tags: #publish links: [[History]], [[Politics]] created: 2020-09-14 Mon --- # Origin of the terms Left and Right in Politics Credit: Mark Manson's email newsletter: > In 1789, at the onset of the French Revolution, the National Constituent Assembly was called where leaders from all across France would meet with King Louis XVI to determine the fate of the country. > > As the assemblymen streamed in, the monarchists who supported the king congregated on the right side of the chamber, where the nobility had traditionally sat in previous eras, to signal their loyalty to the king. Those who desired revolution, wanting to separate themselves as much as possible and make their dissent known, all sat on the left side of the chamber. The two sides soon began referring to each other simply as “the right” and “the left.” > > The names stuck. > > It’s shifted over the centuries, but typically people “on the right” value structure, order, and tradition, while people “on the left” value equality, personal expression, and change. Most people see this political spectrum as linear and one-dimensional — you’re either on one side or the other (e.g., “you’re with us or against us.”) > > But there is a lesser-known “horseshoe theory” in political science, where the political spectrum actually curves so that the extreme-right and extreme-left end up closer to each other than they do to moderates or centrists in the middle. > > The argument goes that the extremes of each side of the political spectrum generally support more authoritarian states if it means accomplishing their goals. They are both willing to suppress civil liberties, especially of their enemies. They're both likely to see the world in stark (and often similar) us/them dichotomies. And historically, the extreme right and left have found themselves cooperating for short periods of time to overthrow the status quo. > > In the 1970s, the psychologist Hans Eysenck proposed a similar theory that the political spectrum is not uni-dimensional, but rather two dimensional. People exist on the typical right vs left spectrum, but also an authoritarian vs libertarian spectrum. (You can take a version of this test online to see where you are.) See [[Eysenck's political framework]] for more on that last point.