Religion and Politics #2: Left and Right

What do the terms, “left” and “right”, as used in politics, mean? Let’s start with the origin of those terms because that gives a general feel of those terms – the underlying theme, so to say.

 

In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt says that the two sides diverge wrt a fundamental question of governance:

“Preserve the present order, or change it?”

In 1789, at the French Assembly, the delegates who favoured ‘preservation’ sat on the right, while those favoured ‘change’ sat on the left.

“The terms right and left have stood for conservation and liberalism ever since.”

From that, it is obvious why the terms “conservatives” and “liberals” are used as synonyms for the right (preserve) and the left (change) respectively.

 

The terms are a bit unfortunate because the word “conservatives”, even when used in a political context, gets mistaken for religious conservatism. Even though the side that favours retaining the existing system may not be religious at all. Something I heard from one of my Chinese colleagues will clarify this. If the existing regime is bad, what is the solution? To tweak it one step at a time? Or to replace it with a new system altogether? The Arab Spring was the liberal/left choice, as defined above: revolt and replace. Whereas my Chinese colleagues said they prefer slow changes in governance since rapid changes often lead to chaos: that’s the conservative/right choice. I cited these examples to bring out the confusion it creates if you think of these terms in religious terms – the highly religious Arabs made a liberal choice (overhaul) whereas the godless communists/ Buddhists (Chinese) made a conservative (slow/no change) choice!

 

To repeat: think of {left, liberal, change} and {right, conservative, preserve} as two groups, keeping in mind it’s the speed of change they differ on (fast v/s slow).

 

The historian Jerry Muller pointed out that right/ conservative mindset is not the same as religious orthodoxy. One is orthodox if one believes that governance should be based on a particular book – Quran, Bible, whatever. Whereas the right/ conservatives don’t subscribe to that view – their views aren’t necessarily based on religion at all. Rather, as Muller puts it:

“What makes social and political arguments conservative as opposed to orthodox is that the critique of liberal or progressive arguments takes place on the enlightened grounds of… reason.”

Haidt admits that as a liberal, Muller’s point floored him:

“I had assumed that conservatism = orthodoxy = religion = faith = rejection of science.”

 

That said, deeply religious people (orthodox) do tend to lean right. After all, they don’t want any change and the conservative/ right view is closer (but not a perfect match) to their view than the liberal/ left view and thus the overlap higher. Unfortunately, that leads to the misunderstanding that the right must mean being ultra-religious/ orthodox.

 

These terms then, from their origin to the books I referred, are how these terms (left and right) started out. But since then, they’ve diverged in different democracies over time, a topic we can look at in the next blogs…