Poll of the Day > Whenever I read the words "left-wing" or "right-wing"...

(+) Yeah! (+)

My brain pratically shuts off. Is there any actual meaning to these terms, or are they on the same level of BS as SJW and Gamergate?
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They refer to conservative and liberal political ideologies

right-wing=conservative
left wing = liberal

They have actual meaning and are not insults
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But it's also worth noting that "conservative" is not the same as "Conservative", nor is "liberal" the same as "Liberal", just to make things more confusing.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

But it's also worth noting that "conservative" is not the same as "Conservative", nor is "liberal" the same as "Liberal", just to make things more confusing.

Explain. I did not know this.

SkynyrdRocker posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But it's also worth noting that "conservative" is not the same as "Conservative", nor is "liberal" the same as "Liberal", just to make things more confusing.

Explain. I did not know this.

Lower-case conservative and liberal refer to general ideologies or ideological trends, but capitalized Conservative and Liberal tend to refer to the specific ideologies of political parties or political movements that claim to represent the lower-case ideals (but often don't).

So someone can be a Conservative without actually being a conservative, while Liberals can be something other than liberal. And that's before you get into even more granular levels, where someone says that they're "fiscally conservative but socially liberal", or the like.

It gets even MORE complicated once you realize that the current definition of "liberal" doesn't necessarily match the original definition of the term, so someone referring to "classical liberalism" is actually closer to what we currently refer to as "libertarian" (which itself isn't necessarily the same as Libertarianism).

Basically, labels can be incredibly confusing when used to refer to ideological concepts.


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now, calling someone alt-right when they're more left than you - that's an insult, even though there is a legitimate alt-right.
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FinalXemnas posted...

My brain pratically shuts off. Is there any actual meaning to these terms, or are they on the same level of BS as SJW and Gamergate?

Right chicken wing or left chicken wing.
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...I think of flying squadrons.
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I prefer chicken wing
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Lokarin posted...

now, calling someone alt-right when they're more left than you - that's an insult, even though there is a legitimate alt-right.

shut up, nazi
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FinalXemnas posted...

My brain pratically shuts off. Is there any actual meaning to these terms, or are they on the same level of BS as SJW and Gamergate?

As others have said, they're genuine terms and relatively straightforward ones too. "Left-wing" is another way of saying liberal or progressive and "right-wing" is another way of saying conservative. The terms came from the French Revolution - those who were in favour of keeping the monarchy and the traditional way of doing things (the conservatives) sat on the right of the Estates General, while those in favour of forming a democratic republic and a new way of governance (the progressives) sat on the left.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Lower-case conservative and liberal refer to general ideologies or ideological trends, but capitalized Conservative and Liberal tend to refer to the specific ideologies of political parties or political movements that claim to represent the lower-case ideals (but often don't).

To be pedantic, the capitalized "Liberal" and "Conservative" are proper nouns that refer to political parties, not ideologies. Confusingly, some "Liberal" parties are actually relatively conservative (like in Australia) while in others it is left-wing (Canada's Liberal party is centre-left). Conservative parties are generally always right-wing.
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