The gospel according to Left, Right, & Center
The fundamental difference between the Left, the Right, & the Center is what each faction believes drives politics — is it economic class, cultural tribe, or institutional ideology?
What do Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, & Joe Manchin have in common? Honestly, not much. Sure, they’re all politically-prominent rich old white guys — but beneath the surface, they each think the world works in radically different ways. Specifically, each represents the worldview of one of America’s 3 core political factions: lefties, right-wingers, and centrists. Let’s explore each sect, what each gets right, and what each gets wrong.
First off: the Left. Lefties believe politics is a power struggle between economic classes. Bosses vs workers, rich vs poor, corporate elites vs average voters… The Left sees most conflict in society as a class war between those with more economic power & those with less. Thus, lefties distrust economic elites & champion solidarity with others in your economic class — often through labor unions. To the Left, every ideology is downstream of material economic conditions. In other words, material self-interest (aka money & power) is the main driver of political behavior, and ideological beliefs are basically just ad hoc rationalizations of this self-interest.
Lefty strengths: Arguably, the Left has the most insightful understanding of how power & politics work — at least since humanity transitioned from roaming hunter-gatherer tribes into settled agricultural societies with social classes over 12 millennia ago. Lefties usually get to the “bottom line” of political issues faster than right-wingers or centrists: deducing who actually holds power in a situation, what they actually want, and why things actually happen. Through their lens of money & power, much of our crazy world starts to make sense.
Lefty weaknesses: The Left tends to be the faction furthest removed from political power because elites aggressively gatekeep against lefties to lock out challenges to their wealth and power. As a result, the Left can also be particularly prone to infighting — not because lefties are inherently more territorial than right-wingers or centrists, but because lefties are allowed few productive outlets for their grievances other than intermural squabbling. And another consequence of constantly being on the receiving end of gatekeeping: the Left is prone to anger and cynicism. Having the door constantly slammed in your face does not a happy faction make…
Next up: the Right. Like lefties, right-wingers also believe politics is a power struggle — but between cultural tribes, not economic classes. Woke vs patriotic, queer vs straight, Muslim vs Christian… The Right sees most conflict in society as a zero-sum culture war between warring identity groups. Thus, right-wingers believe in solidarity too…but with others in your cultural tribe. The nature of your tribe is fluid — your family, your party, your ethnicity, your religion, your gender — but you’re always part of one. To the Right, society should enforce “natural” hierarchies that place dominant tribes over smaller, weaker, or “less good” outgroups. And if you don’t happen to find yourself in the right tribe: too bad, so sad…
Right-wing strengths: Believe it or not, the Right is the most hardwired into human nature of the 3 political factions. Recall that modern humans existed for hundreds of thousands of years as hunter-gatherer tribes before we began settling into societies just 12 millennia ago. In fact, hunter-gathering evolved millions of years before we did, with our hominin ancestors living as hunter-gatherer tribes at least 2 million years ago. For most of human history, we lived and died not as individuals, classes, or societies — but as tribes. Evolution hardwired tribalism into our brains: we instinctively seek community and suffer when isolated, we are kind toward others in our “tribe” yet hostile to those in “rival” tribes. And right-wingers understand our biologically-preprogrammed tribalism.
Right-wing weaknesses: When unchecked, the Right can become discriminatory and oppressive. Although right-wingers correctly intuit that our tribal nature can’t just be ignored or bypassed, their zero-sum tribal mindset and comfort with hierarchies that favor stronger tribes can lead to horrifying results. Bigotry, apartheid, even genocide — all can result when the Right is out of balance.
Last but not least: the Center. The Center isn’t simply halfway between the Left & Right. Unlike lefties and right-wingers, centrists do not see a fundamental power struggle at the heart of politics. Instead, centrists — also known as liberals — believe institutions and their ideologies drive politics. Those institutions can vary wildly in their structure & function, but they’re all nexuses of power: the FBI, Wall Street, the Pentagon, Big Pharma, etc... That’s why the Center isn’t homogenous — instead, it’s a dog’s breakfast of different “isms” united only by a shared belief that (almost) nothing should fundamentally change. But this doesn’t mean that any particular institutional ideology is good or bad. For example, libertarianism is the ideology of individual rights: libertarians feel institutions should maximize our Constitutional freedoms. Neoliberalism is the ideology of the almighty dollar: neoliberals feel that government institutions should be handmaidens to private institutions and that social fabric shouldn’t constrain corporate power. And Neoconservatism is just “spicy” neoliberalism: neoconservatives feel neoliberal institutions should aggressively expand, by wars and civil rights violations if necessary.
Centrist strengths: When times are good, the Center maximizes economic growth and societal stability. That’s because centrists’ deference to existing institutions, their ideologies, and the status quo fosters predictability and innovation — at least until an economic downturn, sectarian conflict, institutional decay, epidemic, or some other crisis disrupts the system. And liberals often espouse the noblest principles of any political faction: free speech, due process, democracy, and other ideological pillars of our institutions make our society a more just and less chaotic place. (Hell, freedom of speech is why I can write this political critique without fear of being thrown in a gulag.)
Centrist weaknesses: With little concept of solidarity, the Center has no real answers for crises and pain. Unlike lefties and right-wingers who default to solidarity with one’s class and tribe, respectively — centrists offer no compelling fallback options when a disaster like the Great Recession, War in Ukraine, Opioid Crisis, or Covid-19 rocks the system and its institutions. To paraphrase Big Lebowski: the Center has no ethos. And this hollowness extends to the Center’s ideological commitments: centrist principles are only as strong as material reality allows. Liberals believe in free speech…except for whistleblowers who challenge their institutional power, like Julian Assange & Steven Donziger. Liberals believe in due process…except when it inconveniences the War on Drugs and War on Terror. Liberals believe in democracy…except when it challenges their institutional power, like how both the Democratic and Republican political machines furiously resist Ranked-Choice Voting.
So where do I stand in all of this? Who is right; who is wrong? I believe it’s important to draw wisdom from different places so it doesn’t grow rigid and stale. The Left shows us how politics always makes sense when you follow the money. The Right cautions us that we’re tribal animals whose tribal nature must be worked with — not against — to achieve political results. And the Center reminds us that institutions and their ideologies can be powerful political tools — but only when aligned with deeper material realities. That’s the gospel according to Left, Right, & Center.
Great musings as per usual!! I wonder how leftists can best go about expanding on the idea of our innate triableness/tribal associations to expand our idea of who we include in that group/as a apart of our own tribe and then use it to our advantage to agitate for change? I'm guessing that breaking it down by class helps in a way, but the divisions that carry across from our other identity groups/regions of origin also still carry weight. Like some of the ideas we talk about in my IPE/world systems classes: where even though there are exploited classes in every state/society, one's proximity to the imperial core (the Western Bloc + its allies) sets those even at the bottom in the core states at a much higher position than those in the far more exploited semi-periphery and periphery. That's not even counting the very real systems of white supremacy that are tied into it all. So much food for thought though!!