Despite the fact that almost all people want to achieve the most comfortable, fair and healthy state of society, the ways in which they want to do this are often radically different. Thus, there is a division into several groups or political parties according to people’s beliefs and ideas. For example, there are those who believe that it is necessary to unite against all problems and defend those whose rights are violated. Their strongest idea is that the key to society’s happiness and freedom is the rule “one for all and all for one.”
Completely opposite to such people are those who believe in the survival of the fittest, focusing not on unification but on themselves and on aggression ruling the world. The purpose of this paper is to explain the meaning of left and right parties, the difference between them, and the history of these terms. Also, the answer to the question of whether they actually can be distinguished on the basis of their position on the left-right spectrum will be provided.
Left-Right Political Spectrum
The political spectrum is a system that allows people to classify and characterise various political positions in relation to each other. One of the oldest spectra is the division into left and right groups, which originally referred to the French parliament after the revolution of 1789-1799 and aristocrats sitting on the right side and radicals on the left side. More detailed information on the history of these two terms can be found in the Appendix. Generally, socialism and communism are internationally considered to be left, while fascism and conservatism are regarded as right.
Left Parties
Left parties support egalitarianism and social equality and imply caring for those people who are, in comparison with others, considered to be disadvantaged. People from those parties believe that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be destroyed or at least reduced. This term applies to many movements, especially communism, socialism, social democracy and anarchism. In addition, civil rights, feminist, anti-war and environmental movements are also identified as left.
The main belief of people from left parties is that the world has many flaws that have to be improved in order to achieve personal freedom and happiness. They focus on the whole society and on the association of all people, and support workers and those who need to be supported, mostly minorities. Left parties help people who are not able to help themselves and see freedom as the absence of violence, abuse, power and inequality.
They believe that in society, fairness, diplomacy and pacifism should be spread instead of militancy and aggression. There should be an atmosphere of communication and protection in all families, while relationships between children and parents have to be built on trust and respect. Parents need to instil empathy and moral diversity in their children, and their love has to be nurturing.
Right Parties
People from right parties are of the opinion that specific social hierarchies and orders are natural, inevitable, desirable and normal. Usually, they support this point of view by referring to natural law, traditions and economics as inequality and hierarchy can be seen as a natural outcome of competition in a traditional market economy and social differences. The term right may typically mean a political system or a party that consists of conservatives, reactionaries and monarchists. However, there is also a group of far-rights – people who organise movements that support racial superiority, Nazism and fascism, and thus “endorse a xenophobic form of nationalism” (Rooduijn et al. 538).
In America, both economic and social conservatives are considered to belong to the right group. However, economic conservatives in Europe generally refer to liberals, while people from the right parties include opponents of immigration, nationalists and religious conservatives. Also, a great number of movements with anti-capitalist ideas, including fascists and conservatives, historically were against modern capitalism as they believed that there were egoism and excessive materialism.
The right parties’ main idea is that the world is fine as it is and it has to be preserved in the current state. These parties focus on individuals as society is not their way of achieving freedom; they help those who help themselves and choose the way of aggression. In families, they believe there should be an atmosphere of punishment and reward, and relationships between children and parents have to be “built on respect and fear” (McCandless and Posavec). Parents’ love should be tough, and they have to instil moral absolutes and strengths in their children.
Conclusion
To draw a conclusion, according to all the mentioned diversities, it is hard to disagree that it is possible to distinguish between these two groups of parties as their ideas, goals and methods are radically different from each other. One may say that, indeed, there are many various points of view, and unfortunately, people cannot always agree on something. Ideally, it would be easier for people to unite and join their forces to make the world and society better, freer and safer, and keep them that way. However, there is no certain way to do that, and people continue arguing about the veracity and fairness of their ideas. As right and left parties have drastically different ways of achieving their different goals, it is essential to distinguish between them so that everyone can choose what is right for them.
Works Cited
McCandless, David, and Stefanie Posavec. “Left vs Right (World).” Information is Beautiful, 2020. Web.
Rooduijn, Matthijs, et al. “Radical Distinction: Support for Radical Left and Radical Right Parties in Europe.” European Union Politics, vol. 18, no. 4, 2017, pp. 536-559.
Appendix: The History of the Terms Left and Right
In 1789, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly’s members were divided into two groups, and the terms Left and Right appeared. To the right of the president sat the supporters of the king, and the supporters of the revolution sat to his left. In 1791, when a Legislative Assembly consisting of completely new members replaced the National Assembly, this division continued. At that time, the innovators were sitting on the left, the moderate gathered in the centre and the conscious defenders of the constitution – on the right. In 1792, that seating arrangement continued, but later, due to subsequent events, it was cancelled.
However, after the restoration in 1814-1815, political parties were re-formed, and most ultra-royalists decided to sit on the right; the constitutionals were in the centre and the independents chose to sit on the left. Instead of designating political ideology as such, the terms left and right were used only to determine the place in the legislature. After 1848, the main opponents were the democratic socialists and reactionaries, and from the beginning of the twentieth century, those terms were associated with certain political ideologies and used to describe the political convictions of citizens. People from the left parties usually defined themselves as republicans, while those from the right decided to call themselves conservatives. It is interesting that, at first, the words right and left were used to insult the opponents.
Later, from France, the use of these terms spread to many other countries and started to be applied to a huge group of political parties that were different in their ideas and convictions. Right and left parties had different opinions about these terms; the former considered the left-right spectrum detrimental to the unity and artificial and simply denied its significance. At the same time, people from the left parties were trying to change the world and society and gladly contributed to this division.