Lately, I've been getting a lot of comments on my YouTube essays, which makes me really happy. And most of these comments are funny and smart, but there is one type of comment I get quite often that does bother me and that we need to talk about. “Puppet of radical left” “useless commi” “Let me just call this guy out for what he is.
A bloody communist. ” “This is such a disgustingly Marxist-Leninist clip. ” “These nutty left wing guys, even the haircut looks like a leftie kind of haircut.
” So why do these comments bother me? Well, it's not because they called me things that I'm not. I don't care about that.
No, they bother me because they illustrate a deeper problem in today's society, which is that there's a tendency to view absolutely everything through the lens of a left right spectrum. So in this essay, I will show you where the left right spectrum comes from, and I will explain, why left right thinking is stupid. In 1789, France was on the brink of bankruptcy.
So to address the crisis, the French King Louis XVI summoned a meeting with the three estates of French society, the clergy, the nobility and the commoners. But this meeting didn't turn out quite as the king had hoped, because at the meeting, the third estate, the commoners made a bold and unprecedented move. They declared that they (and not the nobility or clergy) truly represent the French people.
Following this declaration, which was the starting point of the French Revolution the people who supported the revolution started sitting down on the left side of the assembly hall and those who opposed this revolution started sitting down on the right side of the assembly hall. And this seating arrangement is the origin of the left right political spectrum. Today, over 200 years later, the idea of a left right spectrum is so ingrained in political thought that if you go to the library and pick up almost any introductory textbook in political science, it will start by explaining this left right spectrum.
On this spectrum, conservatives are to the right and socialists to the left. Sometimes other labels or more steps are added like radical, progressive, liberal, moderate or reactionary. This left right spectrum is interesting because there is a correlation between respective sides of this spectrum and certain policy positions.
People who identify with either side of the spectrum, they tend to hold a particular basket of political opinions. For example, tax cuts are today considered to be a right wing position. This means that if Person A supports lower taxes than is also more likely than not to support other positions that currently are clustered on the right wing.
Such as support for Israel's military actions, and opposition to immigration. And conversely, if Person B supports higher taxes then he's likely to be on the opposing sides of all of these other issues. I.
e. he will oppose Israel's military actions and he will be favorable towards immigration. And here comes the key question of this essay.
. . Why is that?
Why do many people's beliefs across separate issues like taxes, foreign policy and immigration cluster this way either left or right? Why is it that someone who's for lower taxes also is more likely than not to also oppose immigration, even though these two are completely different topics? Well, the most common explanation for this that you will find in textbooks and newspapers and hear from pundits is that the left right spectrum actually captures an important essence of human nature.
This has been called the essentialist theory of politics and is completely wrong. I was born on the 3rd of February, and according to astrology, this birth date makes me a so-called Aquarius, which is a person who is intellectual, creative and independent. In astrology, there is a simple way to completely understand someone's personality.
All you need to do is to place that person on a spectrum of personality that is based on one single essential parameter: date of birth. Donald Trump, for example was born in mid-June and is a Gemini. Therefore, we know that he has an outgoing, versatile and curious personality.
Needless to say, astrology is nonsense. The essentialist theory of politics is very similar to astrology in that this theory says that there is a simple way to completely understand someone's political views. All you need to do is to place that person on a Left-Right spectrum that is based on one single essential parameter.
. . how much you want change.
If you want change, you're on the left. If you don't want change, you're on the right. Your position on this line, in turn, supposedly explains all of your other political beliefs.
So the reason why someone who wants lower taxes also supports Israel's military actions and opposes migration is because that person is and they change. This is a convenient theory because it allows us to boil all political issues down to one essential question. The only problem, though, is that this theory is false.
It's nothing more than astrology for politics. If the essentialist theory would be correct, then all of the issues that are bundled together on one side of the spectrum would stay there across time and across contexts because they're all supposedly to be pro against change, but they don't. Historical evidence shows that issues constantly shift between the left and the right.
As for taxes, the famous right-wing politicians Boris Johnson and George H. W. Bush both adopted tax increases while the left wing Barack Obama and Tony Blair both implemented significant tax cuts.
As for support for Israel. The man who is considered the archetypical right wing extremist. .
. Adolf Hitler, would clearly not support Israel. Meanwhile, it was the Democrat Harry Truman, who was instrumental in establishing Israel in 1948.
As for immigration, the conservative icon Ronald Reagan wanted to grant amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants. However, even the socialist icon Bernie Sanders has voiced opposition to unhindered immigration. In other words, there is no fixed essence behind the left and the right.
Also, it doesn't matter if you say that the true essence is not change, but instead, for example, big vs. small government or equality vs. hierarchy or collectivism vs.
freedom. Any proposed essence falls apart under scrutiny. Research has also shown in experiments that people's views on issues do not cluster to the current left right spectrum until after they're socialized into the left right way of thinking.
But then the question remains right. If there isn't a single essence that binds together all the positions that are held on either side of the spectrum, like whether or not they're pro or against change, then why do many people bundle their positions to what is currently considered left wing or right wing? This is Strawberry Arena, home of my football team, AIK.
In Stockholm, there are three major teams. AIK in the north-west, Hammarby from the south and Djurgården from the east. and I grew up north of Stockholm, so naturally AIK became my team.
Like most sports fans, I support this team year after year. Even though all the players, all the coaches essentially everything about the team is constantly changing. There is no fixed essence that binds me to the team.
It's just my chosen tribe. And most of us realize that it's this type of tribalism that forms our sports loyalties. But many fail to realize it's that it's also this type of tribalism that forms most of our political opinions.
In their book, The Myth of Left and Right. Hyrum Lewis and Vernan Lewis argue that we form our political positions just like we form our sports loyalties. “People first anchor into an ideological tribe because of family, peers, or a single issue that they feel strongly about, and only then adopt the full range of beliefs associated with that tribe.
” They call this the social theory of politics, and in their book, they point to overwhelming evidence that this theory better explains political attitudes than the essentialist theory that we have just discussed. Religious Americans are today strongly anchored to the American rightwing tribe. But research shows that it wasn't until the 1970s when abortion became a political issue that the religious groups anchored with the right wing tribe.
Not until then that they adopted other opinions of the American right. Like for example lower taxes and later climate change skepticism. Another fun study showed that when self-identified conservatives were told that Donald Trump supported a policy like increased minimum wage, then they would also strongly support it.
But if they were told that Donald Trump opposed that very same policy, then they would also strongly oppose it. As the famous scholar Dan Kahan has put it: “People endorse whichever position reinforces their connection to others with whom they share important commitments. ” So the weight of the evidence points to that there is no philosophic essence like pro or against change that binds together the different views on the left and on the right.
Instead, what binds opinions together is mostly social conformity and tribalism. There are many issues in politics: taxes, immigration, foreign policy, defense, the environment, trade policy, health care, elder care, education, criminal justice, gun rights, labor rights, infrastructure, privacy, antitrust. .
. The list goes on. However, left, right thinking makes us believe that all of these issues can be condensed into a one dimensional spectrum conceived during the French Revolution.
That is absurd. Some researchers are experimenting with adding more dimensions to the spectrum. One example is the GAL-TAN model that takes the traditional left right spectrum and adds another dimension with GAL: Green, Alternative and Liberal at one end and TAN: Traditional, Authoritarian and Nationalist at the other.
But I believe quasi scientific models like these are problematic because they reinforce the illusion of coherence and political clustering, which validates tribalism and discourages independent thoughts. We humans will always have tribal tendencies, but we haven't always been this tribal about politics, and we don't have to be. Just as sports teams wants us to be loyal fans who buy tickets and merch, politicians want us to be loyal voters, and if we're loyal to the political spectrum, then we will also be loyal to the media that is position on the spectrum and the algorithms will amplify this dynamic.
All of these forces put enormous pressure on us to become more tribal and to lean into either the left tribe or the right tribe. But we can and we need to resist this tribal pressure. Inspired by the book, The Myth of Left and Right, here are three things we can do to resist this pressure: One: Let's go granular.
Don't call things left or right. Say instead what you actually mean. If someone is a wealth tax advocate, call him that.
Don't call him a communist. And if someone wants to stop immigration, say that, you don't have to call her a right wing extremist. Two: Let's disagree.
So I sometimes get comments like this. “I saw around 5 to 6 videos of yours and were amazed by the quality in every aspect. I was just about becoming a Patreon supporter then I watched this video about migration and you've lost me just there.
” Lefti-right thinking spreads the myth that you have to either agree or disagree with people about everything, which is of course neither true nor possible. Instead, we have to welcome disagreement, especially with people we respect, because research shows that allowing for disagreement makes all of us smarter and more efficient. Three (and perhaps most importantly): Let's consume less news, because by playing into our tribal tendencies, the media and the digital platforms have made us believe that we are doing a good thing for society if we're constantly living inside our feeds and in the news.
But in fact, the opposite is true. To quote the author, Oliver Burkeman, “In an age of attention scarcity, the greatest act of good citizenship may be learning to withdraw your attention from everything except the battles you've chosen to fight. ” My name is Andres Acevedo and this is my YouTube channel The Market Exit.
So while I was finishing up work on this essay, something quite interesting happened. I was approached by a company called Ground News for a potential sponsorship. Ground News is some type of news aggregation platform that tracks and rates news outlets based on their political leanings, and they label news as left, center or right.
I have two things I want to say about this. First, the fact that Ground News not only exists, but it also gets funding and can afford to sponsor YouTube creators demonstrates how deeply left-right thinking has permeated our shared consciousness. Ground News might be well-intentioned, I don't know, but labeling all news as left, center or right feels like a really bad idea to me.
It oversimplifies the complex and fuels tribalism, and again, it discourages independent thinking. Second, this highlights how difficult it is for me to find sponsors, because the truth is that many companies with the money to fund YouTube creators have business models that, in my mind, no one in good conscience should support. And that is why I rely on direct support from viewers like you.
So if you like what I do, the simplest way for you to support me is to click subscribe, like and to comment and to share this video with your family, your friends, and your colleagues. And if you really like what I do, I warmly invite you to become a patron supporter at www. patreon.
com/themarketexit Any amount helps. And to my existing patrons, thank you very much for your support. I'm deeply grateful.
So why did I make this essay? Well, ever since I learned about the left right spectrum as a kid in school, I felt that it didn't quite make sense. And I've also never really felt at home in either the left tribe or the right tribe.
And when I decided to make an essay about this, I was excited to find the book The Myth of Left and Right, where the authors, Hyrum and Vernan Lewis, introduced the terms Essentialist Theory of Politics and Social Theory of Politics, which really helped me organize my own thoughts on this topic. I think their book deserves way more attention. It's short and utterly convincing and well-written, and I highly recommend it if this topic interests you.
Thank you for watching. Bye bye.
