Remember “dimpled chads” in a previous election? If it clearly showed where the vote was intended to go, it shocked me that a machine problem, undetectable by the voter, could render their vote invalid.
Many interesting points …
Peter wrote:
Historically, the caricature of “poor people” was:
voted for the left wing party …
Only if you limit the view of “history” to a comparatively short timeframe from mid 50ies to early 80ies and that only in Western Europe.
In addition one has to consider that the definition of “left” and “right” changes dramatically over time. One might not forget that NSDAP was actually to a large extend a socialist party (as these days and for a large part of 20th century “socialist” and “dictator or at least strong presidential system” has not been perceived as contradiction).
Peter wrote:
i.e. the young are overwhelmingly left wing, but at the same time have little interest in traditional politics.
Those left/right categories seem to me to make even less sense in younger age groups. If you hear very prominent F4F spearheads say “environmental protection is so important that we must not let democracy get in the way of doing what I believe is right” would that qualify as left or right wing?
Peter wrote:
Then it gets even more complicated because the younger someone is the more likely it is that they get their entire world view from their social media bubble. So
Don’t agree to that – actually the filter bubble challenges have become much smaller in the last 20 years rather than bigger – as at least there is some transparency on it.
There have always been (and still are) tons of people who got the majority of the “information” they believed through the chatter in the local pub (or church or sports club or …). An ideal example of a strong filter bubble. Just because we don’t know what has been talked about in each pub, there is no reason to believe that this has ever been more fact based than what is no exchanged in FB-groups. The media has changed but the behavior has little …
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I suppose the Cambridge Analytica example shows how relevant that is, but I would say not only for the young.
CA didn’t do anything that political parties/politicians on campaign haven’t done for ages. It is quite obvious, that in “good old days” the very same politician would have said something completely different when visiting farmer regulars in a rural pub or at a meeting of political college students. Up to a point where it would have been difficult to guess that he is actually talking about the same program of the same party…
What has changed imho is, again, that these days we have much more transparency about these things as they happen “in the same space”. That is actually a good thing and not a bad one.
Malibuflyer wrote:
If you hear very prominent F4F spearheads say “environmental protection is so important that we must not let democracy get in the way of doing what I believe is right” would that qualify as left or right wing?
Neither!
It’s on the authoritarian/libertarian axis, not left or right axis.
Malibuflyer wrote:
actually to a large extend a socialist party
That is highly debatable. For example the nazis didn’t nationalise the German industry.
Airborne_Again wrote:
hat is highly debatable. For example the nazis didn’t nationalise the German industry.
Of course it is – especially depending on the definition.
They have not been communist for sure – but many socialistic ideas (high tax rates, social security systems up to government organized vacation for workers, etc.) have been pursued by the Nazis. Not saying that this is good but just illustrating how difficult such a right/left discussion can be.
alioth wrote:
It’s on the authoritarian/libertarian axis, not left or right axis.
My point was: It’s unclear what the definition of the right/left axis should be in the first place (esp. in historic context). The 3-dimensional model that MedEwok posted in the other thread is imho much better suited, but has no right/left axis.
In the current public political debate in Germany we see a clear definition of “right” wich is associated with xenophobia, nationalism, etc. The definition of “left” is at least in Germany much less clear
Malibuflyer wrote:
In the current public political debate in Germany we see a clear definition of “right” wich is associated with xenophobia, nationalism, etc. The definition of “left” is at least in Germany much less clear
Excellent observation. In fact some definitions of “left” are contradictory. The modern brand of what is “left”, imported from the Anglosphere, seems to focus on issues of “identity” and equal representation of all “identity groups” (for example, people of colour, LGBTI, immigrants, religious groups etc.) in the public life, whereas the “classic” definition of left was focused on classism, i.e. supporting the “working class” vs. the “burgeous class”.
Except for the Left party (nomen est omen!), the “left” today seems to have largely abandoned the “working class”, which I personally see as a key factor in the rise of populist leaders (i.e. Trump, but also the AfD in Germany), who offered these people a new perspective against the “establishment” (which many social-democratic parties, such as the SPD in Germany or (Blairist part of) the Labour Party in the UK are today belonging to).
Malibuflyer wrote:
definition of “right” wich is associated with xenophobia, nationalism,
But is that not a classic stereotype? I think the debate is far deeper and nuanced than that. When that stereotype existed there was no social media, internet which kept most folks in boxed compliance.
The right had their large spread newspapers, the left had their red tops, which preached to the mantra of the readership and which message the barons wanted to drive.
The internet has changed all of that giving vast quantities of information/knowledge to a much larger audience. Now whether that information is fake, true, propaganda, skewed it does not matter because individuals will take to the narrative they wish to observe. We are witnessing that now in the US elections…
BeechBaby wrote:
But is that not a classic stereotype?
Why stereotype?
(Politically) “right” and “left” are abstract concepts. Therefore when using this words, one needs to be clear about definition (because there is nothing that is “by nature” right or left). And the only thing I was mentioning is that the majority of Germans these days define “right” by the attitude towards nationalism, racism, xenophobia, etc.
BeechBaby wrote:
Now whether that information is fake, true, propaganda, skewed it does not matter because individuals will take to the narrative they wish to observe.
As said before in my opinion the internet (as pars pro toto) had exactly the opposite effect: It has always been the case that people did only follow the narrative of their own social group (today we call it filter bubble). What has changed is the fact that there is much more transparency for a much larger share of the population that there are other narratives out there. That is huge progress!
To use an extreme example: When you have been a peasant in the medical time, all you knew about rules and how the world worked was from the priest in your local church. You didn’t even realize that 30 miles away in a different church (formally from the same belief) the pries was preaching a completely different dogma. And you didn’t care. So you would have been in your perfect filter bubble that was so tight that you did not even realize that other bubbles exist!
Sounds very long time ago but isn’t: Only few decades ago – in the high times of tabloid newspaper – a vast majority of the population took their “truth” only from the one newspaper they read – and as there was a very strong correlation between social groups and newspapers, odds have been extremely high that they did not even know someone who read a different newspaper. Whatever was in there was “the truth”. Again – almost perfect filter bubble.
I think you are almost echoing what I stated so I see no difference in our analysis of the concepts. Obviously I have not a clue what a filter bubble is, but then I am over 50. 
Venstre (translated as Left, literally and in meaning in English) is the oldest political party that still exists today. It was started in 1884, and was for several decades the largest party. The next oldest party is Høyre (translated as Right literally and in meaning), also started in 1884. Venstre (Left) was, and still is, a social-liberal party. Høyre (Right) was and still is a liberal-conservative party.
In 1887 the labor party (Arbeiderpartiet) was started. It was, and still is far “left” of Venstre (Left). There are parties to the right of Høyre (Right) and several to the left of the labor party. The government today is a coalition of Venstre (Left), Høyre (Right) and the KRF (a Christian liberal party), which is the “right” wing in Norway.
Today we think of the political left as labor kind of parties and those more to the “left”. This was not the case 100 years ago. Then there was Left, Right, communists and fascists. What has happened IMO is that the communists have become labor type of parties and fascists parties are gone. Instead of fascist we have populist “far right” perhaps, even though they are much more populist than they are “right”.
