things, as conservatives might argue. But it is something to keep in mind. One must work with the materials at hand.

SPEAKING OF EVOLUTION, a controversy over the origins of altruism is raging these days.

JOB CUTTING CEOS are doing just fine. That's a relief.

ONE IN SIX AMERICANS are relying on anti-poverty programs.

OLD OR NEW? This Gazette editorial argues that the Tea Party is just the latest example of an often repeated pattern.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Accidents of history

Painting by the artist Jacques-Louis David of members of the National Assembly taking the "tennis court oath" not to disband until they had given the country a constitution.

It is only by an accident of history that we divide political perspectives into left and right. It just kind of happened that in the early days of the French Revolution supporters of the monarchy sat on one side of the room while its opponents sat on the other.

In the long run, this was particularly unfortunate for the left, at least in terms of spin or "framing." Left in several languages has connotations that are sometimes quite literally sinister, while right sometimes means, well, right.

I think it's high time we come up some other metaphor, spatial or otherwise, to describe political differences. As a friend of mine likes to say, these days is more a matter of up and down than left and right.

ALONG THAT LINE, here's a New Yorker piece on some billionaire backers of "populist" right wing groups.

STILL MORE. Here's Times columnist Frank Rich with more of the same.

OH THE WATER. This op-ed by a friend of mine looks at one of our most vital natural resources.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED