This will be short and is purely my opinion. You have been warned.
A line I’ve often heard in discussions about right- and left-wing views is that both perspectives are grounded in social benefits.
This line holds that right-wing views are about ‘protecting the group’ – the right-leaning morality is about keeping our family safe. It defends us from outside threats.
Meanwhile, left-wing views are about ‘protecting the outsider’ – the left-leaning morality is about opening our arms, lowering our defences, and treating those less fortunate like human beings rather than burdens or obstacles.
So this right/left dichotomy is framed as a necessary balance between building stable, safe, happy groups and opening those groups to outsiders.
The problem is that this interpretation of right-wing morality assumes a bunch of stuff.
Firstly, it assumes that a big happy stable group will unavoidably suffer if it opens itself to outsiders. This is not necessarily the case, and there’s much more evidence to suggest that diversity and freedom of movement is desirable for social wellbeing.
Similarly, it assumes that it’s possible to build a safe, stable, and effective tribe without outside help. An insular, incestuous village will ultimately be less healthy and possess fewer skills than a diverse and varied group.
However the biggest and most dangerous of the assumptions is that all right-leaning people have a clear idea of who is threatening the group, what kind of threat it is, and why the threat is there.
In contemporary western politics, this right-wing morality typically expresses itself in an anti-immigrant, racist, anti-LGBTQ+ and misogynistic narrative.
Are immigrants a threat to our society? Almost undoubtedly not.
Are minorities a threat to our society? Almost undoubtedly not.
Are LGBTQ+ people a threat to our society? Almost undoubtedly not.
Are women a threat to our society? God help you if you believe this.
Yet contemporary right-wing politics relies on framing some or all of these groups as threats to the social tribe, somehow without being explicit about what kind of threats they pose.
Perhaps immigration leads to a dangerous blurring of the safe hierarchy in our forest settlement? Maybe accepting gay and trans rights would leave our village open to attack from some unnamed outside evil? Or is it that feminism tears children from their parents, dragging them screaming into the dark jungle?
There has been no explanation for why we should expect these dangers to materialise.
Contemporary right-wing politics appeals to our fear of that dark force looming over our peaceful tribe; without ever convincingly explaining why we should fear it, or giving us evidence of its cause.
And meanwhile, this “right” path leads us to a village where the elders are many times more wealthy than the workers; where children are not free to live and love as they choose; where people who don’t work hard enough are left to rot in the jungle; where everyone is constantly suspicious of their neighbours; where our skills stagnate and our genes slowly corrupt.
That is not a safe village.
So that’s why this proposed left/right balance is a false narrative. Because contemporary right-wing politics does not care about the safety of our tribe. It only cares about allowing fear to corrupt our morality, making our families and friends easily exploitable subjects.
If right-wing politics were truly about protecting the group, they would be asking why our village has so much wealth yet so many starving and dying people? Why women can’t walk outside without fear of rape and murder? Why our children are killing themselves because they do not feel safe being who they are?
If right-leaning people were to tackle those issues, then we could say it was a valid morality, and consider it a counterpart to left-wing ideals.
Until then, right-wing morality is a circus. Left-wing morality is everything else.
Is your cult-like incest-village actually very morally desirable? Please give me all the details @rjpatricksmith
Pat's Hyperbolic Arboretum 